Guild Wars 2

The first part of this post will have no spoilers. I will not explain what happens in the story. Only the last paragraph contains something some players would maybe see as a spoiler. That paragraph starts after my rambling about this being a story step or I wouldn’t bother with retrying

There are (at least) two story steps for HoT that suffer from bad design. The kind of bad design I see for over a year now from ArenaNet. Those two are Prized Possessions and Hearts and Minds. Hidden Arcana (Living World season 2) is another example.

The problem with these story steps is that they have at least one mechanism that punish you for failing without the option to learn from what you did wrong. On top of that they have many bugs (at least Hidden Arcana and Hearts and Minds). So it is difficult to know if you hit a bug or simply didn’t get what to do.

Even without all the bugs it is really frustrated to have mechanisms in the game that if you don’t get it the first time there is no way of finding out how to do it. You just fail over and over again. It has nothing to do with learning to play, if you do not see in a few seconds what to do next you are death and have no way of finding out. And you have to restart, do the same part again and hope you catch what to do the second time. Or die in 5 seconds and still have no clue what to do. I really hate this kind of designing. If it wasn’t the story I would not have bothered to try again.

I finished the last part of Prized Possessions (after 6 fails) by looking at Dulfy what to do. That helped and made it easy. The time pressure made it impossible for me to see where I had to go. And after you fail you cannot see that. Really frustrated.
I will finish Hearts and Minds by letting somebody else do it. Maybe if I see what I have to do in-game I can do it myself next time. Looking it up at Youtube didn’t help. Because I did the right thing it seems (the one time that instance didn’t bugged!).

Good post. I wholeheartedly agree. Though I did beat Prized Possessions without help, it was an unnecessarily frustrating process. I tried Hearts and Minds a couple of times and decided to wait for bug fixes, because it’s just not worth it to me.

Vayne.8563:

Good post. I wholeheartedly agree. Though I did beat Prized Possessions without help, it was an unnecessarily frustrating process. I tried Hearts and Minds a couple of times and decided to wait for bug fixes, because it’s just not worth it to me.

Given the age of this content do you really think Anet will ever bother trying to fix it?

Last fight of Hearts and Minds? Yeah, I beat my head on that no-tell thing until I managed to find the trigger point.

[Possible spoiler below]

When it says get behind the shield or take to the skies, stay with your NPC party. Someone will set up a tiny bubble shield to stand in. Probably bugged, but it won’t protect you. What it does is sets up a Launch command that sends you airborne. You’ll need updraft mastery to pull this off effectively, but you can sail around until the phase ends.
Or possibly have leyline mastery, which I didn’t have at the time.

I must not have had issues with Prized Possessions, else I’d remember being spitting mad with it. Hope the above helps, though.

Kraggy.4169:

Vayne.8563:

Good post. I wholeheartedly agree. Though I did beat Prized Possessions without help, it was an unnecessarily frustrating process. I tried Hearts and Minds a couple of times and decided to wait for bug fixes, because it’s just not worth it to me.

Given the age of this content do you really think Anet will ever bother trying to fix it?

Prized Possessions and Heart and Mind are new story chapters in HoT.

And that’s what makes this very sad – that new content got tested so little and that glaring flaws and bugs have yet to be fixed.

I too had issues with Hearts and Minds simply because it wasn’t clear what I was supposed to do – the updrafts were barely visible and the NPCs just said “take cover or go airborne” – I had no idea how to do it because the game just dropped the updrafts then without telling me about it.

Since they’re so poorly visible and weren’t there before I had no idea what I had to do nor what I needed to look for – I had to youtube a fight and see what others did in order to succeed.

I think this is something of a problem in a few areas in the game and it stems back to them just being lazy (for lack of a better term) with any dialogue or any type of tutorial or help type systems.

It’s not uncommon that I’m completely lost during Dynamic Events, either, because it takes entirely too long to figure out on your own what to do based on the descriptions provided in-game.

Another example was how completely, astonishingly overwhelmed I felt recently when I started leveling a new Revenant and first unlocked traits. There’s not even so much as a short summary or description of what the purpose of each traitline was. I felt the need to immediately exit the game and do a lot of web research before spending any more hero points, which is ridiculous. I wasn’t one of the negative nancies of the trait/skill updates from a while back, but after using it for a while my opinion is growing that it’s an inferior system to what we had originally.

I feel like this is common in MMOs or any group “early” in a game’s design. (Three years is still toddler for an MMO, honestly.)

They want to have puzzle fights and ‘tricky’ mechanics, so they don’t convey them as they should. That kind of information distribution didn’t really take root in WoW until Cataclysm, and before that, high end players would use mods to predict boss strategies.

Knowing that kind of information was desirable, WoW started integrating better tells into encounter design. We’re starting to see ANet learn that lesson faster. Ish. The more channels you output information, the more likely a player can pick up on them.

