Guild Wars 2

Well, i’m gonna play the devil’s advocate and in this post here give my negative feedback on PoF demo. For now extremely early impressions, later on maybe more balanced onces.

1. Map is flat as pancake. No updrafts:// VERY BAD start.
Moment i entered Verdant Brink in HoT was: “Holy kitten, what verticality! What’s down there? what’s up there? How do i get there? Lemme at’em!”

Here i feel like i’m playing a bigger core GW2 map. Extremely demotivated.
“Do i have to? Man get me to Verdant Brink and stop torturing me!”, is what my brain was saying.

2. Events happening outside town seem normal. Again huge BAD START. In Verdant Brink you got sniper rifle start, very fun, gets you to good vista and started into first outpost’s meta-chain. I felt guided into the metachain and that was fun, as along with doing it i discovered the mazy jungle.

3. Gigantification of environment. Things being far apart (cause mounts need their purpose) does not mean you have to instantly make things gigantic all around. Like that personal story mine exit that felt more like i was leaving some mine run by giants, making a kittenroach’s exit on my raptor…

4. Camera bugs. When i started adventure to deliver supplies camera bugged out in middle. When i mounted my raptor it would stay in that place watching me ride off into the sunset …until i dismounted when it started caring about catching up with me as it should.

Giving a-net credit of trust after HoT got turned into super awesome expansion with constant fine-tuning I will probably stand corrected, quite possibly by myself as i play more.

But what i am saying is that the start is EXTREMELY UNENGAGING.
HoT did it right – the moment you entered verdant brink jaw dropped and it just kept you snared and entangled for the ride with good engaging start, clear guideline, awesome visuals and extremely fun challenging to navigate maps. Not to mention heapton of mastries.

Masteries being mounts only is another huge “You done you-know-what” from me. But we’ll see as I play more.
And let’s be clear here. It’ll take A LOT to convince me any mount can even begin to compare to awesomeness of flying with glider, especially with all the cool glide masteries in place. No furball can replace freedom of the skies!

I think the use of season 3 and HoT masteries will be extremely rare, seeing as PoF does not require HoT to play. Almost all challenges and roadblocks in PoF will be based around the mounts more than likely.

You do realize that PoF does not require HoT. So yes there are no updrafts or major verticality etc. because there will be players who do not have gliding.

and the new maps will be entirely dependent on you having mounts, so PoF will be a must buy and HoT not so much.

1. I’m not surprised. If you frequent these forums often, you will have noticed that there are just as many people who hated the verticality of the new maps as those who liked it. That they went back to flatter maps isn’t a surprise. It also wouldn’t be a surprise to find that there is a mix in the rest of this map and the others.

2. As stated elsewhere, we are only seeing a portion of the events, etc. even in the area we can explore. I’m sure there will be metas and other things not noticeable yet.

3. I actually like this. So I have to be contrary to your opinion here. Having the environment so large feels engaging and even more grand than before.

4. One of the reason they do these “demos”. They can see where the bugs are.

Finally, they didn’t want this to be HoT. They wanted it to have it’s own environment. And yes, sometimes environments are flat. Not every where has 3 to 5 levels to get to everything.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Well, i’m gonna play the devil’s advocate and in this post here give my negative feedback on PoF demo. For now extremely early impressions, later on maybe more balanced onces.

1. Map is flat as pancake. No updrafts:// VERY BAD start.

Not so bad. When I hit the demo for HoT, I almost didn’t buy into it because I spent more time trying to get somewhere and trying to get to events, but the vertical design made it to trying to do more than fall to my death. Even just trying to return a Pact package to a rally point was an utterly futile flailing at the terrain.
FLAT GOOD! (Hopefully not TOO flat.)

Also, it’s the start of one zone. Patience. :\

Your negative point #1 is a win in my opinion. I absolutely hated the convoluted clutter-fest HoT map designs.

