Guild Wars 2

Well.. i cant say i really did like HoT a lot, i mean sure.. parts of it i like, but there are many parts i utterly detested… and sorta still do. Not gonna lie, the LS3 calmed my anger quite a lot and if it keeps this level of quality i might be eventually just a bit grumpy at the end.. who knows, chances are good.

So yea back to the theme.

Since HoT i canned my beloved main, the engineer, i detested the trainwreck of an elite spec, especially cause i was looking forward to a hammer using engineer since years. This sentiment worsened as they kept removing more and more flavor from the spec…like the many stuns that actually where usefull at the end once i learned to appreciate the use of CC… since the mechanic itself is imho just a random trait. Seriosly.. put the function gyro into the invention traitline and i wouldnt be the wiser.
In other words.. the thing i looked forward the most was a trainwreck at the start and is now a burned out trainwreck… atleast for me, dont even bother to “educate” me, i dont like it, period.

The fractal changes where another thing i really didnt like a lot. Yea.. i know i know, it got a lot better for many people but i actually enjoyed beeing “forced” into 4 random fractals…well 3 cause everybody rolled swamp at the start. It had for me atleast a “we are stuck in this together” feel, like 5 guys going in and worked together to come out at the end. Now its too quick for my tastes, but like i said before.. i do see why people prefer the revamp.

Guilds… ho boy… Well i once had a guild, a small one, nothing special… just 11 guys that randomly met at the early levels goofing arround and eventually forming a guild. We did fractals and dungeons together and some open world stuff, heck we even build a legendary for one of said guildies as a b-day gift. Good times… Then HoT came and well.. lets just say the small guild went down the crapper. Everything we worked towards was obsolete and over the months the guild shrunk and eventually got disbanded. A few left the game, the others went on to bigger guilds and me.. well im a solo player now.

Skins… well lets just say i like to play dressup. Making looks is one of my greatest joys in the game, new skins mean for me (not always but very often) new looks or heck even completely new themed chars. HoT´s skin pool was pitifull for an expansion, we got like what… 9 profession themed armor pieces, a few backpacks, 3 sets per weight class and one extra for heavies.. that actually for once took charr in account, yea colour me surprised. Regardless.. it was not enough for me, not even close. Before HoT we where told that armor skins are now in game rewards, so i was obviosly looking forward to all the cool new stuff… yup.. thanks.

Raids… well i missed that train. My own fault really, was just not motivated to play much gw2 after HoT for a while and especially pugging them now requires knowledge of the encounters and legendary insights. Knowledge i can get from tutorial vids no issue…but insights and the actual “feel” of playing it? Well nah, so yeap, train went through and that i didnt board it is my very own fault. Shame.. they got some nice skins in it… and are heavy on lore like i heard, especially the latest wing.

But nonetheless.. i got some good stuff recently. Made myself a berserker and even a nice legendary mace to it.. eureka is for me a 10\10. Love it. Also so many ways to CC (i like to cc stuff a lot, lets leave it at this)… man i love the class and the spec, it takes all the game types in account too… unlike scrapper.

The new LS maps are very good, i especially enjoyed the first and last map they added and the story goes somewhere too, keeps me pulled in and i enjoy that they tie up loose ends from the personal story…like recently in the story.

My salt slowly gets washed away… still a lot of it to go but i could see myself eventually returning to the “good ol days” mood and feel wise…if they keep it up like this. Maybe next expansion i get all my nice things again, as for this one.. atleast they put a bandage on the stab wound HoT caused me and gave me a lollipop and a pat on the head.

Keep it up a-net.

fluffdragon.1523:

I guess I’ll put it simply:

If you liked WoW, you’ll love HoT. If you disliked WoW, you’ll want to rethink the expansion.

I’m playing WoW for 6 years on semi-hardcore basis (even now) and I can tell you, that one only common thing HoT and WoW have are raids. WoW openworld is more like core Tiria: it is there just for leveling quests, mining ore and occasional daily quests. That is why i liked Silverwastes and HoT maps a lot, they feel living, complex, deep, with a lot of stuff hidden in unpredictable places. Sadly, after 2 months I ragequited from GW2 after trying to craft Nevermore and burning down nearly all my gold and materials without making even a precursor. The other one factor was that a lot of my friends also quit the game, because they bought the core 4 years ago and were offended that they don’t get even a discount for HoT, while new players got HoT and core game for the same price.
I have returned with LS3 ep1 and I loved most of the changes.
- Changes to fractals are great. They are challenging, fun, rewarding. Before HoT I tried to get into fractals, but that was an awfull experience, mostly because of 3-islands system and awfull party search. Now I’m on T4 fractals and enjoying them.
- Less grind in HoT (mastery grind, HoT materials, HoT currency) and more liquid gold income. Yeah, it took me 2 months, but I crafted that Nevermore (and Ad Infinitum 40 days later). While at the start I couldn’t even make a precursor in 2 months.
- Great story. I like how LS3 story goes. Even if Braham acts like an idiot. Lots of plot-twists, intersections with raid storyline. Hope there will be as well an intersection with fractal storyline (the one from Chaos and Nightmare).
- New content (a whole map! And a story chapter!) every 2 months. You can’t know how much I appreciate it if you were not playing WoW Warlord of Draenor (where for 2 years the only content for players was 1 (!) new map that was cut off the original expancion and 2 raids).

