Guild Wars 2

I know this was brought up a long time ago. But I was curious am I the only one who really enjoyed heart quests and wish they were in the level 80 zones and in new hot maps?

Yes some where very silly and pointless or very annoying lime the one stealth one to get to the flags undetected.

But a lot of them were about learning the area, finding out what helps and why. I’d really like to see some new quests in the game. Maybe in the level 80 zones make them award something a little special to.

Hearts were kinda cool when the game launched. I certainly loved them FAR more than traditional MMO questing. Hearts cut out all the run/fetch crap I hated in WoW. In GW2 you don’t have to waste time finding an NPC, taking the quest, and then running all the way back to turn the quest in. Hearts are just streamlined.

That said, I feel like Anet is finally starting to get the dynamic event system where they originally imagined it. Silverwastes is basically what Orr was supposed to be. If they make the same level of improvement again, then HoT will be a lot more fun than hearts in my opinion.

I also felt hearts were an improvement over traditional quests. However, I suppose that those who don’t mind the back-and-forth to the quest giver might find them the “same.” There are some, though, that I find cause me to grit my teeth. I did one today in Field of Ruin where the goals are to kill ogres or collect Charr Scrap metal. There were no ogres to kill on two pass throughs. So, it was run around, collect scrap metal and turn it in. Same as a collect quest in any MMO — except there’s no get quest, but instead there are multiple turn-ins.

I liked the way the Orr zones work. Most of the events get done regularly, at least in ML and CS. I feel that the Orr zones are far superior to SW in anything but rewards. In SW, events that are not part of the zone event are left alone a great deal more often.

If HoT turns out to be 2-3 zones like SW, I will be very disappointed. SW took an explorable theme park game and turned it into a theme park with 3 rides (the zone event, labyrinth and chest farms). There’s little point to the exploration, especially past the first time through. There’s nothing there but the “objectives.” The side events seem like filler. While the zone feels marginally more finished than Southsun Cove, it has nowhere near the depth and variety of the older zones.

#sictransitgloriamundi

i see hearts as a waste of time, quests are far better in every aspect.
you can have more quests in one place, it keeps you entertained and you have a way to expand the story for every area of the map.
hearts just are there, you finish them and the whole area becomes useless, depending solely on DE’s.

i wish they added quests, doesn’t have to be the boring “kill 5 rabbits” kind but quests nonetheless.

I liked Hearts when I first started playing, but three years on I’ve lost my taste for them. The primary problem for me is that they tend to be incredibly boring. Kill X enemies, gather X items, transform into something annoying with a terrible skillbar and cry internally, etc. It gets incredibly repetitive and dull, especially when you’re on your eighth or ninth character.

For Hearts to not descend into grindy monotony you need events firing fast and often to break things up. Otherwise the zones feel dead. This is especially true now that the personal story arcs have been level locked. When the personal story steps were staggered you had the suggested level to play them which encouraged you to mix up how you play. Or alternately you could attempt to play them earlier than recommended if you wanted something more challenging than, “Go kill a dozen Dredge trash mobs.” They’re just so tedious and a lot of that stems from the design limitations in that Hearts need to be localised. At least with quests you could be sent to the other side of the map to do something interesting. With Hearts it’s always just some variation of Help Farmer Jones With His Walrus Problems. I don’t find it enjoyable anymore and don’t think it’s capable of standing on its own as a long-term sustainable system.

Sylent.3165:

I know this was brought up a long time ago. But I was curious am I the only one who really enjoyed heart quests and wish they were in the level 80 zones and in new hot maps?

Personally, I hated them from the very start and was one of the people who spoke against them even back at launch, when they were (unjustly) hyped as some kind of revolution to questing.

Not to beat a dead horse again, but essentially, they are still “kill 10 rats” or “collect 5 rat-tails” kind of quests with easy access and several (but still limited) choices when it comes to completing them. In case you didn’t notice, you’re still feeding cows and killing bandits in the higher level zones just as you did back in Queensdale.

Compared to other MMO’s, I actually find that I prefer picking up a quest at a NPC and having some kind of story behind it that is properly done/voiced/etc. With the hearts, I mostly just wander through and click/kill a few things. Nothing that really stands out.

With that said, I seriously hope that the HoT zones will be just like Orr – free of the awful hearts grind.

sorudo.9054:

quests are far better in every aspect

i wish they added quests, doesn’t have to be the boring “kill 5 rabbits” kind but quests nonetheless.

GW2 has quests. They aren’t called quests, but they’re there.

Look at the types of MMO quests. Many are featured in GW2.

1. Kill X of Y mobs quest: Check, present in both hearts and events.
2. Kill [Named] mob Y quest: many group events, meta events.
3. Delivery (aka Fedex) quest: This one is thankfully absent or is represented in such small numbers that I’ve missed it. Most boring type of traditional quest anyway.
4. Collect X of Y quest: Hearts and collection events.
5. Escort quest: dynamic events.
6. Locate Item/Person quest: this type seems limited to the personal/living stories.
7. Interact with Person/Item quest: also limited to stories, unless I miss my guess.
8. Defend X quest: dynamic events.
9. Craft Skill quest: thankfully absent, although there certainly is crafting.
10. Reach Achievement X quest: usually a gating mechanism; there are certainly achievements in GW2, but most if not all of them don’t gate players from content.

That’s 7 of 10 types available in some form or other in GW2, where the event-based tasks are repeatable (unlike quests in other games, unless you do them on another character).

