Guild Wars 2

Ronnie Hu.1694:

why support a content like raid when 90% of million people cannot finish it. To let the LEETs can showoff their 1st kill , 2nd kill on forum to us poor casuls?

Why not? Nothing stops you from make a party, kill The boss? It only have a timer for 8min or so. So casual’ or not, 10min gametime and it’s yours. Or, maybe mot that good. Let The people that can play and dedicate to The gsme earn the reward for it. How fun is it IF evrryone rum around in legendary armors…

tym.3791:

While running around tyria, I see SO many players on the map. There was one or two vets I was having a bit of a time with, took all of 10 seconds to ask for and get tons of help with the thing. LOL, you would of thought it was a champ.

The point of my original post stands, you SHOULD be able to solo anything you want, you SHOULD be able to enjoy the game, look around, discover stuff, and keep a eye open for events if you want to join in a big crowd fight. Just like tyria, I can run around by my self, have a blast, and if in the mood, go join a big crowd for a dragon fight, good times.

HOT really needs the nerf hammer, I paid 50 bucks for the game, and I should be able to enjoy it by myself, and not spend all my time running for my life, and FINALLY finding a hero point only to get stomped by a mob, or a champ spawn.

No way you can convince me you can solo every champ in Orr, or some of the stuff on Southsun, or champs in Drytop or Silverwastes.

End games zones have always had challenges that people couldn’t solo, or most people couldn’t.

This is end game content, and some of it you can’t solo. Just like other end game areas.

mulzi.8273:

The problem is, the entire HoT experience is behind group content. In base GW2, as a casual you had open world for solo stuff. You could do map completion, quests, even some events in Orr, all of which went towards a progression for your character, like getting a legendary weapon. You could accept, as a solo/casual player, that the group content was in fractals/dungeons, but you could still work towards the same goals/items/etc, just in a different manner (eg. open world stuff).

Now comes along HoT. fractals and dungeons no longer are enough for the group oriented folks, they need to now take over open world. As a solo/casual person, what progress is there now? First off, open world is not solo able, more or less. Some aspects, but not all. Even if you get ‘help’ with some open world group content, what progress was made? You cannot even work towards a legendary anymore, as they gated it behind fractals/group quests (talking about pre cursor crafting) which are account bound. Even map completion is completely useless as a casual/solo person now.

Bash me if you want, I no longer care. All I know is, that I log in, and there is nothing for me to work towards. There are some days where I cannot spend 2+ hours on a meta event. I just want to kill stuff and have fun. I just do not understand the design decision to move group content fully into open world. Isnt that what fractals/dungeons were for? Or more importantly, why they took away player options. It use to be, that we had many different options to obtain the same goal: you could farm in open world to get materials for legendary, you could run dungeons/fractals for gear/money/material for same legendary. You could buy the bloody thing off the TP. Now its all gated/account bound, group content protected.

And why does everyone think that harder=group content? My hacking away solo at a well designed mob takes no less skill than being in a group of 5-20+ people, using the same skills/rotation (probably less so, as people can ‘hide’ and get lazy in groups and just use ‘1’ all the time). This game went for the time>skill in HoT..

Thats why all your hard core basement dwellers are coming out bashing the casual folks now.. they are in heaven, as their egos are stroked that the time they put into the game is being rewarded and others are being punished for not putting in the same time. They can walk around with new shinys that casual folks cannot hope to get and brag how great they are…

All my thoughts about HoT in one place. Glad I’m not alone

cenobite.1506:

mulzi.8273:

The problem is, the entire HoT experience is behind group content. In base GW2, as a casual you had open world for solo stuff. You could do map completion, quests, even some events in Orr, all of which went towards a progression for your character, like getting a legendary weapon. You could accept, as a solo/casual player, that the group content was in fractals/dungeons, but you could still work towards the same goals/items/etc, just in a different manner (eg. open world stuff).

Now comes along HoT. fractals and dungeons no longer are enough for the group oriented folks, they need to now take over open world. As a solo/casual person, what progress is there now? First off, open world is not solo able, more or less. Some aspects, but not all. Even if you get ‘help’ with some open world group content, what progress was made? You cannot even work towards a legendary anymore, as they gated it behind fractals/group quests (talking about pre cursor crafting) which are account bound. Even map completion is completely useless as a casual/solo person now.

Bash me if you want, I no longer care. All I know is, that I log in, and there is nothing for me to work towards. There are some days where I cannot spend 2+ hours on a meta event. I just want to kill stuff and have fun. I just do not understand the design decision to move group content fully into open world. Isnt that what fractals/dungeons were for? Or more importantly, why they took away player options. It use to be, that we had many different options to obtain the same goal: you could farm in open world to get materials for legendary, you could run dungeons/fractals for gear/money/material for same legendary. You could buy the bloody thing off the TP. Now its all gated/account bound, group content protected.

And why does everyone think that harder=group content? My hacking away solo at a well designed mob takes no less skill than being in a group of 5-20+ people, using the same skills/rotation (probably less so, as people can ‘hide’ and get lazy in groups and just use ‘1’ all the time). This game went for the time>skill in HoT..

Thats why all your hard core basement dwellers are coming out bashing the casual folks now.. they are in heaven, as their egos are stroked that the time they put into the game is being rewarded and others are being punished for not putting in the same time. They can walk around with new shinys that casual folks cannot hope to get and brag how great they are…

All my thoughts about HoT in one place. Glad I’m not alone

But not being alone doesn’t make you some kind of majority either. There are probably as many people asking for harder content as there are asking for easier content and most people probably aren’t in either camp.

I don’t know why people think casual player is defined by how many hours you play or can play. I never thought this was the definition. I know people with little time who are quite hard core and min-maxers. I know people who are very casual about the game but play all the time.,

The hours you play isn’t what makes you casual. It’s how you approach the game.

