Guild Wars 2

Nice to hear.

Even though I so far personally never had any problems with that instanced last mission (luckily), I can naturally understand everyone who had in fact massive problems.

So anything that will improve the fun and the quality of life in regard of mechanics from this final part of HoT, will I find good and a major overwork of the whole encounter wasn’t also requested, nor it it at all necessary.

Just some improvements that reduce a bit the tediousness of the whole stuff, and which rebalance some of the encounters.

This is really good to hear. I didn’t experience any bugs my first time through the instance, but I’ve experienced them every time I’ve completed the mission since then (a different issue each time, unfortunately). It’s good to know that it’s going to be worked on.

Sounds great! I didn’t experience, personally, any bugs with the instance, but I know many players did.

I’m sure your hard work will be appreciated. Thanks for the update, as well. =)

Excellent news! I have suffered a small number of blocking/bugs in the instance and have friends/guildies/know others who have also. Not wanting to overstate, but they are rather maddening. I look forward to the results of your work.

Great news, Sean!

As someone who had done this instance relative soon after HoT released, and as recently as last week, I can understand some people do bug out/glitch/story stops progression etc (I had no such issues at all, either way) my only proposal would be to shorten some transitional cutscenes and make the buffs your allies give you in the finale more noticable, like floating text For example “Caithe has granted you Permanent Stability” and “Marjory protects you from Slow”.
Something like that would make it flow better.

I also didn’t have any issues on either of my two playthroughs, but it’s always nice that bugs are being looked into.

Good to hear!

Do armor glitches count as bug for torwards QoL changes?

I’ve run into numerous bugs while playing this part of the story; I’m so glad to see Arenanet turning its attention to the issues here. Although I’ve finished all the achievements here, I’d like to be able to take more alts through this portion of the story without all the problems.

Excelent! I did experience a couple of very annoying and blocking bugs, and the infamous “penalty cage” too… I would love to get a better play when I get there with my next character.

Very nice! I was terrified to do more Caladbolg stuff because of how miserable the bugs currently are.

I hope you’ll take out the death-penalty box. its not fun game play.

SeanConroy.9580:

We’ve been monitoring discussions about the Hearts and Minds instance and I’d like to take a moment to communicate the plans we have to address your concerns. The recent release of the Caladbolg content made it increasingly clear that we should take the time to make Hearts and Minds a more polished experience for all players. I picked up this project and am happy to say that we have a multitude of fixes in progress that we will release in a future update.

I would like to be clear on the scope of the changes being made: It is my goal to fix all blocking bugs within the instance and to address as many QoL issues as are quickly actionable. A major mechanical overhaul of the encounters is not in the works, but I will incorporate small changes that should result in noticeable improvements to the fun and quality of the experience.

When this update goes live, we hope you will share your thoughts about the changes on the forums. As always, we welcome your feedback.

I dont know if you know of this issue but I will post it here in the hopes it gets fixed. I have had it occur that in the challange mode instance with a team there was a marker in the arena to leave the instance (where you fight eir mostly but I assume other fights it could happen too). Since I kite most of the time as ranger I step on it a lot which is very annoying (pop up, accidental confirm), so it would be great if that gets moved or removed completely since its really a pain on top of all the other bugs.

Thank you kindly. Looking forward to that patch!

gee, it only took you over a year and a half to even ACKNOWLEDGE hearts and minds is a bloody mess.

cant wait for the fixes to come out 2 years from now.

As long as those defiance and healthbars bars stop being scaled for 20-30 people instead 5, and enemies don’t stay invulnerable after completing the mechanics, I’ll be happy enough.

Last 3 times that I attempted the challenge mode people just left after not being able to take 5% of Garn’s and Eir’s defiance with their stronger CC-focused builds, and the fire applied by her attacks ticked as if it was designed before Burning was made a stacking condition.
It was kind of insane even for a challenge mode.

I know you are not going to change the encounters significantly, but I hope you consider at least one change to them: addressing the ‘penalty box’.