Small example: A visual-only cue on the bladedancer stun-murder attack. There’s almost no amount of camera work that will help me see that past a max-sized Charr warrior. Add a grunt or hiss during the windup, and I have another cue to spur a reaction, and it’s suddenly not some “no-tell instant hit,” but something I know is coming even though my character blocks the visual.

When it comes to Hearts and Minds, the tell is only partially effective, because it assumes a choice where there is little. I tried to hop off the side of the stage, only to get stopped by invisible walls in places that looked open. I can only assume the leyline visual is for those who have unlocked gliding that far, but “take to the skies” is too vague.
Extra note, standing behind the shield that protects the party really ought to work for me, too. :\ I appreciate the Launch command, but it’s not thematically appropriate.

My issue itch hearts and minds is different.

The challenge mote suggests a party of 5, but how are you supposed to get 5 ppl in your party when there is no WP and the only way people can one help is to finish the previous story mission?

Rauderi.8706:

I feel like this is common in MMOs or any group “early” in a game’s design. (Three years is still toddler for an MMO, honestly.)

They want to have puzzle fights and ‘tricky’ mechanics, so they don’t convey them as they should. That kind of information distribution didn’t really take root in WoW until Cataclysm, and before that, high end players would use mods to predict boss strategies.

Knowing that kind of information was desirable, WoW started integrating better tells into encounter design. We’re starting to see ANet learn that lesson faster. Ish. The more channels you output information, the more likely a player can pick up on them.

Small example: A visual-only cue on the bladedancer stun-murder attack. There’s almost no amount of camera work that will help me see that past a max-sized Charr warrior. Add a grunt or hiss during the windup, and I have another cue to spur a reaction, and it’s suddenly not some “no-tell instant hit,” but something I know is coming even though my character blocks the visual.

When it comes to Hearts and Minds, the tell is only partially effective, because it assumes a choice where there is little. I tried to hop off the side of the stage, only to get stopped by invisible walls in places that looked open. I can only assume the leyline visual is for those who have unlocked gliding that far, but “take to the skies” is too vague.
Extra note, standing behind the shield that protects the party really ought to work for me, too. :\ I appreciate the Launch command, but it’s not thematically appropriate.

Exactly – I too tried to fling myself off the arena without success – and after a while I actually found a spot where you could jump off it and promptly died. It was after this that I gave up and searched youtube for a solution.

Also on boss visibility – either they manage to reduce particle effects and make things nice and clear( which most likely they won’t be able to) for raids or cast bars should be brought back.

I should not have to guess what the boss is up to simply because the game is so poor in showing me the information that it obliterates my progress.

nekretaal.6485:

My issue itch hearts and minds is different.

The challenge mote suggests a party of 5, but how are you supposed to get 5 ppl in your party when there is no WP and the only way people can one help is to finish the previous story mission?

How’s any of this an issue? You WP to DS and talk to the NPC to enter the lobby area for the last mission. There are plenty of people that have beaten the story but not done that achievement. You just have to post a LFG for it.

Ayrilana.1396:

nekretaal.6485:

My issue itch hearts and minds is different.

The challenge mote suggests a party of 5, but how are you supposed to get 5 ppl in your party when there is no WP and the only way people can one help is to finish the previous story mission?

How’s any of this an issue? You WP to DS and talk to the NPC to enter the lobby area for the last mission. There are plenty of people that have beaten the story but not done that achievement. You just have to post a LFG for it.

My experience there (after finishing solo, oddly enough) was in the story instance, and no less than two groups tried to wrangle me in with invites. Unsolicited, so I ignored them, but still, there was some eager grouping up going on.

Hopefully LFG will be better luck for you, Nek.

I must agree. What I sadly find so frustrating is, I can’t remember the Story Line its so bad.
I know I’m to follow, I can’t get past the cave where the very thing you are being led away from shows up and keeps killing you with one breath of poison, this is not fun nor enjoyable. I guess this is a off shoot of of Heart of Thorns ;(

Harper.4173:

And that’s what makes this very sad – that new content got tested so little and that glaring flaws and bugs have yet to be fixed.

I too had issues with Hearts and Minds simply because it wasn’t clear what I was supposed to do – the updrafts were barely visible and the NPCs just said “take cover or go airborne” – I had no idea how to do it because the game just dropped the updrafts then without telling me about it.

Since they’re so poorly visible and weren’t there before I had no idea what I had to do nor what I needed to look for – I had to youtube a fight and see what others did in order to succeed.

Yep I was the same, I couldn’t actually see the updrafts and once I found out what to do it kept bugging out on me, and the frustration is tripled by rezzing back to the start of the fight or leaving the instance and having to do the entire quest again unlike most quests in HOT or LS2. I refuse to do it now until I see changes made.