Actually, there is some merit to his statement because I don’t get to play alot but I’m very successful in HoT … being casual is not the problem in HoT … being a casual that thinks they are good is though.

See, many of you people think you are good players. For example, you might have adopted meta, blast through dungeons with ice bows in vanilla and facerolled OW content. That doesn’t make you good, it makes you THINK you are good.

Now you don’t have someone telling you how to play the game anymore and you realize you don’t know much about the class you play, beyond some rotation you’ve learned that gives you the highest DPS.

dronzer.8392:

Erm your definition of a casual player is absurd, a casual player can want to spend and invest the time in the game (infact they actually are by continually logging in), they just don’t have the same free time as say yourself who can spend up to 6-7 hours at a time in it, prehaps they use to be able to but situations elsewhere prevents them from logging in on a regular basis.

I can barely stay more than 2 hours at a time, except during the weekends. I’m by no means a hardcore player.

I understand the other complaints about how the map is design, the gating, the masteries – because they are a matter of taste. You either like them or not.

But complaining about content that is actually meaningful, that employs some knowledge about your class and builds, I just can’t understand.

It’s very difficult to cater to everyone, but please understand that any difficult PvE content can be overcome by just getting another person to help/increasing your skill/changing your build and refusing all of the above(not saying about you, but about some of the people who complained) is a little bit selfish – you can do something about challenging content, I for one, can’t do anything about the easy content in the game, it’s boring for me and I can’t fix that.

You don’t have to be a pro gamer, just adapt a bit, it’s still easy content as far as games go.

I think the main issue for casual players is that there’s no way to get zone rewards unless you stay 2+ hours in a map. Which is fine for ‘those who have no lives’, but many of my guild mates have things limited time. Some have to travel far to and from work, some rather like spending time with wife/husband and kids, some just have THAT kind of job. And for people like that, two consecutive hours is a very long time.

Add to this the pain of HAVING to group for a lot of things, when 70% of them prefer pottering about solo, and you have some pretty irritated people right now.

All I can see is that this is a LONG way removed from the casual friendly game this used to be.

I am somewhere between casual and hard-core. I play a lot but never really hunt down achievements or strive for legendary skins and such cause I find the process tedious but I do love challenging content.

For the most part I think the new maps are fine except for the hero points. The only thing that keeps me from soloing most of them are the timers. They should really scale them or extend the timers so that people who prefer to open world solo can do so. Having to wait around and beg for help on a hero point is just bad design. I really hope Anet does something to fix this.

As a new player (Played rellease but left ages ago, started a new account for HoT) I’ve levelled up my necro from 1 to 80 and loved the journey. did some EotM, did a it of the story, plenty of maps just for the pleasure of exploring and then even a few dungeons. It wasnt a tricky experience.

I got to 80 and everyone said get some rare gear or exotic gear. I had about 10 gold so rare gear it was. Beserkers is best I read everywhere, fine, np, beserker gear it is, run of traveller for the move speed, and Reaper form (cos I love it even though I had unlocked only a cpl of skills in it).

Silverwaste was a bit of an eye opener. Mobs used abilities on me (how dare they). I had to dodge, I had to learn to use my blinds and fears better but I really enjoyed the whole spreading your influence and final battle

Verdant and the Prologue was even trickier. I died and died and died. I unlocked masteries and I thought I didnt like it. Its too hard. Im not srious enough. In a cpl of hours struggling to even move round the map I felt a lot of the enjoyment wain. I started playing my revenant alt, back on the mindless easy mobs.

But, I wanted to play reaper more so I went back

Scrapped the Zerker gear, full soldiers and a rune set of wurm (the one that gives ferocity and toughness?). Changed my spec up to be tougher, more travel orientated and more tanky. Tried to pay attention more

And it worked, a more forgiving setup meant I didnt get two shotted by the raptor packs and stuff and so I began to progress n the map. I found the Hero point challenges and most of them are communes, not champ fights. 10hp a time rapidlyu gets you through the stuff. I took part in the events (prolly did bugger all to help) but I got better gear, and I got better at playing, I learnt to time my attacks/dodges etc and prolly improved at GW more in those few hours than the whole trip to 80. Night events were great, only 45 mins or so and often a chance at a boss event in the canopy. I learnt gliding and mushrooms, life got even easier.

Tried a bit of pvp and didnt suck as much. Got an ascended GS with condition dmg, switched to carrion build slowly as I learnt to cope with being a bit less tanky. Stuff died faster and I didnt die more.

What I guess I’m rambling at is that yeah, its a bit harder, and the first hour or so is pretty much a big shock but if you can stick with it, modify that build to something tougher and survivable, not trying to one shot every thing things very quickly get easier. I dont play all day every day, I work full time 8-6 and lots of weekends. I dont think its too hard as a casual

Exactly what is the criteria to be considered a casual player? My take is it relates to how often you play and has very little to do with skill level.

Ayrilana.1396:

Exactly what is the criteria to be considered a casual player? My take is it relates to how often you play and has very little to do with skill level.

Well said. Also, keep in mind the core game was casual in the extreme. HoT is quite a turnaround where almost all the core events require a group or zerg.

I believe that is the issue addressed in this thread. Telling someone to ‘get better’ or ‘get a group’ is ironic given the nature of the thread’s topic.

No one in their right mind can say the four maps in Heart of Thorns is casual friendly. The metas prove this out in a huge way. All the updated maps are hardcore Silverwastes.

Consider that against almost all the maps in the core game save Orr, and you’ll see what the OP means.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Well said. Also, keep in mind the core game was casual in the extreme. HoT is quite a turnaround where almost all the core events require a group or zerg.