Getting kicked out and only being able to wait is not fun at all, but the fights are too hectic to be able to revive anyone during them.

I wonder if it’ll be possible to give players something else to do in the meantime.

• For example, having separate rooms where defeated players are sent instead being sent to the box, and there they can do something to return to the fight.
  • As long as one player endures against the boss, the rest would be able to return if they manage to complete the room. If they don’t, they just keep respawning at the start of a different random room until they complete it, until the boss is defeated, or until the last party member fighting the boss is defeated too.
  • And if the last player fighting the boss is defeated, the fights in the rooms are cancelled and it’s then when the party is sent together to the penalty box to reset.
  • I wonder if it’ll be possible to use copies of the nightmare chambers from the Nightmare of Towers release for something like that. There’s already recorded lines and all.
• Or it could be something like in the fight against Dhuum in GW1: Defeated players would get transformed into a ‘dream’ form, with the yellowish translucent visual effect creatures had in A Light in the Darkness, they would become invulnerable and the boss would ignore them, but the transformation would disable their traits and upgrade effects, and their skills would be replaced with a set of skills that allow them to help in the fight without dealing damage to the boss: heal allies, break defiance bars, create blocking domes, giving boons, damaging adds, etc.

i am so happy that you are doing this.

personally i have completed the story on… at least 13 characters (i have 20ish) and i figured out how to work around the multitude of bugs and progression blockers by the time i had completed it even only 5 times but it is infinitely frustrating to constantly restart such a long instance and such a long fight when you are unaware of what goes wrong, and especially when youre aware but lose out by making mistakes in content that should be fun and not punishing.

i would not wish these bugs upon anyone. theyre a huge turn off to the game.

MithranArkanere.8957:

I know you are not going to change the encounters significantly, but I hope you consider at least one change to them: addressing the ‘penalty box’.

Getting kicked out and only being able to wait is not fun at all, but the fights are too hectic to be able to revive anyone during them. I wonder if it’ll be possible to have separate rooms where defeated players are sent instead being sent to the box, and there they can do something to return to the fight.

By all means, that’s how this instance and this fight encounter should work – and the current way it works is why I didn’t bothered finishing HoT story on my other 10 characters; I finished it 3 times and in two encounters I was sent to the punishment box from where I couldn’t do anything but cheer up people who were with me and who were working for me and because of that, I felt awful.

Really glad to finally hear you guys acknowledge the problems with that story instance, can’t wait for it, as i’m probably going to do it a bunch for caladbolg.

Thnx guys for going back and fixing the bugs greatly appreciate it keep up the awesome work !! ^^

MithranArkanere.8957:

As long as those defiance and healthbars bars stop being scaled for 20-30 people instead 5, and enemies don’t stay invulnerable after completing the mechanics, I’ll be happy enough.

Last 3 times that I attempted the challenge mode people just left after not being able to take 5% of Garn’s and Eir’s defiance with their stronger CC-focused builds, and the fire applied by her attacks ticked as if it was designed before Burning was made a stacking condition.
It was kind of insane even for a challenge mode.

---

I know you are not going to change the encounters significantly, but I hope you consider at least one change to them: addressing the ‘penalty box’.

Getting kicked out and only being able to wait is not fun at all, but the fights are too hectic to be able to revive anyone during them.

I wonder if it’ll be possible to give players something else to do in the meantime.

• For example, having separate rooms where defeated players are sent instead being sent to the box, and there they can do something to return to the fight.
  • As long as one player endures against the boss, the rest would be able to return if they manage to complete the room. If they don’t, they just keep respawning at the start of a different random room until they complete it, until the boss is defeated, or until the last party member fighting the boss is defeated too.
  • And if the last player fighting the boss is defeated, the fights in the rooms are cancelled and it’s then when the party is sent together to the penalty box to reset.
  • I wonder if it’ll be possible to use copies of the nightmare chambers from the Nightmare of Towers release for something like that. There’s already recorded lines and all.
• Or it could be something like in the fight against Dhuum in GW1: Defeated players would get transformed into a ‘dream’ form, with the yellowish translucent visual effect creatures had in A Light in the Darkness, they would become invulnerable and the boss would ignore them, but the transformation would disable their traits and upgrade effects, and their skills would be replaced with a set of skills that allow them to help in the fight without dealing damage to the boss: heal allies, break defiance bars, create blocking domes, giving boons, damaging adds, etc.