I was only in the PoF demo about an hour today and was not having a lot of fun. Nothing really grabbed me after the initial cutscene/fight. The mount is ok, but, in some cases, all the mount/dismount/look for the next leap was just a nuisance to me. If ALL the maps/exploration/mastery/expansion is built just around the leaping/hopping/planing of the mounts, it just won’t be my thing.

I’ll try again tonight when there are more people around and see how it goes the rest of the weekend. I’m especially interested in next weekend, with the new specializations.

kurfu.5623:

Your negative point #1 is a win in my opinion. I absolutely hated the convoluted clutter-fest HoT map designs.

I wholeheartedly agree and I’m really glad they simply can’t make any of the PoF maps truly vertical – because it doesn’t require HoT.

This one is in the desert ….. not as much cause to be in the forest with what HoT was. Different climates mean different ways to get around. Yes the desert does have trees, I should know as I live in a desert right now but it is still not like living in a tropical rain forest which is what HoT is.

I’d agree and say that overall I’m quite disappointed with it, I’ll still buy & play it though. But for me the map is sooo boring, and I agree the flatness sucks. But as someone else mentioned, in a way it’s not surprising given that lots of people have complained on these forums about verticality, I still have no idea what’s so difficult about navigating a vertical axis. But that’s the way it goes, I’m sure lots are happy at the flatness.

Hopefully though the other maps in the expansion will be better, I know there’s only so much you can do with a desert, but being a fantasy world, there must be a way to make the maps more interesting and less bland than this first one. My fear though is that maps have just been needlessly stretched out purely to make them bigger to accommodate mounts. (of which the raptor I felt was clunky and not that great, aside from the mount/unmounts)

As it stands the preview hasn’t interested me, and if the rest of PoF isn’t more interesting then I don’t imagine I’ll be spending any time in it after I’ve completed it.

Same. Not crazy about it so far, but will play a little more before I decide.

My only problem so far is the NPCs merely refer to me as “Outlander”, instead of recognizing that I’m a Charr. Also – I wish my character had responded to “Kormir has answered our prayers!” with “Kormir had nothing to do with this.”

Not all the zones are deserts. This first zone is from the original game where it was called the Crystal Desert.

The other locations we are going to are VERY different.

I for one am happy to have a desert environment to go to. Gives variety. Also, knowing the other zones are much different also won’t make it monotonous.

The map is boring because there are barely any events. It’s not clear if the event chains were disabled because this is a preview, but if so, that was a bad idea IMO. It’s nice to explore this once but why would anyone come back to this zone?

I’m guessing at least 1 zone will have more verticality to necessitate the bunny mount.

3. Things being far from each other in my book is a big plus. HoT maps didn’t feel like jungle at all. Everything was so cluttered, there was no feeling of being lost in a jungle. Wherever you pointed your camera there was something, some form of civilisation. These new maps are a step in right direction, but I think they should have pushed the size even more and made it more desolate. We have mounts and waypoints for people who are lazy to run.
For me, it kinda breaks immersion when you have to help someone in a desert because they are lost and hungry, and like 20 seconds of running in any direction, you’re on the road or near settlement. It doesn’t feel right.

@OP: First of all, everything you are praising about HoT is what made many players leave GW2. Not everyone is into verticality and constant bombardment with meta events.

That said, I find the first map plain boring as there is nothing to do but to explore and kill. Some excitement other than unnerving blitz events would have been nice, like investigating ancient tombs full of traps, puzzles, treasure and wonder.

P.S. I actually like the mount functionality, hope they are not going to exeggerate the whole thing like they did with travel mechanics in HoT and S3. Gliding and riding is enough for me, this game does not need more unnecessary platformer action.

CptAurellian.9537:

kurfu.5623:

Your negative point #1 is a win in my opinion. I absolutely hated the convoluted clutter-fest HoT map designs.

I wholeheartedly agree and I’m really glad they simply can’t make any of the PoF maps truly vertical – because it doesn’t require HoT.