Which is another problem, because your statement is wrong

Most metas require only a small group – you can do Tarir with < 15 people. You can do VB metas with 5 ppl. per outpost. But as soon as you have your tag on people will flock to you and people elsewhere feel alone and they start to taxi people in. That will lead to one overpopulated map (where things just get a lot harder because of the amount of players present) and a lot of maps which do not have enough population.

Their megaserver thing isn’t really working in the areas where it matters. The way things are people overcrowd maps in the new zones and SW in 1 or 2 maps and leave like 10 maps empty. Not very encouraging for players stranded on the empty maps.

HtFde.3856:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Well said. Also, keep in mind the core game was casual in the extreme. HoT is quite a turnaround where almost all the core events require a group or zerg.

Which is another problem, because your statement is wrong

Most metas require only a small group – you can do Tarir with < 15 people. You can do VB metas with 5 ppl. per outpost. But as soon as you have your tag on people will flock to you and people elsewhere feel alone and they start to taxi people in. That will lead to one overpopulated map (where things just get a lot harder because of the amount of players present) and a lot of maps which do not have enough population.

Their megaserver thing isn’t really working in the areas where it matters. The way things are people overcrowd maps in the new zones and SW in 1 or 2 maps and leave like 10 maps empty. Not very encouraging for players stranded on the empty maps.

You know everything you just said flies in the face of a ‘casual’ player, right? While I’m not a mathmatician, saying something doesn’t require a group or zerg, and then saying you only need 5 people (group size) or fifteen people (a minor zerg), to do certain events, makes no sense at all.

Maybe you should clarify your comment.

You’re going to have to find some buddies. Hopefully people in this thread are offering themselves. And maybe a few of them will consider making a guild called the “Jungle Buddies Club” open to all those who struggle and need to find buddies. And before you say I should do it, I don’t own HoT and you don’t want someone who only spends a few hours a week in the morning playing in charge of a guild. =P

I think the issue Ardenwolfe was arguing about is that while the events can be done in small groups, you cannot cannot reliably progress the map meta. For all four maps, you need a full map.

There’s also a limitation as you only have so much time to work towards the map meta before your progress gets reset via a final map meta (nightfall, gerent, defend tarir) or an entire map reset (DB). Players with limited, or fragmented, play schedules can never participate in the entire meta and are often times unable to join maps as they are full.

It’s less about being able to do events and more to do about wanting to participate with other players while progressing the meta in a meaningful way.

tym.3791:

So I finally went into the new expansion. This Map is WAY to hard core for me, as a casual player. Every Hero Point is a freaking champ? Really The whole thing is simply confusing, and its hard to find anything.

So its impossible to really wonder around alone, no way you can snag a lot of the Hero Points alone, and good luck finding a lot of them.

In my humble opinion, the whole expansion needs one serious nerf. Leave the hero points at 10 points, turn them into vets, calm down all the freaking mobs, let us casual players enjoy the game, and do so alone. No fun if you have to spend all your time running for your life, instead of enjoying the game, exploring the map, and checking out the fun stuff.

I have read a number of posts regarding, how hard or how confusing HoT is, and as a non-elite/hard core/do this kitten all day everyday with top gear and eye hand co-ordination guru with the latest gaming mouse and mechanical key board GW2 Veteran, also find it an issue.

I don’t think a nerf, as much as a rethink..

Most of the time I get to an area only to find I need mastery in “what ever” and can’t get to or do anything worth while. overall I regret buy the expansion (wonder if I can get my money back?), I will call it ‘not so HoT’…

Klangy.8293:

Well signs The only thing you get from 100% complete is stuff for legendary. I think if u call yourself casual u will not get legendary anyway. It’s total of 40HP and u need 25 for elite. And it’s not like u running around solo either. And the small events pre meta is easy solable.

I think the word you want to use here is “since” not signs (“signs” are directional placards indicating directions, or provide information).

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

There’s no reason whatsoever to tie map meta progression to the real-life clock. There is in fact every reason not to do so.

Tying it to the clock: automatically and irrevocably lose quite a few players. Not tying it to the clock, like Silverwastes: don’t automatically lose players. Because no one will insist it should run by the clock, except perhaps some OCD people.

Ayrilana.1396:

I think the issue Ardenwolfe was arguing about is that while the events can be done in small groups, you cannot cannot reliably progress the map meta. For all four maps, you need a full map.

There’s also a limitation as you only have so much time to work towards the map meta before your progress gets reset via a final map meta (nightfall, gerent, defend tarir) or an entire map reset (DB). Players with limited, or fragmented, play schedules can never participate in the entire meta and are often times unable to join maps as they are full.

It’s less about being able to do events and more to do about wanting to participate with other players while progressing the meta in a meaningful way.

Well said, I am one of the above mentioned players, causal fun has now become hard core time management, neglect the pets game play. Not what I expected from (not so) HoT.

Manasa Devi.7958:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

There’s no reason whatsoever to tie map meta progression to the real-life clock. There is in fact every reason not to do so.

Tying it to the clock: automatically and irrevocably lose quite a few players. Not tying it to the clock, like Silverwastes: don’t automatically lose players. Because no one will insist it should run by the clock, except perhaps some OCD people.

Tying it to the real life clock is very convenient actually, as it allows me to plan my limited GW2 time around the events that I want to do. I think thats one of the reasons Anet made it that way. It also ensures that maps fill up and enough people are aware when to do the meta, so that we get enough people on the map to actually do it succesfully.

they already did nerf hero challenges in comparison to beta
i remember champ challenges that got turned into just channeling which is basically NO challenge…

in verdant brink there are only 3 champ challenges out of 11 total left i think
1 is veteran rest is channeling…

its so easy

grab 1 friend and go for it or ask in map chat if other people need xxx hero challenge and want to join to make the fight easier…

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Manasa Devi.7958:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

There’s no reason whatsoever to tie map meta progression to the real-life clock. There is in fact every reason not to do so.