There is no need for penalty box at all in non challenge mode, this story chapter was set to let everyone finish, so it shouldn’t too hard.

Also if you wipe you have to do the Mordremoth encounter all over again, which is quite painful.

insanelyapple.2870:

MithranArkanere.8957:

I know you are not going to change the encounters significantly, but I hope you consider at least one change to them: addressing the ‘penalty box’.

Getting kicked out and only being able to wait is not fun at all, but the fights are too hectic to be able to revive anyone during them. I wonder if it’ll be possible to have separate rooms where defeated players are sent instead being sent to the box, and there they can do something to return to the fight.

By all means, that’s how this instance and this fight encounter should work – and the current way it works is why I didn’t bothered finishing HoT story on my other 10 characters; I finished it 3 times and in two encounters I was sent to the punishment box from where I couldn’t do anything but cheer up people who were with me and who were working for me and because of that, I felt awful.

Just remove the box in non challenge mode, it’s totally unnecessary.

Remove the trash mobs in the beginning
Remove the penalty box setting
Either make the Mordremoth fight shorter or let us be able to redo it from current phase rather than start all over again, that would be too long.
Remove the platform/last phase breakbar bugs.

Omg this means i can finally finish all the story achievements in HoT. Something that bugged me for ever a year but after raging hard the last time i tried i swore to never go back until a message like this came up

Do you know whats the most frustrating part of the experience?

Once a player dies, he can’t do nothing but wait the others do the job. He just sit there, watching..this is so kitten anticlimactic.

The Fix:

Whenever a player dies, on a random timer, a Rift opens and if someone in the party completes the channeling, one player is brought back to battle zone (like we did previously with our npc allies).

SeanConroy.9580:

We’ve been monitoring discussions about the Hearts and Minds instance and I’d like to take a moment to communicate the plans we have to address your concerns. The recent release of the Caladbolg content made it increasingly clear that we should take the time to make Hearts and Minds a more polished experience for all players. I picked up this project and am happy to say that we have a multitude of fixes in progress that we will release in a future update.

I would like to be clear on the scope of the changes being made: It is my goal to fix all blocking bugs within the instance and to address as many QoL issues as are quickly actionable. A major mechanical overhaul of the encounters is not in the works, but I will incorporate small changes that should result in noticeable improvements to the fun and quality of the experience.

When this update goes live, we hope you will share your thoughts about the changes on the forums. As always, we welcome your feedback.

The updrafts not working for other players, and occasionally me, when teaming up was a consistent problem during this fight. Made me wish there was a bouncing mushroom on the map, but hopefully that won’t be necessary.

Personally the only thing I want to see is to separate the actual Mordremoth fight into its own instance. That way people could do the long part first, kill all the mordrem that surprise you, then kill the first 2 bosses, whichever ones you choose. Then the instance is over.

Now, all you have to do for the final instance is the mordremoth fight. This way even if it does bug out, you don’t have to run through all of that crap again. Or if you are trying to get that stupid don’t get hit while gliding achievement and screw up, you don’t have to do the whole instance again.

I am another who has not personally experienced the various bugs that have impacted other players, but am very happy to hear that you are listening and acting upon player concerns.

A few thoughts on this from a very mediocre player.

Mind you I’m not all thumbs. I have completed all my living world and personal stories up to this one without help.

Thankfully, a very helpful and talented person got me through this ( thanks again, you know who you are )

I tried it solo many times. I never even got to the part where it is bugged. I’m sure I could have reached the Mordremoth part if I didn’t loose all progress when/or if I died in the first 2 parts. I absolutely hate the health reset.

In my mind at least, when you are soloing, lets us keep the the damage already done. You might have to fight even after your are naked, but eventually, you will get it.