But there were things that I did not enjoy
- Economical problems (summed in 2 words “hardened leather”) and developers attitude to them. I will not talk about it cause there is a thread about it that is always on the front page.
- Profession balance. A year have passed, but still scrappers are, well, in the garbage pile. Along with revenant now.
- Dead masteries. Yeah, that anti-venom mastery is still useless. Much like the anti-chak one and 3 masteries to challange frog/exalted champions. And instead fixing these up we get even more dead masteries: counter-magic (used only in living story and 1-2 world bosses), thermal propulsion (works well only in Ember Bay, mostly useless in bitter frost) and Koda’s flame (used in 1 location of the world only to break frozen chests). The only one good mastery so far was spectral agony. Mostly because it can be used anywhere.
- And, the final one thing I disliked: Anet making panic-full-180-degree-turn after HoT release. People were complaining about HoT map navigation – instead of better waypoint system and better map interface 3 of LS3 maps are plain, simple and boring (and with almost no waypoints). People complained about meta on new maps – new maps have none meta at all, and events are repetative and dull as hell (Bitterfrost bonfires say hi). I would not object if it was a 50/50 split, but it looks like 2 dimensional non meta maps are a new “safe” trend. And I personally don’t think it should be so – we already have a dozen of core Tiria 2d non-metas. I still can’t forgive the squandered potential of that huge trees area in Bitterfrost. If it was given verticality it would be just so awesome.

fluffdragon.1523:

I guess I’ll put it simply:

If you liked WoW, you’ll love HoT. If you disliked WoW, you’ll want to rethink the expansion.

Basically it provides a massive shift away from Core Tyria gameplay with brand new mechanics, features, and significant changes to the feel of the game that are anything but what you were doing before the expansion. Yes, they might have fixed some of the grinding and even made the content a bit “more” rewarding (despite that all new maps basically have chests of loot everywhere in some capacity), but it isn’t the same game anymore in the content added since the expansion.

And it’s better to think of it as a $60 USD “season pass,” since it appears that a lot of content released with and since Heart of Thorns require it on your account to access. So for new players it might be more attractive since it means access to all current and future content (up to the next one).

A lot of us who are upset with the expansion and the changes to the game are veteran players from as far back as 2012 when the game launched, so dropping $60 for 4 maps (at the time) and elite specs and a lot of rushed content felt … bad. Most of us haven’t really gotten over that or how much it deviates from the game we had spent four years or more playing.

But that’s that, and it really all comes down to the kind of content you like.

Raids, huge-scale chained events, various big fights, and “unlocking” your progression throughout the maps — those can be quite attractive if you like classic action-RPG style gameplay.

However, keep in mind that a lot of points regarding changes to professions and other game modes are still quite valid. Things are not the same anymore, but for those who like the changes, it’s a lot better.

If someone charged you $60USD, you got a bad deal. ArenaNet sold it for $49.99. Not to mention all the authorized retailers that sold it for less.

Poor story with bugs in its conclusion that still remain AFAIK. Increasing grind to the extent that GW2’s grindy nature became much more apparent to many people who previously didn’t notice it. Not enough content for a premium price, content that was promised to come later never came. Power creep with elite specs that all but ruined spvp and wvw because balance changes were not prioritised enough. The game turned away from its casual nature and became more elitist with raids and the open world content that was unreasonably hard.

These are all reasons why players turned away from GW2 with HOT as the financial numbers show.

I played a bit around launch back in 2012, leveled one character to max, didn’t really get into it and left the game to collect dust until about ten months ago. I fired it up again just to see what’s new, and oh boy, there was no turning back! I bought HoT soon after, and have logged some unhealthy amounts of hours into it ever since.

I love everything about this game, from PvE to competitive. Anet creates such masterful environments with characters + storylines, I’m absolutely loving it. While the zones of HoT are a bit annoying in all their verticality, they’re beautiful and full of challenging content. As Zedek said, a definite adrenaline-packed upgrade from the more peaceful Core Tyria zones.

Also, with the expansion comes gliding & other masteries, that really refresh the game in several ways. For instance, max eploration changed alot via gliding, and moving around the map generally became a much smoother experience, since cliffs and high places are no longer something we need to avoid. Masteries also bring progression after max level, thus making PvE and XP feel worthwhile again.

Now, while HoT was good, the Living World season 3… just amazing. I have loved the 4 maps we have gotten this far beyond words. I don’t know, there’s just something about them, the versatility… they feel like the refreshing boost this game has needed for a long time. The story has been great so far, and all the content has kept me reeeal busy. The rewards are also very nice and straightforward → collect this many berries to receive the ascended backpack, for example.

In a nutshell, I personally think at the moment Guild Wars 2 is at the best it has ever been, despite what sales figures might say. It’s definitely not perfect (so many good suggestions & complaints that have fell on deaf ears for years now) but it’s definitely the most diverse, content-packed MMO in the market, and beats everything else. We have a great core game, a great expansion, amazing Living World, and more to come in the future by our amazing dev team.