Tying it to the clock: automatically and irrevocably lose quite a few players. Not tying it to the clock, like Silverwastes: don’t automatically lose players. Because no one will insist it should run by the clock, except perhaps some OCD people.

Tying it to the real life clock is very convenient actually, as it allows me to plan my limited GW2 time around the events that I want to do. I think thats one of the reasons Anet made it that way. It also ensures that maps fill up and enough people are aware when to do the meta, so that we get enough people on the map to actually do it succesfully.

I think it would be a lot more convenient if I could find a map in any and every state of progress I’d want regardless of at what time I log on. Heck, I’d actually play.

Broom.2561:

I think the main issue for casual players is that there’s no way to get zone rewards unless you stay 2+ hours in a map. Which is fine for ‘those who have no lives’, but many of my guild mates have things limited time. Some have to travel far to and from work, some rather like spending time with wife/husband and kids, some just have THAT kind of job. And for people like that, two consecutive hours is a very long time.

Add to this the pain of HAVING to group for a lot of things, when 70% of them prefer pottering about solo, and you have some pretty irritated people right now.

All I can see is that this is a LONG way removed from the casual friendly game this used to be.

I (also) enjoy the casual core game play, and spending that much time waiting on timers and grouping is a frustration I just can’t put into words.
Not to mention the health issue, you can get DVT’s from sitting that long, that can kill you dead.
I found the $140 Aus for the top of the line expansion was not a good investment as I simply can’t get what’s needed to finish my elite profession and get anything worth a knob of butter in regards to masteries…. At the moment I can run fast in a city and wield a staff, but that is about all, not what I thought (not so) HoT had to offer…

Rex.6954:

Ayrilana.1396:

I think the issue Ardenwolfe was arguing about is that while the events can be done in small groups, you cannot cannot reliably progress the map meta. For all four maps, you need a full map.

There’s also a limitation as you only have so much time to work towards the map meta before your progress gets reset via a final map meta (nightfall, gerent, defend tarir) or an entire map reset (DB). Players with limited, or fragmented, play schedules can never participate in the entire meta and are often times unable to join maps as they are full.

It’s less about being able to do events and more to do about wanting to participate with other players while progressing the meta in a meaningful way.

Well said, I am one of the above mentioned players, causal fun has now become hard core time management, neglect the pets game play. Not what I expected from (not so) HoT.

I agree here. I am a casual player and I do belong to a very large guild.

I participate as I can and because my guild does setup a series of events on a time frame we all can meet, we are able to participate in some of the meta events (even if some have to leave halfway through due to RL issues), overall everyone gets a chance.

But its impossible to solo everything. I myself have had to postpone my story because of the meta events. Because the poor npc just died and his camp is being, well, camped by the enemy. I can’t take on the whole lot by myself in order to speak with him to progress my story, so I am forced to wait it out or just come back another time.

Manasa Devi.7958:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Manasa Devi.7958:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

There’s no reason whatsoever to tie map meta progression to the real-life clock. There is in fact every reason not to do so.

Tying it to the clock: automatically and irrevocably lose quite a few players. Not tying it to the clock, like Silverwastes: don’t automatically lose players. Because no one will insist it should run by the clock, except perhaps some OCD people.

Tying it to the real life clock is very convenient actually, as it allows me to plan my limited GW2 time around the events that I want to do. I think thats one of the reasons Anet made it that way. It also ensures that maps fill up and enough people are aware when to do the meta, so that we get enough people on the map to actually do it succesfully.

I think it would be a lot more convenient if I could find a map in any and every state of progress I’d want regardless of at what time I log on. Heck, I’d actually play.

I don’t think that would work for maps with long metas for multiple reasons:

1. Technical limitations: Anet only has limited server space and can’t just roll out new instances of every map every minute.

2. Small player base: GW2’s active playerbase is not that big. The only way to ensure maps fill up is to limit the amount of maps and make them happen at a set time.

3. Waiting: No one likes to wait for an unknown period of time in the hope that a fresh DS map starts hopefully sooner rather than later. With them happening at set times, I know when to log in and check the LFG.

Ayrilana.1396:

I think the issue Ardenwolfe was arguing about is that while the events can be done in small groups, you cannot cannot reliably progress the map meta. For all four maps, you need a full map.

There’s also a limitation as you only have so much time to work towards the map meta before your progress gets reset via a final map meta (nightfall, gerent, defend tarir) or an entire map reset (DB). Players with limited, or fragmented, play schedules can never participate in the entire meta and are often times unable to join maps as they are full.

It’s less about being able to do events and more to do about wanting to participate with other players while progressing the meta in a meaningful way.

Bingo. Thank you. +1 again.

Manasa Devi.7958:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Manasa Devi.7958:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

There’s no reason whatsoever to tie map meta progression to the real-life clock. There is in fact every reason not to do so.

Tying it to the clock: automatically and irrevocably lose quite a few players. Not tying it to the clock, like Silverwastes: don’t automatically lose players. Because no one will insist it should run by the clock, except perhaps some OCD people.

Tying it to the real life clock is very convenient actually, as it allows me to plan my limited GW2 time around the events that I want to do. I think thats one of the reasons Anet made it that way. It also ensures that maps fill up and enough people are aware when to do the meta, so that we get enough people on the map to actually do it succesfully.

I think it would be a lot more convenient if I could find a map in any and every state of progress I’d want regardless of at what time I log on. Heck, I’d actually play.

It might be, but that’s not how it works so your point is not relevant. That wouldn’t work for meta’s that have long periodicity anyways.

I think people mix up the terms ‘casual’ and ‘bad’ much too often.

Rabe.2456:

I think people mix up the terms ‘casual’ and ‘bad’ much too often.