I’m another in agreement, Verdant Brink map drove me insane. Not a fan at all. It’s an annoying gimmick. More flat style maps ftw. The vertical maps thing is fresh to me as I’ve only just come back to the game and got HoT in the last weeks.

As I predicted mounts are the worst of it all, making the map feels super small. Pretty disappointing :/
Where is all the exploration that were promised?! And please don’t point that we only explored a small part of a huge map in the demo…

mazut.4296:

As I predicted mounts are the worst of it all, making the map feels super small. Pretty disappointing :/
Where is all the exploration that were promised?! And please don’t point that we only explored a small part of a huge map in the demo…

How can you ask that question and not expect to get “small part of a huge map” as an answer. It’s a demo not a full expansion.

I was bored out of my mind during the intro segment. We do this kinda long but cinematic visual at start…which is ‘ok’. Then we getoff at a giant pyramid, that i CAN JUMP OUT OF THE SHIP EARLY FOR! I loved that, being able to just jump right out lol. I was GETTING EXCITEDD!!

So we land on a giant pyramid and everyone is pumped up. SOmething is wrong and they are saying they have to investigate. HERE, I woulda wanted a choice: stay on the ship or go help. It even sounded like one was coming by the npc chatter. I was gonna go out and help prolly anyways but then the character forced the choice on me and I my excitement died cause I knew what waas coming…

And sure enough…..it was just like the new character creation zones. I just run around spamming 1 on 1 enemy after another….zzzzzz.

Then some really cool bosss shows up (just like starting zones) and im just spammming 1 againnnnnn. Then I have to do this kitten iinstance running around helping strangers who call me “outlander” (I rofled so hard….so generic). Getting my mount it disappears when i use the 1 ability it tells me to use….like wtf. So then begins a grueling affair runing around completing the heart thing to advance. I get that done….i get my mount, then FINALLLY it shows me I can equip/unequip the mount at my command rather than runing back to it. Also my first mount just disappeared when i presssed f on it…..was really kittened, figured out they had multiple mounts around map tho so…it was grueling.

Anyways i run the wrong way a few times and auto die cause it kicks me out of instance lol. I get the instance done and at the end Rytlock is there and im so happpy to seee him. Im curious what happpened to him and mad i didn’t get to help him and alll that. And what happpens? IM MEAN TO HIM!
WHY!??!! I don’t want to be mean to rytlock, I like rytlock. Then I talk to kasmeer and she starts rambling on about how one of the 6 gods BETRAYED humanity….and I just left the instance while she was going on about that…it was just annoying. If I could suppport Balthazar or be sympathetic to him, or control my characters emotions about him….then I would be interested in the expansion story content. I would buy the expansion right now if I knew I could have that sense of control over my own character. I’m playing a character who says and does things I don’t support at all. Its the exact opposite of vanilla gw2. My character got testy during HoT but I could still get behind them….now its just too far of an idealogical difference.

But as it stands my character is forced to portray an attitude I just plain think is short-sighted and stupid. Just cause ur god shows up one day and doesn’t work in ways “you think” are best for humanity, doesn’t give you the right to call him a fake God. And the emissary (who i thought was pretty cool girl) even said balthazer would take me back and forgive me, and my character just says “NO” without letting me have a say!!??

I can live with on the rails story content. But for me to have no control with how my character interacts or feels about things….is just lame, and not inline with the gw2 i played way back.

The new zone was just as I expected, same old stuff. I did a race….it was a cool idea but I wouldnt do it again just due to its lack of depth, was a 1 time thing really. My favourite moment was the cactus quagonns. And their little stampede. that was really fun and cute. I think cactus char r a really cool enemy as well, enjoyed fighting them.
gw2 pve zones are so dated, nothing has changed since 2012, and thats a major problem. YOu know exactly what you are buying. You need to innovate more. Dynamic weather affects woulda beeen GREAT for this new zone. Like drytop but more impactful on ur gameplay, like sandstorms or night time occuring and making it actually dangerous to roam around woulda been good.

