Guild Wars 2

So I picked up the expansion last week, I never really followed the news too closely about it so I went in almost blind. I just wanted to ask: Am I playing it right? Because it doesn’t seem like I am. For the last 2-3 days I’ve just been going around Verdant Brink picking up mastery and hero points and doing some occasional events. Is this pretty much what the expansion is, collecting mastery and hero points and progressing through the mastery system? Because it seems almost like a grind going around and getting them. I’ve done some activities as well, but those seem rather sparse. I haven’t left Verdant Brink yet btw.

You are playing right it is mostly grinding.

Verdant brink though at night you want to get a good group, defend areas, go to canopy and fight 1 of 5 bosses, get loot, open cargo.

Well, I play it naked so correctly is relative.

(Just kidding. Or am I?)

Your playing it right. There is not much more to the HoT maps than you describe.

Okay, seriously then. No, that’s not all the expansion is about. And you’re not playing it incorrectly, you’re just not playing everything yet. The expansion is much more than the jungle, but to keep it brief let’s just discuss the jungle:

The individual events you’ve seen form chains, which form an overall meta-event. In VB, this means taking control of various camps, which ultimately leads to choppers arriving and flying you up to the canopy where you fight giant bosses.

In addition to mastery points, hero points and the usual vistas and poi, there are also strongboxes to be found in the jungle maps. There are many new achievements, invisible mushrooms, adventures, and a couple of jumping puzzles, new guild halls which you have to fight to claim, two new gadgets (Herta and the Ley Energy Converter) for converting currencies and three chests you can add to your home instance.

And there are the other three maps you haven’t tried yet: Auric Basin, with it’s city of gold and a large meta about defending it, Tangled Depths with it’s lanes of different allied creatures fighting the insectoid chak and a hidden asuran city. And Dragon’s Stand, a battle through the depths of the jungle to Mordremoth’s lair (or at least his mouth, hard to explain).

You could take the opinion of the posters who are saying there’s not much to it. But you’d be doing yourself a disservice. There’s plenty to do. Look for commanders in the jungle maps and tag along. You’ll pick it up and find what you like to do in the jungle.

If you’re in VB during night, it would seem there’s not much to do but events, until the choppers arrive and you fight the night bosses. During day, you would have several chain of meta events taht you can follow for story and good loot. The day events is like the temple chains on Orr.

My advice is to actually follow the HoT personal story as this leads you to different areas of Verdant Brink, and do the outpost metas while you pass them. There are five outpost meta events in VB with different story, so it’s worth doing all of em.

It depends on how much time you’re putting into.
Every HoT map meta repeats itself every couple of hours, so if you can afford to follow this schedule, I would say a reasonable way to play the expansion could consist on playing every outpost chain once (for five times total) and using any daytime remaining time to explore a little bit, complete hero points and toy with whichever adventure you could have found.
You should get a fresh experience every single time and by the time you’ve seen most of the events you should be ready to move on onto the next map mastery wise.

There is no right or wrong way, just find something that is fun for yourself.

Verdant Brink is all about outposts. Like all HoT maps there’s a meta to the entire map. Nothing you do is ever really in a vacuum.

There are outposts throughout the camp that need to be defended at night, and each of them has a relatively long quest chain during the day. If you start at Shipwreck Peak Waypoint btw, the first in the zone, off to the right as you’re facing the portal, a series of events start at the start of the day that chains into a series of 9 different events, which are pretty long and tell a story.

There’s also the personal story which takes you through the zone as well.

Masteries aren’t just about leveling materies, they’re leveling more access to the jungle. The more of the basic masteries you complete, the easier it is to traverse the jungle. It’s a progression, which people have been asking for.

Also it’s less of a grind now for any number of reasons. Anet has increased the amount of experience you get, added easier events with veterans instead of champs (not at every skillpoint though) and has thinned out mobs in some places.

Still the zones in HoT are really part of the story of HoT. Everything works together. If you play the zone and then move through the story you’re seeing the results of what happened and the story takes you through them. It’s actually pretty well designed.

A lot of people say the story is short, because they’re ignoring the part the zones play in the story. It’s all one big tapestry.

In VB, stay by outposts and follow event chains and at night, defend outposts till the choppers land, so you can get the bosses.