Jep. ‘Casual’ and ‘antisocial’ also seem to get mixed up quite often.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

HtFde.3856:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

GW2 is an MMO RPG, which stands for Massive MUTPIPLAYER Online RPG.

If you want to do everything solo, go play a solo RPG.

The HoT maps are fine. Either group up or get better at the game.

No, they are not

Getting a group or getting better at a game does not, in any way, help you with the sync-times maps. When you playtime is from 19:00 – 20:30 of your local time and it just happens that DS is 1:20 hours left on the map … you’ve lost. Taxi maps are full and you won’t get DS started with 1:20 left. Grouping? Doesn’t help. Getting better? Doesn’t help. Hey, let the kids rot in school and let wifey rot at her workplace and … yes, THAT helps, now we can enter the map when it has just started and get a taxi ….

HoT has A LOT of bad design choices … (like locked adventures – with a fixed timeframe when you can play you can get VERY unlucky and arrive 10 minutes before nightfall and then you have 10 minutes to get to the adventure and play it maybe once before it is locked again) … none of those have anything to do with how good you are or if you play solo or not. It’s those “well, I can play 6h a day” types that have no issue with that because they can catch multiple cycles per map. For those with 1 – 2 hours gametime and that usually in a fixed window HoT has nothing much to offer and this will show in the coming weeks and months when people will struggle to fill even one map via taxi.

And you’re saying your schedule is so set in stone that you can’t play an hour later?

Even if that’s the case, that is your problem.

Many things in MMOs take a lot of time. It’s the nature of the genre.

I mean what solution would you propose? Turn DS into a 10 minute cakewalk? That would be hella boring and ruin it for the rest of us.

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

It’s not just “my” problem, believe me. Let’s see how many people with that kind of regulated life are out there and how many have fun with HoT. From my point of view and what I see in my guild … like 80% are no longer doing HoT and about 20% still do it – but they do raids and hardly anything else in HoT.

Ever been to Dry Top lately?

Sardath.8524:

Please just stop labeling yourselves as casuals.
A casual player doesn’t have or doesn’t want to constantly invest time in a game.

You, on the other hand, are bad at the game – not casual. This is the biggest bullkitten I’ve ever seen. What gives you the right to demand a nerf in ANY game? Do you see posts on Fallout 4 demanding to nerf the game? Of course not, because that would be kittened. You know why it would be stupid? Because that’s how it was advertised.

The content was advertised at challenging – they said it is going to be more challenging than anything else in the game, they said that numerous times. Many of us bought the expansion exactly for that, don’t kitten up our experience with your nerf posts.

You can overcome anything with the help of mapchat, guilds, friends, lfg, or even random people in the area. But if something gets nerfed and is too easy for us, we don’t have any options, just facerolling like through the rest of Tyria. There is tankier gear and countless guides – it’s your fault for not TRYING at least to adapt.

I swear to God, this community wants to be spoonfed.

I for one got it because it looked cool, didn’t read or see much about the actual content, just thought it would be fun….

Well I don’t want to be spoon fed, I do want to be able to understand what the kittens is going on and how to get the best from the game.

I am a casual player, will spend 30min maybe an hour two three times a day, so (not so) HoT was a waisted investment for me and I wish I had stayed with GW2 core game.

The issue as I see it is that you (and elite players), and I am guessing here, play Fallout style games and enjoy the hard core play style, now as I understand it GW2 has never been that, but I am getting the impression that is what it will become to apiece people who want that (harder style) gameplay and alienate care bear players like myself, and that’s fine if it no longer floats my boat I will take my cash to another game, no problem.

A point to finish on, elites players by designed and definition are in the minority because if they weren’t then they wouldn’t be elites, so the majority of players are more casual, now, if the developers are creating game play to make the elite, hard core players happy, then they are pandering to the vocal minority and not the silent majority.

Give that some thought…

HtFde.3856:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

HtFde.3856:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

GW2 is an MMO RPG, which stands for Massive MUTPIPLAYER Online RPG.

If you want to do everything solo, go play a solo RPG.

The HoT maps are fine. Either group up or get better at the game.

No, they are not

Getting a group or getting better at a game does not, in any way, help you with the sync-times maps. When you playtime is from 19:00 – 20:30 of your local time and it just happens that DS is 1:20 hours left on the map … you’ve lost. Taxi maps are full and you won’t get DS started with 1:20 left. Grouping? Doesn’t help. Getting better? Doesn’t help. Hey, let the kids rot in school and let wifey rot at her workplace and … yes, THAT helps, now we can enter the map when it has just started and get a taxi ….

HoT has A LOT of bad design choices … (like locked adventures – with a fixed timeframe when you can play you can get VERY unlucky and arrive 10 minutes before nightfall and then you have 10 minutes to get to the adventure and play it maybe once before it is locked again) … none of those have anything to do with how good you are or if you play solo or not. It’s those “well, I can play 6h a day” types that have no issue with that because they can catch multiple cycles per map. For those with 1 – 2 hours gametime and that usually in a fixed window HoT has nothing much to offer and this will show in the coming weeks and months when people will struggle to fill even one map via taxi.

And you’re saying your schedule is so set in stone that you can’t play an hour later?

Even if that’s the case, that is your problem.

Many things in MMOs take a lot of time. It’s the nature of the genre.

I mean what solution would you propose? Turn DS into a 10 minute cakewalk? That would be hella boring and ruin it for the rest of us.

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

It’s not just “my” problem, believe me. Let’s see how many people with that kind of regulated life are out there and how many have fun with HoT. From my point of view and what I see in my guild … like 80% are no longer doing HoT and about 20% still do it – but they do raids and hardly anything else in HoT.

Ever been to Dry Top lately?

That’s funny, because my guild with only adult people is more active than ever since the release of HoT and not nearly everyone is doing raids.