Enemies as well….too easy, too grindy. There’s gotta be a better way to making content accessible, this is just boring for a good chunk of players. Maybe new armour stats that allow for 2-5x as much damage and 2-5x as less tank? That would let people avoid the standing around spamming 1 and grinding nature of the content, while keep it accessible for others. Bounties seemed kinda cool, but i didn’t get around to doing one since none popped up.

Anyways expansion is not for me. so thxs for the beta? Alrdy knew this tho. Hope the rest of you enjoyed it! Its probably exactly what alot of players wanted, so Im’ happy for you.

Thankfully you’ll make me have to buy it to enjoy existing content I play like wvw. so thxs. Lol and don’t you dare tell me that isn’t true. Its the exact same as hot, i played vanilla in wvsw for many many months and it was grueling to fight hot specs as one of the few vanilla builds that still worked. SO I kno what its gonna be like to not have the new elite specs in wvsw. And the nerfs to hot elites they made a few days ago just confirm this suspicion completely.

jheryn.8390:

mazut.4296:

As I predicted mounts are the worst of it all, making the map feels super small. Pretty disappointing :/
Where is all the exploration that were promised?! And please don’t point that we only explored a small part of a huge map in the demo…

How can you ask that question and not expect to get “small part of a huge map” as an answer. It’s a demo not a full expansion.

I don’t feel fully understand the ‘small part of a huge map’. Unless I am wildly mistaken it looks like the demo area is 2/3 of the map.

The Great Al.2546:

jheryn.8390:

mazut.4296:

As I predicted mounts are the worst of it all, making the map feels super small. Pretty disappointing :/
Where is all the exploration that were promised?! And please don’t point that we only explored a small part of a huge map in the demo…

How can you ask that question and not expect to get “small part of a huge map” as an answer. It’s a demo not a full expansion.

I don’t feel fully understand the ‘small part of a huge map’. Unless I am wildly mistaken it looks like the demo area is 2/3 of the map.

exactly, its even more like 3/4 but the point is, the map is boring, flat, uneventful and there is no point in running around twice. There is nothing to explore after the 10 min on the back of a fast moving raptor. I saw it all.

mazut.4296:

The Great Al.2546:

jheryn.8390:

mazut.4296:

As I predicted mounts are the worst of it all, making the map feels super small. Pretty disappointing :/
Where is all the exploration that were promised?! And please don’t point that we only explored a small part of a huge map in the demo…

How can you ask that question and not expect to get “small part of a huge map” as an answer. It’s a demo not a full expansion.

I don’t feel fully understand the ‘small part of a huge map’. Unless I am wildly mistaken it looks like the demo area is 2/3 of the map.

exactly, its even more like 3/4 but the point is, the map is boring, flat, uneventful and there is no point in running around twice. There is nothing to explore after the 10 min on the back of a fast moving raptor. I saw it all.

Well it is good you guys are making conclusions based on a demo that is only part of a map without all events, meta’s and who knows what else.

mazut.4296:

The Great Al.2546:

jheryn.8390:

mazut.4296:

As I predicted mounts are the worst of it all, making the map feels super small. Pretty disappointing :/
Where is all the exploration that were promised?! And please don’t point that we only explored a small part of a huge map in the demo…

How can you ask that question and not expect to get “small part of a huge map” as an answer. It’s a demo not a full expansion.

I don’t feel fully understand the ‘small part of a huge map’. Unless I am wildly mistaken it looks like the demo area is 2/3 of the map.

exactly, its even more like 3/4 but the point is, the map is boring, flat, uneventful and there is no point in running around twice. There is nothing to explore after the 10 min on the back of a fast moving raptor. I saw it all.

The map is completely static like most gw2 zones. Nothing new is gonna popup the second time u go there, so why bother.

