Guild Wars 2

First let me say that I absolutely loved the original GW2. One could get lost exploring the map and by crafting, doing area quests, or events. I still think it’s amazing.

In HoT, I find myself running circles around a very empty Verdant Brink looking for events to do. Where are all the people? I just want to try and finish mastery tracks so I can ultimately gain access to other parts of the map. I feel like I have to keep grinding VB over and over and I can’t even do that when there’s nobody around. I even popped an XP booster the other day and it mostly went to waste.

Super frustrating and unfortunate. I am on Yak’s Bend, which is supposed to be a high-population server.

At least in the old game I could do area quests or go to other zones if nobody was around. But in HoT the content is gated . And the constant “invasions” that happen at the waypoints feel very timed and artificial like the ones in Tabula Rasa (if anyone remembers that game). You don’t stand a chance alone.

I love the work that the devs put into this expansion and it’s a gorgeous surrounding, but I wish it allowed me to explore, at the very least.

A lot of people have reported this issue already, which is partly why they have lowered some champs to veterans at HPs to quieten down the complaints.

The problem is that most people have now moved on from the first map and it’s getting harder to do events – as time goes on, masteries will get harder and harder to unlock. Add that to the few running around with 40+ mastery due to exploits and it’s all a bit of a mess.

If your not good at remembering maps (as stopping to take a good look with M usually means a mob spawns and kills you), not good at puzzles, or not good at flying or not good at vertical maps and figuring out where the hell to go, then the 4 new maps are an exercise in frustration.

The gating will become worse and worse, new players entering VB in 6 months time won’t like it at all, trying to run between contested wp and having to run clear across the map if they fall too far, etc. Add that to having to kill mobs to get exp or try and complete events on your own, and it’s not going to be much fun.

Separating the mastery exp bars between areas was a marketing ploy to force players in to the jungle maps, but it’s not going to make for a happy experience for those late starters.

There was (is) a bug that is affecting how many people appear on the same map in the new zones. As that gets fixed/adjusted properly, there will be plenty of people (even last night, it was a lot better than at launch).

I feel you OP. I was really hoping to see Hearts again, and the occasional story driven dynamic event. From what I’ve played so far, all the maps besides Auric Basin just feel like Silverwastes 2.0, or Drytop 3.0. Just constant dynamic events on a time table. I don’t mind the grind for masteries, that’s how you master something after all; you grind away at it til you see progress, but just running dynamic events over and over and over is just so exhausting.

At the rate HoT is going, it’ll return to a “Rush the story, leave the game alone for awhile, wait for next living story.” The same spot vanilla was in before, that made their player base drop so much.

I really dislike rushing through content because I like to play at my own pace and enjoy the game and scenery, but I’m worried if I don’t rush my chars through, I won’t be able to complete the maps when people are already leaving the Verdant Brink. Next week? Next month? Who will be around to do DEs and HPs?

I would imagine, since the maps are very event centric, you will start to see what you saw with the Silverwastes- people getting groups into maps with people and then taxiing more in through LFG, so the people doing all that stuff will be able to group up more easily.

Again I find myself giving up and just logging off after trying to find people doing events

How fun.

Pzar.7361:

Again I find myself giving up and just logging off after trying to find people doing events

How fun.

already given up on events in the new maps, no one doing them except a very small number of specific events. Maps are hard to navigate, too large so the players that are there are too spread out.

Eye candy design. It looks nice, but does not play well.

The maps dont need to be so big, they are very pretty but have vast areas of unused space thats seams just there to stoke the egos of the devs in making pretty things, not actually playable content.

I was feeling exactly same, wondering around the empty maps, looking at events full of veteran mobs that each one-shot me and trying to reach hero points only to be greeted with another silly mastery requiements. That was very frustrating and unlocking first couple of masteries took forever. I found it less fun and started to stay in old Tyria more and more.

Then, after elite points gor reduced to 250 and I only needed few more to complete my elite specs, I went back to HoT maps. To my surprise, I found very active comm yesterday on Verdant Brink (there was actually several comms on the map) and I was sticking to him like glue for nearly an hour. We finished the day events and night events and did a lot of events in general. I managed to level up another mastery and my inventory was full of bags and chests.