Ok lets forget about mediocre players such as myself.

Many people complain about the penalty box and this would only apply to groups.

A very simple solution would be like hockey. Make it a timed thing. First death, maybe 1 minute, second death, 2 minutes…..or something like that.

When the very helpful person took me through this and after I died, other than his/her health bar, I got to see nothing. I couldn’t even learn from him.

Penalty box as is a bad idea….fix it.

Penalty box is by far my least favorite feature in this game. Nothing is worse than sitting there and being carried, which might even be from a lag spike. I’ve died on this a couple of times, and it’s just horrible.

Thank you. I honestly only did Hearts and Minds once in my life and never looked back, the bugs wasted 5 hours of my life. My worst memory: I was in a party, we bugged out twice and reset the instance twice. After hours of suffering, we finally got to Mordy, then of course I got disconnected. I quickly logged in and went back to the same instance my party was in. BUT the story reset for ME ONLY. I was in the party, they were killing Mordy and my story was reset. There was NO way to go back to them! I can’t describe how I felt in that moment. I hope this bug will be fixed too!

I also REALLY dislike “You must do X in order to damage the boss”, especially in a story which everyone should be able to do it. In Mordremoth fight and recent stories, it was overused.

Basically “we are doing something, but just enough to fix something. mark my word, it will be tremendous!”

gg.

Slowpokeking.8720:

I also REALLY dislike “You must do X in order to damage the boss”, especially in a story which everyone should be able to do it. In Mordremoth fight and recent stories, it was overused.

The whole game is full of stale cliched game mechanics, what do you really expect though?

Giving it the Precocious Aurene treatment would probably be a useful improvement. After each section is done it can have a checkpoint. Then you can resume the following section at a later time for whatever reason. Even if a few bug fixes still get missed at least it will only require restarting from the most recently completed section.

Having experienced bugs where the floor is gone, but you must use an objective out in thin air, and where the updrafts fail to function, I am hopeful these will be fixed. I also hope the stupid penalty box is erased and that this horrible fight gets an ‘easy restart’ mode so we don’t have to slog through everything just for another go at an achievement.

Thank you for revisiting this mess of a final battle and may you squish many bugs.

OriOri.8724:

Personally the only thing I want to see is to separate the actual Mordremoth fight into its own instance. That way people could do the long part first, kill all the mordrem that surprise you, then kill the first 2 bosses, whichever ones you choose. Then the instance is over.

Now, all you have to do for the final instance is the mordremoth fight. This way even if it does bug out, you don’t have to run through all of that crap again. Or if you are trying to get that stupid don’t get hit while gliding achievement and screw up, you don’t have to do the whole instance again.

having the 2 bosses be in the same instance with the group of morderm at the start feels kinda unnatural since that part of the fight you are already inside the dream so it makes sense to have it being in the same instance with the modremoth fight. I’d suggest connect the instance wher you climb to the top of the tree with the first prat of the heart and mind isntance ( up until u reach trehearne) and then talk to him to open the next instance which is the dream .

It’s great to hear that improvements are in the making! I barely got through this on my first character (experienced some of the bugs), and haven’t even tried on others due to this problem. After the fix I definitely will. Thanks Sean & whoever else is working on it!

I really hate the penalty box, but if it must stay at least make it easier, and even challenging for both the players on the ground and those in the penalty box, to work together to “break out” of the penalty box – say a colour-coded pillar lights up on the ground that must be pressed at the same time as one in the penalty box, that is repeated 3 or more times until the penalty box is unlocked – alternately, the player(s) in the penalty box presses a colour-coded “button” that the ground players must press.

I just hope the changes you’ll make won’t cause Migraine to be even more a pain in the behind it is now.

I just want to finish the HOT achievement. Migraine is undoable nowdays. It’s annoying to be dependable of people to finish the story achievements, when it’s presumed solo content.

and it took you a year to remind you to get back to it?