Short of dynamic pve, it Needs more timed events like the cactus quaggon stampede littering the map all over. SO much blank space meant for running, not exploring.

This is as ded as ded can be. Aint no living world here.

My most interesting find was a refugee camp that in a tent had a expensive as kitten royal bed just out of the blue, and a woman dressed all fancy lying there talking to her poor refugee kid in rags. The dialogue (woman kept talking about how the refugee “wasn’t all the badd and we gotta make the best of it”), the fancy bed with curtains, the woman lying there……this tent is a who** house is the only explanation. So I jumped in the bed with the woman and when i went to getout i got stuck, it wouldn’t let me leave the bed, i had to wp out. Realistic experience 10/10. The maps would really benefit from stuff like this littered all over. Could it use more depth? well ya….it was 1-2 lines of dialogue and no interaction/events. But at least it entertains the player for going out of their way.

jheryn.8390:

mazut.4296:

The Great Al.2546:

jheryn.8390:

mazut.4296:

As I predicted mounts are the worst of it all, making the map feels super small. Pretty disappointing :/
Where is all the exploration that were promised?! And please don’t point that we only explored a small part of a huge map in the demo…

How can you ask that question and not expect to get “small part of a huge map” as an answer. It’s a demo not a full expansion.

I don’t feel fully understand the ‘small part of a huge map’. Unless I am wildly mistaken it looks like the demo area is 2/3 of the map.

exactly, its even more like 3/4 but the point is, the map is boring, flat, uneventful and there is no point in running around twice. There is nothing to explore after the 10 min on the back of a fast moving raptor. I saw it all.

Well it is good you guys are making conclusions based on a demo that is only part of a map without all events, meta’s and who knows what else.

If this map is actually lively with events and event chains and metas, and they are all disabled because for some reason 1/3 of the map is inaccessible during the preview, then that makes absolutely no sense. This is a preview weekend to try and convince people to buy the expansion. The map in its current state doesn’t do that.

Thank god for no updraft kitten. I don’t mind verticality, but updrafts and mushrooms are just silly.

Literally fell asleep in the opening scenes. It was not fun at all. I understand it was a story sequence but man, I am so uninterested in that right off the bat due to how bland this Demo started us off.

Got the mount, its pretty interesting, love how it gives a huge speed boost, but it not having any combat aspects is kind of disheartening. Soon as you use the attack it dismounts =/

Then I went outside the village after the tutorial and just saw the most blandest event, defend the farmers… Logged off instantly. I’m hyped for the elite specs, but outside of that, so far, I doubt I would even be putting money on the expansion.

The Great Al.2546:

jheryn.8390:

mazut.4296:

The Great Al.2546:

jheryn.8390:

mazut.4296:

As I predicted mounts are the worst of it all, making the map feels super small. Pretty disappointing :/
Where is all the exploration that were promised?! And please don’t point that we only explored a small part of a huge map in the demo…

How can you ask that question and not expect to get “small part of a huge map” as an answer. It’s a demo not a full expansion.

I don’t feel fully understand the ‘small part of a huge map’. Unless I am wildly mistaken it looks like the demo area is 2/3 of the map.

exactly, its even more like 3/4 but the point is, the map is boring, flat, uneventful and there is no point in running around twice. There is nothing to explore after the 10 min on the back of a fast moving raptor. I saw it all.

Well it is good you guys are making conclusions based on a demo that is only part of a map without all events, meta’s and who knows what else.

If this map is actually lively with events and event chains and metas, and they are all disabled because for some reason 1/3 of the map is inaccessible during the preview, then that makes absolutely no sense. This is a preview weekend to try and convince people to buy the expansion. The map in its current state doesn’t do that.

The map in its current state may not make you want to buy the expansion, but there are plenty of people on here saying that they love it. So saying that is merely opinion, not fact.