It was great fun.

Today I was exploring next map, Auric Basin, found another comm and spent long time following him around, doing long event chains until the clearing of Forgotten City Tarir. There was again good number of events to follow. I only wish I would have mastery to buy keys so I could open all the chests in forgotten town (must have been hundred grand, huge and enormours chests there). The map was even more organized, with 4 comms chatting and sending people to help each other between waypoints.

So, I have had some really bad times in HoT maps and I have enjoyed it too. My thoughts:

• The maps are horrible to solo. Never, ever, try to do any events in those maps without 2-4 commanders. If there is none, wait or leave.

• You need following masteries to do ANYTHING. I wish Anet would unlock these by default so people dont fall into even deeper despair for not being able to go anywhere: gliding 1 and 2, jumping mushrooms.

• I have not had much problems with hero challenges so far. The ones I got were either soloable or there was already people nearby. I saw even 1 comm doing all hero points one by one, walking slowly from one map to next.

• With gliding and mushroom jumping you can actually explore large parts of the maps on your own. Look around, jump off the cliffs, glide, fall, die, try again. Again, avoid the events without larger group, they take too long and give no real xp in return. Dont try to finish map completion when comms are doing large event chains.

• The maps become more interesting and you will become stronger once you unlock new stuff. It just takes VERY LONG TIME. Be patient. Yep, at first, they suck bad. You cant do anything and cant go anywhere.

• You will die A LOT. You will fall and die. Mobs spawn at your feet and kill you. Or you fall and die. You will be hit by invisible conditions out of nowehere, losing 5k HP per second. Did I mention falling? Lots of falling to death. All that is perfectly normal.

I have three frustrations that result in the game not playing well:-

[A] The Map System

Whereas fine for core maps with HoT it is frustrating to use. A map is a means to indicate how you get from A to B, clearly the HoT zones were designed to make this difficult so why have a map at all? And yet you can’t play without the map system as it is used to indicate the location of HPs etc which otherwise would be completely missed unless stumbled on (not very likely with many of these points).

The mini map is of course completely worthless so it’s full screen map.

A Selectable Homing System would have been better.

[B] Baggage

The blue/green loot flows freely to such an extent that your bags fill up very fast. This means a lot of your time is spent clearing space in your bags – every one to two hours in my case. I have actual reached the point where I will avoid an event because I can’t be kittened with the baggage. Baggage alone makes events less enjoyable.

Dealing with baggage of course blanks out most the screen.

I would estimate that approximately 30% of my time in these ‘beautifully designed’ zones is spent on A & B with the graphics effectively blanked out. I am sure that without A & B the HoT experience would be far more immersive and consequently more enjoyable.

© Xp Gained.

Seems way too low. I am well ahead on HPs, PS etc but I am held back by slow moving Xp Bar. The only alternative seems to be to mindless tag along with zergs which I am not going to do just to creep the Xp bar – this is not enjoyable and I consider grindy.

PS: I also don’t like the way my elite weapon pings off when I jump back to WvW/PvP or core maps. Again more routing around in bags to kitten find it the moment you pop back to HoT – that is if you remember!

Empty maps here today and yesterday. I moved from verdant brink which I can explore mostly solo to the next map; Auric Basin and not a soul about both days.

I am finding I just cant do what I need to do with no one else on the map.

I went to tangled depths and I saw one person. That was nice.

It has took me the better part of the last three days to make some minor progress in Verdant Brink.

There are still two bosses up in the canopy that I can’t seem to get help with because the population of the map would rather do a more favorable rotation in the time available.

Help requests were met with a variety of responses ranging from none at all to sarcastic hostility.

On two occasions I got DCed from the game only to return to a new map at different stages of progression and population numbers. On several other occasions I was prompted to move to a more populated map which ended up being a bit of a gamble. Sometimes this would put me into another map with a different focus, other times I didn’t take the bait, and the map filled up again, or I achieved nothing of note.

There were zero groups in the LFG that were seeking anything that I required. I could have started my own, but I elected not to bother with that due to the frequency of DCing and prompts to leave the map for another.