Can you please add a reliable and clearly visible way to get into the air, like a ledge or a bouncing mushroom? It’s really frustrating to die because you couldn’t find the invisible magic spot of gliding on a flat and visually really busy platform.

SeanConroy.9580:

I would like to be clear on the scope of the changes being made: It is my goal to fix all blocking bugs within the instance and to address as many QoL issues as are quickly actionable. A major mechanical overhaul of the encounters is not in the works, but I will incorporate small changes that should result in noticeable improvements to the fun and quality of the experience.

Just to remind people what Sean said (my emphasis) so that people don’t expect too much: they’re not going to be able to rework the instance so I imagine that that means no changes to the Migraine penalty box. Personally, I’d love it if they just removed Migraine as a requirement for the chapter rewards but that, unfortunately, does not seem to be on the cards.

I never completed it originally. Inspired by the new weapon thing I reluctantly went back to it recently. In the end me and a bunch of random folks just kept doing it and doing it and doing it until we won. There was no real pleasure in it for any of us. We just needed to get it out of the way so we could proceed with Caldbolg, which was enjoyable.

I don’t know how that stuff gets through QA. Did they just run out of time and release it anyway????

While I appreciate the apparent proposed changes Soon™ I can’t help but die a little inside when I remember the release date of Heart of Thorns alongside the current date that ANet has decided to even consider fixing that lovely part of the game.

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns release date: 23rd October 2015
AKA: 508 days ago from today (14th March 2017)

508 days.
508 Days.
508 DAYS.

Five. Hundred. And. Eight. Days. And. It. Still. Full. O’. Bugs. Mah. Boy.

For real.

zealex.9410:

OriOri.8724:

Personally the only thing I want to see is to separate the actual Mordremoth fight into its own instance. That way people could do the long part first, kill all the mordrem that surprise you, then kill the first 2 bosses, whichever ones you choose. Then the instance is over.

Now, all you have to do for the final instance is the mordremoth fight. This way even if it does bug out, you don’t have to run through all of that crap again. Or if you are trying to get that stupid don’t get hit while gliding achievement and screw up, you don’t have to do the whole instance again.

having the 2 bosses be in the same instance with the group of morderm at the start feels kinda unnatural since that part of the fight you are already inside the dream so it makes sense to have it being in the same instance with the modremoth fight. I’d suggest connect the instance wher you climb to the top of the tree with the first prat of the heart and mind isntance ( up until u reach trehearne) and then talk to him to open the next instance which is the dream .

The entire last chapter in HoT story feels unnatural.

Plus that’s a horrible reason to leave such a long instance in the game that has multiple annoying achievements associated with it and bugs out so often. It needs to be separated into 2 instances, or at the very least given retry motes after mordremoth that resets just the mordremoth fight and repairs your armor.

Zephyra.4709:

While I appreciate the apparent proposed changes Soon™ I can’t help but die a little inside when I remember the release date of Heart of Thorns alongside the current date that ANet has decided to even consider fixing that lovely part of the game.

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns release date: 23rd October 2015
AKA: 508 days ago from today (14th March 2017)

508 days.
508 Days.
508 DAYS.

Five. Hundred. And. Eight. Days. And. It. Still. Full. O’. Bugs. Mah. Boy.

For real.

Pfffft… thats easy to top Since release there is a bug in the game where characters suddenly stop moving. They pretty much freeze mid-movement and you can’t move in any direction until you let go of all keys. Oldest reports on the forums on that bug are from 2012 and its pretty annoying and happens “kinda often”.

Or that “nice” visual glitch where the “ghost-bird” that appears when you use the Swoop-skill on Rangers never disappears. That bug is even mentioned on the wiki since September 2014… and its in the game for much longer (at least mid-2013).

Not to mention all those nice bugs in EoTM that have been in there for years (broken NPCs @ Tytone, ways to glitch into Spire & Inferno, supply-camps being shown as “full” while they are empty, etc.).

Lets see how long it takes them to fix the broken NPCSs in “Into the Labyrinth”

I thought I would never get to do the Caladbolg events. Hopefully this will make it possible for me.