Yeah, “no updrafts” made me want to pre-order. But then the thread on mounts. They don’t correspond to character movement, so I can’t strafe right or left. I’ve been riding mounts since forever in several games and they all work the same—why does GW2 want to break this mold? I guess that it is a fact that mounts don’t gate content in other games so maybe anet feels they can innovate here. I certainly don’t like it.

jheryn.8390:

Well it is good you guys are making conclusions based on a demo that is only part of a map without all events, meta’s and who knows what else.

That’s kind of the point of a demo: to sell the game.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

jheryn.8390:

Well it is good you guys are making conclusions based on a demo that is only part of a map without all events, meta’s and who knows what else.

That’s kind of the point of a demo: to sell the game.

Exactly. It’s easier to draw conclusions based on what we can currently see, as opposed to speculating a best case scenario that we have no idea about. Of course it’s just my opinion, and I would never cancel my preorder, but I don’t believe this map sells the game. I ran around on my mount for 10-15 minutes and saw the same 2-3 non-chained events and nothing else.

I dont mind HoT maze maps but i also appreciate the new style they going for here. And it also is the desert, longer travel distance and a new appreciation for the maps and traveling by on a mount

1) Well even whole Earth is more flat than a pancake, so I don’t see any problem here. *
3) I totally agree, they stretched everything to justify mounts. I hate mounts, especially bunny.
____
*If the pancake was size of Earth (obviously).

“There must always be a NAY SAYER”

Wait… Wrong game. Sorry.

I agree with you OP.

When I was demoing HoT, I was like wow these areas are amazing, GW2 has always impressed me with the visual scenery and Heart of Thorns really took it to a new level. There scenery itself made me want to buy Heart of Thorns. While the initial story instance surrounded by fire in POF was okay I think in terms of visual appeal I find the new area quiet lacking.

I personally enjoyed the vertical depth of HoT too, I definitely got lost especially in Tangled depths (still struggle to navigate it) but that was a huge draw card for me.

I am finding this map even more boring than some of the original core GW2 maps, a step backward I feel.

Reading that there is no area like Verdant Brink makes me want to try out the demo. The very name Verdant Brink makes me cringe. I disliked HoT areas, since the day it started. If I never see another vertical area with no indication of what level the object I’m looking for is, that would make me very happy to continue playing. No more “mushroom pants”, no more updrafts, no more areas that I have to spend hours getting mastery points amassed just to get to the area I need to be in to continue the story based on vertical maps and grrr jumping mushrooms or some other gimmicky way of getting around is great. Its been several years of enjoyment for those who like that kind of thing but not for those who don’t. Mounts…well I’ll have to see more reviews to figure out whether or not they are just a substitute for jumping mushrooms, updrafts and the like before I buy this expansion at all. I’m not pre ordering this time like I did with HoT…I’ll wait and see. I’ve been with GW since GW1 beta. I barely played in HoT, I did not like it at all. This time, no preorder and it may be the end of my time playing GW2 at all if its anything like HoT. If you liked it, great but for me, I’m hopeful it won’t be a repeat of HoT.

Laurie.1698:

Reading that there is no area like Verdant Brink makes me want to try out the demo. The very name Verdant Brink makes me cringe. I disliked HoT areas, since the day it started. If I never see another vertical area with no indication of what level the object I’m looking for is, that would make me very happy to continue playing. No more “mushroom pants”, no more updrafts, no more areas that I have to spend hours getting mastery points amassed just to get to the area I need to be in to continue the story based on vertical maps and grrr jumping mushrooms or some other gimmicky way of getting around is great. Its been several years of enjoyment for those who like that kind of thing but not for those who don’t. Mounts…well I’ll have to see more reviews to figure out whether or not they are just a substitute for jumping mushrooms, updrafts and the like before I buy this expansion at all. I’m not pre ordering this time like I did with HoT…I’ll wait and see. I’ve been with GW since GW1 beta. I barely played in HoT, I did not like it at all. This time, no preorder and it may be the end of my time playing GW2 at all if its anything like HoT. If you liked it, great but for me, I’m hopeful it won’t be a repeat of HoT.