Ultimately I will end up accomplishing what I need to get done, but I think it will be from luck, perseverance, and attrition rather than natural or normal game play.

This thread is six months old and the old concerns about drastically slower and frustrating progression in HoT appears to be quite justified.

I am not angry or upset by it, just resigned to the unfortunate fact that I don’t chase the content with all the other locusts at launch and now have to work much harder at it than I would like.

My counter thoughts:

FogLeg.9354:

• The maps are horrible to solo. Never, ever, try to do any events in those maps without 2-4 commanders. If there is none, wait or leave.

Naw, they’re fine to solo. I run about by myself all the time, finishing events here and there and occasionally coming across other players doing the same. Some events will require cooperation but for the most part you’re able to do a great deal by yourself, more than you might think.

FogLeg.9354:

• You need following masteries to do ANYTHING. I wish Anet would unlock these by default so people dont fall into even deeper despair for not being able to go anywhere: gliding 1 and 2, jumping mushrooms.

Indeed. People will tell you that you only need a few basic masteries, but I say get ‘em all. You’ll find the jungle becomes a piece of cake. They take time and effort, but it’s worth it. You gain a lot of abilities and they feel well earned.

FogLeg.9354:

• I have not had much problems with hero challenges so far. The ones I got were either soloable or there was already people nearby. I saw even 1 comm doing all hero points one by one, walking slowly from one map to next.

Same. The jungle provides.

FogLeg.9354:

• With gliding and mushroom jumping you can actually explore large parts of the maps on your own. Look around, jump off the cliffs, glide, fall, die, try again. Again, avoid the events without larger group, they take too long and give no real xp in return. Dont try to finish map completion when comms are doing large event chains.

Doing events solo or with a small group is fine. And you can do map completion as you participate in large event chains. Grab a poi or vista as you pass by.

FogLeg.9354:

• The maps become more interesting and you will become stronger once you unlock new stuff. It just takes VERY LONG TIME. Be patient. Yep, at first, they suck bad. You cant do anything and cant go anywhere.

Agree. It feels so good as you progress your masteries and gain new abilities to go new places.

FogLeg.9354:

• You will die A LOT. You will fall and die. Mobs spawn at your feet and kill you. Or you fall and die. You will be hit by invisible conditions out of nowehere, losing 5k HP per second. Did I mention falling? Lots of falling to death. All that is perfectly normal.

:) Well said.

People, stop necroing 6 month old thread.

There’s a new LFG section for HoT maps in place since this thread is first made. Go look for VB/AB meta there if you need a populated map. Most of the time there is a VB meta map. If you need a canopy boss, find a T4 Night VB map, as to get T4 you ilkely need to kill all Canopy bosses. I find maps aiming for T4 every day around 13:00 GMT. EVen if they dont reach T4, most of the time they killed all 5 bosses.

ABis even easier with the chest farming going over there. you can find like 6 active AB map in a day.

LFG is empty apart from a few random people asking help with a specific hero point and the meta event lfgs. If you want to do the event chains (Like I do, for currency and missing acchis) and not the meta it’s nearly impossible to find a populated map. Not to mention that more often that not I don’t have the time to wait for the meta to start, I would like to jump on the map and do events. Usually there are no people, and the few people there are scattered across many maps. Some of the events are soloable, but many are simply not.

Just the other day friend wanted to do a specific event he was missing in TD and we found 3 maps with 1 commander or mentor each and less than 10 people running around. Why are those people not on the same map to begin with? Another day I was in VB and every time I would find a few people to do events with I got the map closing pop up, only to be transferred to a map that’s just as empty.

I guess most people finished their collection and have no reason to join unless it’s the meta, so there just aren’t enough people no matter what time it is.

There are better times and worse times for events. For VB, if you want to do a specific outpost, it’s much easier to get people doing it right after a night meta. Especially on a meta map, where you have lots of people with nothing to do after night bosses. Asking around in mapchat at that moment will likely get some people willing to join.

For AB it’s also after Chest farm which is the good time to ask people to do events. TD is the weird one as the pre-meta event timer is too long.