And no, I haven’t been to Dry Top in over a year as I don’t like that map, never have. Why you ask?

HtFde.3856:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

HtFde.3856:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

GW2 is an MMO RPG, which stands for Massive MUTPIPLAYER Online RPG.

If you want to do everything solo, go play a solo RPG.

The HoT maps are fine. Either group up or get better at the game.

No, they are not

Getting a group or getting better at a game does not, in any way, help you with the sync-times maps. When you playtime is from 19:00 – 20:30 of your local time and it just happens that DS is 1:20 hours left on the map … you’ve lost. Taxi maps are full and you won’t get DS started with 1:20 left. Grouping? Doesn’t help. Getting better? Doesn’t help. Hey, let the kids rot in school and let wifey rot at her workplace and … yes, THAT helps, now we can enter the map when it has just started and get a taxi ….

HoT has A LOT of bad design choices … (like locked adventures – with a fixed timeframe when you can play you can get VERY unlucky and arrive 10 minutes before nightfall and then you have 10 minutes to get to the adventure and play it maybe once before it is locked again) … none of those have anything to do with how good you are or if you play solo or not. It’s those “well, I can play 6h a day” types that have no issue with that because they can catch multiple cycles per map. For those with 1 – 2 hours gametime and that usually in a fixed window HoT has nothing much to offer and this will show in the coming weeks and months when people will struggle to fill even one map via taxi.

And you’re saying your schedule is so set in stone that you can’t play an hour later?

Even if that’s the case, that is your problem.

Many things in MMOs take a lot of time. It’s the nature of the genre.

I mean what solution would you propose? Turn DS into a 10 minute cakewalk? That would be hella boring and ruin it for the rest of us.

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

It’s not just “my” problem, believe me. Let’s see how many people with that kind of regulated life are out there and how many have fun with HoT. From my point of view and what I see in my guild … like 80% are no longer doing HoT and about 20% still do it – but they do raids and hardly anything else in HoT.

Ever been to Dry Top lately?

I agree, (no so) HoT was not a good investment for me, if I could, I would ask for a refund and go back to GW2 core and continue having fun without the HoT.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Manasa Devi.7958:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Manasa Devi.7958:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Your air-tight schedule isn’t Anet’s problem and I’m sorry, but I don’t want them to drasticly change the game to pander to people like you cause that would ruin it for the rest of us.

There’s no reason whatsoever to tie map meta progression to the real-life clock. There is in fact every reason not to do so.

Tying it to the clock: automatically and irrevocably lose quite a few players. Not tying it to the clock, like Silverwastes: don’t automatically lose players. Because no one will insist it should run by the clock, except perhaps some OCD people.

Tying it to the real life clock is very convenient actually, as it allows me to plan my limited GW2 time around the events that I want to do. I think thats one of the reasons Anet made it that way. It also ensures that maps fill up and enough people are aware when to do the meta, so that we get enough people on the map to actually do it succesfully.

I think it would be a lot more convenient if I could find a map in any and every state of progress I’d want regardless of at what time I log on. Heck, I’d actually play.

I don’t think that would work for maps with long metas for multiple reasons:

1. Technical limitations: Anet only has limited server space and can’t just roll out new instances of every map every minute.

2. Small player base: GW2’s active playerbase is not that big. The only way to ensure maps fill up is to limit the amount of maps and make them happen at a set time.

3. Waiting: No one likes to wait for an unknown period of time in the hope that a fresh DS map starts hopefully sooner rather than later. With them happening at set times, I know when to log in and check the LFG.

If it wouldn’t work, that’s because everything was designed terribly to begin with. It worked for Silverwastes, they should’ve taken that type of meta-cycling as the template and build upon it, instead of delivering this unwelcoming mess.

The only problems with Silverwastes are the chest farmers and the map-hopping to cash in on breaches and Vinewraths. The cure for map hopping is already in place for HoT with the personal participation level.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

HtFde.3856:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Well said. Also, keep in mind the core game was casual in the extreme. HoT is quite a turnaround where almost all the core events require a group or zerg.

Which is another problem, because your statement is wrong

Most metas require only a small group – you can do Tarir with < 15 people. You can do VB metas with 5 ppl. per outpost. But as soon as you have your tag on people will flock to you and people elsewhere feel alone and they start to taxi people in. That will lead to one overpopulated map (where things just get a lot harder because of the amount of players present) and a lot of maps which do not have enough population.

Their megaserver thing isn’t really working in the areas where it matters. The way things are people overcrowd maps in the new zones and SW in 1 or 2 maps and leave like 10 maps empty. Not very encouraging for players stranded on the empty maps.

You know everything you just said flies in the face of a ‘casual’ player, right? While I’m not a mathmatician, saying something doesn’t require a group or zerg, and then saying you only need 5 people (group size) or fifteen people (a minor zerg), to do certain events, makes no sense at all.

Maybe you should clarify your comment.

(a) Do I claim to be a casual player? Unfortunately it is my job in RL to “take a look at things from different perspectives” and therefore I’m not one of those “Works for me – must work for anyone else then” kind of guys. In fact – I’m being paid for spotting things where developer and end-user perspectives are, to put it mildly, not overlapping.

(b) Events scale and produce elites and champs when too many people are around. Many events are actually VERY easy when you do not have too many players on the map. Tarir usually only needs many players on south to get as much knockback skills as you can – the other gates can easily be done with 3 players if you can’t get more.

The problem is that people love to taxi in other players till the map is full. This WILL create zergs (15 players isn’t a zerg in my opinion). Said zergs will upscale the events. Not so experienced players will mistake this for being the normal difficulty and will – next time they do this – try for a full map again.