Try out the beta now, you can try out the raptor and see one of the new areas for yourself.

I love big, wide, stretched hectares of land a lot more in an MMO than claustrophobic vertical maze levels.

If I want to play vertical platformer maze levels I’ll boot up Super Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie. It’s not at all what I seek in an MMO.

HoT was extremely underwhelming for me and the only reason I kept playing GW2 was because of the addition of raids.

PoF though, so far seems to be a big step in the right direction. I’m loving what little I’ve seen of the Crystal Desert and I’m really looking forward to see more and to explore this vast expansive maps!

So far I am not a huge fan of the map either. Probably because having a mount makes it feel so small and empty (compared to even living world season 3 maps). Which is weird because these maps scaled to be much larger then any previous GW2 maps. I also have to agree It does look like it’s 2/3 of the map in this demo.

However even with that said there are parts where it looks like verticality does comes back. I think the main reason why we don’t see it is because it’s locked out to us. Either by not having the right mount, or we can’t get past certain closed off border sections. I think the other problem is that the main city takes up a good chunk of the map. In the end I need to see the final product and hope there are more things to explore. That was the one thing I liked about Tangle Depths and Verdant Brink it promoted exploration. Even most of the season 3 maps felt the same way. If there are some new Jumping Puzzles and Mini Dungeons in these maps that would be fantastic.

mazut.4296:

exactly, its even more like 3/4 but the point is, the map is boring, flat, uneventful and there is no point in running around twice. There is nothing to explore after the 10 min on the back of a fast moving raptor. I saw it all.

Totally agree with this, my hope is that this was a very scaled down preview. If the new maps don’t offer more than this on release I see no point at all in going there, if I want bland and unengaging stuff I have the Tyria core maps.

jheryn.8390:

3. I actually like this. So I have to be contrary to your opinion here. Having the environment so large feels engaging and even more grand than before.

Hm, yes, truly engaging and magnificiant…

Just played the introductory mission and…kitten . Why, just why, did anet think to give us fire extinguishers would be fun? What do you think new players are going to think? A comically large gun that has 1 skill that lazily puts out a fire? Followed by rezzing kittening NPC’s? All in the first mission? A simply terrible introduction.

I explored the new map a little and it feels pretty empty, and the mobs hardly seem threatening. It was just too easy, and I even made a class I don’t regularly play for the beta. Compared to the HoT intro, and VB, extremely underwhelming.

Ehh its a desert they cant make it really vertical and multileveled. I mean they could, put a cave system under 1 map and give it a more vertical feeling but ehh too many ppl would qq.

As for the event i might not buy the expac if the maps are a glorified version of the se3 maps we got.

Topic starter here.

This is the very issue here, this isn’t progressing, this is a step backwards,cause players whined. In a regular MMO that may be the solution, but this is GW2. The rpg that dared to innovate and break with old tropes.

Now giving in to them instead of innovating futher is the sure way to make GW2 another bland MMO.

I forgot to mention in opening post how sorely dissapointed i am at lack of outposts. These were a great progression for living world mechanics.
Instead of one meta-event that’s sometimes too long and the same, you got a couple of outposts to choose from, each with it’s own part of the story and being enough for full meta chain rewards.

After you did them all, you always had a choice which way suits your meta event clearing best. Also how they had a meaningful story and exploration to them. Going with npcs quite far at cases allowed you to explore the jungle maze with some guidance from them. That was a huge step forward.

Sure, there were technical issues (dc and lose your progress), but technicalities should not butcher a great idea. The band aid fix they applied actually works, and despite it’s simplicity really cured the situation.
Now we’re back to hearts.
These may be good for LS maps where you hop in to harvest, have a little fun, clear a heart or two and off you go.
But for core xpansion maps that are to deliver a story to me and challenge me with their size, complexity and depth that a no-go.