When I break the traditional quests down into the actions needed to complete them, then compare to what it takes to complete them in GW2, I’m finding two main difference. (1) I usually have to cross a hostile map in other games to do the quest. I often do not have to do so in GW2; and (2) most quests in other games are done solo, whereas only hearts/story are done solo in GW2, whereas events are often not done solo.

I liked hearts. Which is why they got rid of them.

#15morecharacters

I liked SOME hearts. SOME hearts I HATED. Overall I’d say no, please no more hearts unless the quality is TOP notch.

sorudo.9054:

i see hearts as a waste of time, quests are far better in every aspect.
you can have more quests in one place, it keeps you entertained and you have a way to expand the story for every area of the map.
hearts just are there, you finish them and the whole area becomes useless, depending solely on DE’s.

i wish they added quests, doesn’t have to be the boring “kill 5 rabbits” kind but quests nonetheless.

What is the difference between quests that you finish leaving the area useless or empty and the same situation with hearts?

I like hearts, but in some of the zones where there aren’t enough events or the events don’t trigger often enough they can be a bit tedious. I love when I jump into an event and finish a heart without even trying or almost so that I do the last few steps as a matter of course. I admit to feeling frustrated with some of them. Mainly, I don’t like the ones where combat seems to give very little progress, forcing you to the non combat methods if you want to do it in a timely manner, or the ones where combat works very well only there aren’t enough spawns.

Ashen.2907:

sorudo.9054:

i see hearts as a waste of time, quests are far better in every aspect.
you can have more quests in one place, it keeps you entertained and you have a way to expand the story for every area of the map.
hearts just are there, you finish them and the whole area becomes useless, depending solely on DE’s.

i wish they added quests, doesn’t have to be the boring “kill 5 rabbits” kind but quests nonetheless.

What is the difference between quests that you finish leaving the area useless or empty and the same situation with hearts?

There are often no dynamic events to make an area enjoyable once the quests are done, there often are with hearts.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Ashen.2907:

sorudo.9054:

i see hearts as a waste of time, quests are far better in every aspect.
you can have more quests in one place, it keeps you entertained and you have a way to expand the story for every area of the map.
hearts just are there, you finish them and the whole area becomes useless, depending solely on DE’s.

i wish they added quests, doesn’t have to be the boring “kill 5 rabbits” kind but quests nonetheless.

What is the difference between quests that you finish leaving the area useless or empty and the same situation with hearts?

There are often no dynamic events to make an area enjoyable once the quests are done, there often are with hearts.

Yeah, but the comparison was completed hearts to completed quests. Anet could, if they so desired, use quests in conjunction with dynamic events.

Personally I dont see a fundamental difference between hearts and quests. You can name, “gather 10 of X,” after any body organ you like, its still a quest.

I’ll bre frank, I have 17 lvl 80’s I did map completion on 9. I do hearts when I’m waiting for a world boss or when helping opther players, I do not actively seek tem out anymore…

I like most hearts, but some I really really hate… after 9 times most at least 10 or more tbh I can safely say some are worth doing some are realy easy to do in way A but will take forever killing or knocking stuff over or cleaning or whatever sec0ondary option you have. it is sometimes a difference between 3-5 mintes and a long time.

notebene.3190:

I liked hearts. Which is why they got rid of them.

#15morecharacters

I hope you like silverwastes and dry top too.

I did not mind the hearts the first time through and actually enjoyed doing them. However with every new character they just felt repetitive and became something to just get through. I always thought they could do something a bit different such as each heart has several variations of which a character can only pick one to complete. It would make it more interesting then if you had another character leveling that you could talk to the npc and pick another one so it would feel like a different experience and be a lot fresher.

I’ll take hearts over quest any day of the week. I love how they activate by just being within a certain proximity of the NPC.

GW2 got it right in my book by killing off the back and forth tedium of questing.

Supposedly Orr was supposed to be defined by chains of dynamic events, effectively going from a progression of fixed heart quests to the dynamic events. It didn’t really pan out as anticipated I guess. But if you do think about it, you’re doing the same things in the events as you would for the hearts and they serve the same purpose to give information about the area. At least that’s how I interpreted the wiki’s take:

Zones in the Ruins of Orr region and Southsun Cove do not have renown hearts; instead they have large meta event chains encompassing the entirety of the zone.

I actually think it does go along with what Orr was designed to be though. It is/was currently a warzone, so you’re not here to necessarily learn about the backstory of these places (aside from the occasional historian) like you would for most zones in Tyria as many of them are recently built encampments; you’re here to make your own history.

Of course, the execution leaves much to be desired, but say the temple attacks were actaully a good defining presence in the area.

I like hearts a ton. It’s a better way of “questing” for sure.

Though I just don’t see a point in them in level 80 areas unless the cap is increased. o.o

OHhh! Unless they give super cool rewards and are actually a challenge to finish!!

Sylent.3165:

I know this was brought up a long time ago. But I was curious am I the only one who really enjoyed heart quests and wish they were in the level 80 zones and in new hot maps?

Yes some where very silly and pointless or very annoying lime the one stealth one to get to the flags undetected.

But a lot of them were about learning the area, finding out what helps and why. I’d really like to see some new quests in the game. Maybe in the level 80 zones make them award something a little special to.

I liked a lot of them, but leveling alts i noticed i dontlike to repeat them.

I think some of the mechanics of the hearts could be used to do adventures or events, that way we will get more replayable content that use the best of the alredy present content.

i liked the hearts a lot mainly cause they weren’t the traditional do this one thing. you were given a few ways to complete a heart so i could play each character a different way. i kind of wish hearts were all through the game myself but i understand why the devs did it the way they did