The problem (if you want to call it that) is that all maps can be done with small sized parties BUT they must coordinate. Who goes where and does which event chain, etc. And that, alas, is NOT casual playstyle. And so we get those “way too big as needed” groups in one map and a lot of frustrated players on the “harvested for taxi” maps.

Not many players like to lead – most seem to be content to follow a tag. And if no tag is present they feel lost. This is not such a big problem outside of HoT (except maybe Orr) but in HoT it becomes an issue. This issue might resolve itself once players are more familiar and don’t think they need 60+ players to go for Tarir but it might also be that players leave those areas because they are frustrated.

ANet has done a pretty smart move with creating the mentor tag which allows for people taking the lead without the upfront cost of 300 gold (or 100 gold back in the old days but then it was for only one character). Unfortunately most mentors I see fire up their tags in HoT not to lead but to get help with personal things like a HP they cannot do themselves, etc. I hope that this changes and that more mentors take control of the battlefields to lead people to and through the metas.

Klangy.8293:

Turn on my tag and start do prequests. Asking people to taxi people and then we hade full map, and event was done.

That’s terrific for you.

But again, this is not the experience of a lot of people. It usually isn’t this simple for me. Playing HoT involves a lot of waiting around, map hopping that gets old after awhile, repeated attempts to organize, taxi, and succeed at metas that keep failing despite very valiant efforts to succeed, repeated explaining of how a meta works and getting chat suppressed halfway through the explanations, maps that empty out mid-meta because everything doesn’t go perfectly in the first 10 minutes…

I could go on.

And from what I’m reading in the forums and reading and hearing from players in-game, my experience is by no means extraordinary.

HtFde.3856:

(a) Do I claim to be a casual player? Unfortunately it is my job in RL to “take a look at things from different perspectives” and therefore I’m not one of those “Works for me – must work for anyone else then” kind of guys. In fact – I’m being paid for spotting things where developer and end-user perspectives are, to put it mildly, not overlapping.

(b) Events scale and produce elites and champs when too many people are around. Many events are actually VERY easy when you do not have too many players on the map. Tarir usually only needs many players on south to get as much knockback skills as you can – the other gates can easily be done with 3 players if you can’t get more.

The problem is that people love to taxi in other players till the map is full. This WILL create zergs (15 players isn’t a zerg in my opinion). Said zergs will upscale the events. Not so experienced players will mistake this for being the normal difficulty and will – next time they do this – try for a full map again.

The problem (if you want to call it that) is that all maps can be done with small sized parties BUT they must coordinate. Who goes where and does which event chain, etc. And that, alas, is NOT casual playstyle. And so we get those “way too big as needed” groups in one map and a lot of frustrated players on the “harvested for taxi” maps.

Not many players like to lead – most seem to be content to follow a tag. And if no tag is present they feel lost. This is not such a big problem outside of HoT (except maybe Orr) but in HoT it becomes an issue. This issue might resolve itself once players are more familiar and don’t think they need 60+ players to go for Tarir but it might also be that players leave those areas because they are frustrated.

ANet has done a pretty smart move with creating the mentor tag which allows for people taking the lead without the upfront cost of 300 gold (or 100 gold back in the old days but then it was for only one character). Unfortunately most mentors I see fire up their tags in HoT not to lead but to get help with personal things like a HP they cannot do themselves, etc. I hope that this changes and that more mentors take control of the battlefields to lead people to and through the metas.

What does any of that have to do with the actual topic being discussed?

LucosTheDutch.4819:

2. Small player base: GW2’s active playerbase is not that big. The only way to ensure maps fill up is to limit the amount of maps and make them happen at a set time.

Beep – logical error – beep

If you do not have enoughe players it does not make sense to start 3 big maps and their metas at the same time! It would make more sense to put a time shift of, say, 30 minutes or 60 minutes, between instances. As things are yu have like 1 or 2 full DS maps and the way it seems to me 5 or more empty ones. And they WILL remain empty once 1:15 or less is left on the map because noone will start DS with just about an hour to go.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

3. Waiting: No one likes to wait for an unknown period of time in the hope that a fresh DS map starts hopefully sooner rather than later. With them happening at set times, I know when to log in and check the LFG.

Next logical error from a “works for me” perspective.

Phone call, you come 10 minutes too late – all taxis closed, maps full … now you wait for 1:45 hours for your next attempt. Great design, indeed.

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Jep. ‘Casual’ and ‘antisocial’ also seem to get mixed up quite often.

Let’s say, hypothetically, I work in the military and have a family. From Monday to Friday, I work a full eight hours or more. When I get home, with the little time I have, I must take care of my family. And when that is done, I want to unwind and relax before bed by playing the game.

This is a casual. For the two or less hours a day, the casual doesn’t have the time to run with a group for two or more hours to complete a meta to gain access to a point-of-interest or hero point on a map that is otherwise gated and impossible to attain.

If that’s ‘antisocial’, we can then assume the ‘social’ players are no job having scrubs who still live in Mommy’s basement with all the time in the world . . . if we use your logic.

Let’s not go there please.

It sounds like you object to finding that your money spent on HoT went exclusively to content for only about10% of the player base.

You are not alone in that perspective.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

HtFde.3856:

(a) Do I claim to be a casual player? Unfortunately it is my job in RL to “take a look at things from different perspectives” and therefore I’m not one of those “Works for me – must work for anyone else then” kind of guys. In fact – I’m being paid for spotting things where developer and end-user perspectives are, to put it mildly, not overlapping.

(b) Events scale and produce elites and champs when too many people are around. Many events are actually VERY easy when you do not have too many players on the map. Tarir usually only needs many players on south to get as much knockback skills as you can – the other gates can easily be done with 3 players if you can’t get more.

The problem is that people love to taxi in other players till the map is full. This WILL create zergs (15 players isn’t a zerg in my opinion). Said zergs will upscale the events. Not so experienced players will mistake this for being the normal difficulty and will – next time they do this – try for a full map again.