I seriously feel I’m playing queensdale 2.0, and that’s the most boring GW2 map for me in the whole game!

Also not getting anyone calling VB “claustrophobic” That map is pretty big even if we look at it as flat terrain. When i glide across these huge chasms or along the mountain wall in the northern part or just above clouds, at no moment in time did i feel “it’s small af”. I did feel “kitten this is epic, best kitten in MMO EVER!”

Snowywonders.1378:

Just played the introductory mission and…kitten . Why, just why, did anet think to give us fire extinguishers would be fun? What do you think new players are going to think? A comically large gun that has 1 skill that lazily puts out a fire? Followed by rezzing kittening NPC’s? All in the first mission? A simply terrible introduction.

I explored the new map a little and it feels pretty empty, and the mobs hardly seem threatening. It was just too easy, and I even made a class I don’t regularly play for the beta. Compared to the HoT intro, and VB, extremely underwhelming.

+1
This is exactly how I felt when i tried the demo.
The demo map seems to consist 2/3 of the that map. Unless I’m seeing it wrong or there is more curvature to the map.
If it’s by design, leaving the East side rather barren for demo than it’s good. Meaning it will fills up on release. If it’s supposed to be like that then it’s rather boring.

Other than the overall demo map impression, there are a few criticisms I want to put forward regarding the mount itself.
- The raptor 1 skill doesn’t feel great. It’kitten and miss when you are charging into a group of mobs. It’s probably latency related.
- CC or damage from hostile NPCs should cause dismount. Otherwise, having these ground mounts will literally might as well be flying mounts, causing contents to be skipped/ignored even more. Hostile NPCs should have the opportunity to draw your attention to actually kill them.
- Dismount animation when pressing X feels bit clunky. Jump upward. Especially when you are charging into combat and rather pressing X instead of 1. This is probably a non issue.
- Falling from extreme height mounted will only dismount you. It’s not good because it bypass the ‘extreme height drop-splat-death’ mechanic. It feels like cheating death. This will be a problem if they allowed mounts to be used @ wvw. A potential fix to this is to allow dismount midair so player will have the opportunity to pull out their glider. And again since HoT is not required for PoF, it would be unfair for PoF only player to fall to their death.
Best solution is probably mounted extreme height fall = death.
- Scaling is awful and awkward.

I’m glad i haven’t forked out any money for this expansion. The demo is seriously underwhelming. It’s even far less impressive than HoT’s VB.

Funny we don’t hear any of these from youtubers that tried them already. It’s always sunshine and flower for all of them I supposed. They all seems to sing in harmony of hype train.

While some stretches are flat… I already fell dozens of times to my mounts death. This bit of map did feel very introductory to the raptor though. Even if I already found mastery blocks to the further jumps, and one that was skimmer only.

But hey, things should be more complicated with more mounts. This map is build with mostly just raptor in mind, clearly.

I agree that the map feels very flat, but I’m also willing to accept that this is just one out of five. They can make vertical maps even without gliding, the question is.. did they? I was worried when heart quest dailies popped up in LS3 and it appears that they are also in these new maps. This seems to indicate a shift towards trying more desperate methods of keeping players in the game. When do devs learn that dailies keep addicted players in the game, not those that are there for the fun.

Some good points however, the map looks great visually just as HoT maps did (and certainly better than the living story maps). The mount controls feel very smooth to me, especially in action camera mode. Some of the new enemies are pretty cool such as the hydra decapitation mechanic. Just running around with your mount and climbing/jumping along places has a good feel to it.

I try not to spoil myself too much in this demo as I did the same in HoT, but there’s definetely reason for concern. I’ve already read up on the identification of items and the way it works has me worried because it seems to be another gambling mechanic.

They dont even need to move away from vertical maps. Much like they did with hot they can have a map veing harder to traverse only for it to get easier the more mounts you aquire. If the maps are just prettier core game maps then thats extremely dissapointing.