The achievements for VB will actually give you a pretty good road map.

Personally, I simply explored while trying to see everything, like every event. I always had more than enough mastery points as I naturally obtained them as well as most of the available achievements. Experience was also never a problem because I started each day by doing the daily adventures I had found. I only spent a few hours a day for maybe 3 or 4 days per zone and was finished with masteries by the end of TD, only having the later, more useless ones left.

HoT is played just like the core game. Simply play the game and explore. GW2 was always meant to be explored, HoT even more so.

Healix.5819:

Personally, I simply explored while trying to see everything, like every event. I always had more than enough mastery points as I naturally obtained them as well as most of the available achievements. Experience was also never a problem because I started each day by doing the daily adventures I had found. I only spent a few hours a day for maybe 3 or 4 days per zone and was finished with masteries by the end of TD, only having the later, more useless ones left.

HoT is played just like the core game. Simply play the game and explore. GW2 was always meant to be explored, HoT even more so.

if they wanted me to explore, then they shouldnt have made it like a freaking rat maze
everything is locked behind a mastery, locked behind a meta, or simply on another level
this is so far from the core game, that its embarrasing

If you consider it grind and not having fun, then there is probably something wrong.

Btw, it is also access to new personal story, guild halls, raids, new fractal masteries that allow you to increase your Agony Resistance. You will also get access to Living World 3 when it is live.
But I don’t know…when I bought HoT, the fun lasted at least a month until I explored everything, yet you are here saying you are grinding events….

There is also a story btw.

Yep, try and do the story and it will lead you through many of the key places, although early on it does somewhat abandon you until you get the first gliding mastery.

They could have made that a bit more newbie-friendly. The best way to get started in HoT is to follow other players but the lack of gliding and mushroom bouncing does tend to make that tricky, especially when you find out how hard some of the mobs can hit.

Just follow the HoT personal Story and you will be opening most of the general contents on the Xpac.

It’s also really fun to explore, do adventures, and interact with the NPC’s

What do you enjoy doing in the main game? If you like the story, do the story. If you like unusual gameplay like Sanctum Sprint or other activities, try to play a lot of different adventures and see what you like. If you like Silverwastes, do meta events like the night cycle of Verdant Brink. If you just like to explore, wander around, or find an event chain to follow. There are very few one-off, isolated events in HoT, so you can usually find a sequence of events to play through.

If you feel like you’re grinding and you’re not enjoying it, try not to grind. You need certain masteries to full explore the maps, but you can pick those up over time. The important thing is to find something, anything, you enjoy doing, because if you try to “grind to get to the good parts,” you won’t have fun.

UCFTyler.6901:

So I picked up the expansion last week, I never really followed the news too closely about it so I went in almost blind. I just wanted to ask: Am I playing it right? Because it doesn’t seem like I am. For the last 2-3 days I’ve just been going around Verdant Brink picking up mastery and hero points and doing some occasional events. Is this pretty much what the expansion is, collecting mastery and hero points and progressing through the mastery system? Because it seems almost like a grind going around and getting them. I’ve done some activities as well, but those seem rather sparse. I haven’t left Verdant Brink yet btw.

Doing VB for 2-3 days is normal. Don’t know your play time amount but HoT most definetly is much more a “Grind” game then Vanilla Gw2 which was much more “Casual”. It’s still a casual game but will take the “2 hours a day person” much much longer to get anything accomplished, and before they do most likely they will take a break from the game.

Clearing each map might be a frustration or feel like a grind at first but eventually it gets easier and turns into a “Hit the metas and bounce game” which leaves maps empty or might feel that way. TD though just has so many levels you feel like you are alone, but you aren’t. DO EVENTS when they are up, store those mats, you’ll need them later.

IF your bored of PvE maps try dungeons or go do WvW, PvP, or Fractals. They all have their own reward tracks. Try story and work on collection achieves. Theres a bit more then just grinding on maps you can do, but this Xpac is mostly catered to a Grind Game.

imo i didn’t notice the grind in vanilla, but HoT makes it obvious, that’s the difference.

Mortifer.2946:

If you consider it grind and not having fun, then there is probably something wrong.

Btw, it is also access to new personal story, guild halls, raids, new fractal masteries that allow you to increase your Agony Resistance. You will also get access to Living World 3 when it is live.
But I don’t know…when I bought HoT, the fun lasted at least a month until I explored everything, yet you are here saying you are grinding events….