The problem (if you want to call it that) is that all maps can be done with small sized parties BUT they must coordinate. Who goes where and does which event chain, etc. And that, alas, is NOT casual playstyle. And so we get those “way too big as needed” groups in one map and a lot of frustrated players on the “harvested for taxi” maps.

Not many players like to lead – most seem to be content to follow a tag. And if no tag is present they feel lost. This is not such a big problem outside of HoT (except maybe Orr) but in HoT it becomes an issue. This issue might resolve itself once players are more familiar and don’t think they need 60+ players to go for Tarir but it might also be that players leave those areas because they are frustrated.

ANet has done a pretty smart move with creating the mentor tag which allows for people taking the lead without the upfront cost of 300 gold (or 100 gold back in the old days but then it was for only one character). Unfortunately most mentors I see fire up their tags in HoT not to lead but to get help with personal things like a HP they cannot do themselves, etc. I hope that this changes and that more mentors take control of the battlefields to lead people to and through the metas.

What does any of that have to do with the actual topic being discussed?

I shall type for you very slowly … maybe it helps …

HoT = not much fun for casuals because needs either (a) lots of people following tags (which you only get on a few maps while leaving a lot of maps underpopulated and “uncommanded”) or (b) highly organized small groups which is not “casual” playstyle.

Add time gated and time-synchronized maps (events, adventures, etc.) and if you come 10 minutes too late, your taxi is gone and you can just log off for the next 1 to 2 hours because you will not make any progress in HoT.

VB offers some activity you can do (defending a camp at nighttime, escorting soldiers) but AB, TD and DS offer very little to nothing for players on empty maps – whereas on full maps you go where your tags go or you’re facing the same problems as someone on an empty map. Play as you like, indeed …

This is the topic being discussed:

tym.3791:

So I finally went into the new expansion. This Map is WAY to hard core for me, as a casual player. Every Hero Point is a freaking champ? Really The whole thing is simply confusing, and its hard to find anything.

So its impossible to really wonder around alone, no way you can snag allot of the Hero Points alone, and good luck finding allot of them.

In my humble opinion, the whole expansion needs one serious nerf. Leave the hero points at 10 points, turn them into vets, calm down all the freaking mobs, let us casual players enjoy the game, and do so alone. No fun if you have to spend all your time running for your life, instead of enjoying the game, exploring the map, and checking out the fun stuff.

Please keep your ‘RL’ resume, and your condescending comments, to yourself as they are not appreciated and discuss the actual topic.

Thank you.

Its 2.1 pages of posts in 8 hrs your in the minority here. Stop saying 90% please

Tumult.2578:

It sounds like you object to finding that your money spent on HoT went exclusively to content for only about10% of the player base.

You are not alone in that perspective.

Yes everybody should be able to explore all aspects of the game, doesn’t matter if your casual, rubbish etc.

There should be difficulty levels, with reduced awards of course, more rewards as you go up the levels.

This would reduce the elitism to some extent, “You can’t do this at our level” is not quite so bad as “You’re not ever going to get to do this”.

Remember ArenaNet we all payed full price for this content, not paid so we could be excluded from a big part of it.

Solid Gold.9310:

Yes everybody should be able to explore all aspects of the game, doesn’t matter if your casual, rubbish etc.

There should be difficulty levels, with reduced awards of course, more rewards as you go up the levels.

This would reduce the elitism to some extent, “You can’t do this at our level” is not quite so bad as “You’re not ever going to get to do this”.

Remember ArenaNet we all payed full price for this content, not paid so we could be excluded from a big part of it.

Bang. That’s all the playerbase is asking. Well said.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Solid Gold.9310:

Yes everybody should be able to explore all aspects of the game, doesn’t matter if your casual, rubbish etc.

There should be difficulty levels, with reduced awards of course, more rewards as you go up the levels.

This would reduce the elitism to some extent, “You can’t do this at our level” is not quite so bad as “You’re not ever going to get to do this”.

Remember ArenaNet we all payed full price for this content, not paid so we could be excluded from a big part of it.

Bang. That’s all the playerbase is asking. Well said.

Put your tin hat on, we could have some incoming ! (Flames that is from the l33t).

tym.3791:

So I finally went into the new expansion. This Map is WAY to hard core for me, as a casual player. Every Hero Point is a freaking champ? Really The whole thing is simply confusing, and its hard to find anything.

So its impossible to really wonder around alone, no way you can snag allot of the Hero Points alone, and good luck finding allot of them.

In my humble opinion, the whole expansion needs one serious nerf. Leave the hero points at 10 points, turn them into vets, calm down all the freaking mobs, let us casual players enjoy the game, and do so alone. No fun if you have to spend all your time running for your life, instead of enjoying the game, exploring the map, and checking out the fun stuff.

Please no.

There are enough autopilot maps in this game already. The fact you only know how to play in autopilot doesnt mean that’s the only way of playing.

The maps are great as they are now.

I agree with the OP to an extent – If you’re solo on an empty map, some of those hero challenges are kitten -near impossible… Like the one in the bottom left of the first HOT zone… Champ with adds after you touch his box… IF you kill it, it only sometimes give you credit and that’s a BIG IF… It’s really hard-to-kitten -near impossible to solo – even with a huge entourage of reaver pets.

BUT… if you’re on a non-empty map, you can call out in /m “need help at <link WP>” and people usually come. I did that for 2 toons at that stupid challenge (for which I didn’t end up getting credit, but people came to help! <3 )

Honestly, this whole expansion was designed to compete with games GW2 doesn’t need to compete with… it WAS different from those games and that’s why a lot of us came here. Now, it competes for most stupid, guild-centered grindfest like many others. It won’t win that competition, but I’d prefer it not even be there!