I h8 story, so that just seems like a waste or basic thing in the game, which is the very last thing i usually do only when i am bored. Guild halls are a mess: only if your guild leader deems you worthy and you are able to place objects, exploring can be kinda fun, but the limitation of 1000 objects sucks, not to mention the gold sink that is scribbing. If you’re not rich you shouldn’t be a scribe. This isn’t sand boxy craft furniture for your own house/nook its for the guild, but good luck on getting many of them to donate u mats but them expecting you to craft stuff for free. Did i say a mess? Raids are for a select niche few, if you enjoy it do it, if you only have 2 hours u can play good luck find a party, best bet find a raiding guild that raids during the hours you play, basically good luck with that. New fractal masteries… not that impressive. Legendary back pack only 6 months late. Yeah and xpac been out for 6 months and Living world 3 still aint live…. uhhhg. I see a lot wrong here.

H8rs gunna H8 cause Taylor Swift said so.

Want something positive…. Hey, at least i’m still playing the game
(though i did take a break right after launch…. but think positive, think positive)

Moooooooooaaar exploration would make me happy. I hope they add more further exploration to the guild halls. Think about all the coastal waters and SEA CAVES!!! there could be.

Redenaz.8631:

What do you enjoy doing in the main game? If you like the story, do the story. If you like unusual gameplay like Sanctum Sprint or other activities, try to play a lot of different adventures and see what you like. If you like Silverwastes, do meta events like the night cycle of Verdant Brink. If you just like to explore, wander around, or find an event chain to follow. There are very few one-off, isolated events in HoT, so you can usually find a sequence of events to play through.

If you feel like you’re grinding and you’re not enjoying it, try not to grind. You need certain masteries to full explore the maps, but you can pick those up over time. The important thing is to find something, anything, you enjoy doing, because if you try to “grind to get to the good parts,” you won’t have fun.

yea, ill just do all those hearts, that i really liked in core tyria
oh wait..i cant, BECAUSE THEY DIDNT MAKE ANY
even more, players who just follow a zerg wont get the skills for any harder content
they will get the loot, and the progression..but NOT the skills

Kelly.7019:

Mortifer.2946:

If you consider it grind and not having fun, then there is probably something wrong.

Btw, it is also access to new personal story, guild halls, raids, new fractal masteries that allow you to increase your Agony Resistance. You will also get access to Living World 3 when it is live.
But I don’t know…when I bought HoT, the fun lasted at least a month until I explored everything, yet you are here saying you are grinding events….

I h8 story, so that just seems like a waste or basic thing in the game, which is the very last thing i usually do only when i am bored. Guild halls are a mess: only if your guild leader deems you worthy and you are able to place objects, exploring can be kinda fun, but the limitation of 1000 objects sucks, not to mention the gold sink that is scribbing. If you’re not rich you shouldn’t be a scribe. This isn’t sand boxy craft furniture for your own house/nook its for the guild, but good luck on getting many of them to donate u mats but them expecting you to craft stuff for free. Did i say a mess? Raids are for a select niche few, if you enjoy it do it, if you only have 2 hours u can play good luck find a party, best bet find a raiding guild that raids during the hours you play, basically good luck with that. New fractal masteries… not that impressive. Legendary back pack only 6 months late. Yeah and xpac been out for 6 months and Living world 3 still aint live…. uhhhg. I see a lot wrong here.

H8rs gunna H8 cause Taylor Swift said so.

Want something positive…. Hey, at least i’m still playing the game
(though i did take a break right after launch…. but think positive, think positive)

Moooooooooaaar exploration would make me happy. I hope they add more further exploration to the guild halls. Think about all the coastal waters and SEA CAVES!!! there could be.

Well, yeah. You are definitely entitled to have your opinion. I’m sorry you didn’t like HoT. Maybe there will some content more aimed at you in the future. I agree that it is hard to hop on the raids. I had very big problem finding a like-minded group of people, but thankfully I managed to do so. And while we weren’t able to kill even the first boss of wing 2, it is still nice to play with them and kill at least the old bosses. I guess it is just a matter of how much time you have and how much energy you are willing to put into searching for GW2 friends.