Guild Wars 2

I want to affirm I love this expansion. However, I’m encountering something which seems to be an issue for most people. There is a real inconsistency in how to get experience for these Masteries.

I’ll try to explain some this as I go a long.

Issue 1: Time of Day
(Unfriendly game design for people who have school/work)
Logging in at the wrong time of day is a sure way to mean the only experience I get towards masteries is going to be from creatures I kill and the odd off event.

Issue 2: Not Enough People
(Megaservers still putting a lot of us on low population maps)
Frequently when I do see the very rare commander tag come onto the map I reach them only to discover we haven’t enough people there to do anything.

Issue 3: No Real Option Out – Absence of Camps
(Absence of Five to Ten person camps: fixed and reliable locations for experience gain)
While I am completely against the idea of moving this expansion toward a largely solo experience Issue 1 and Issue 2 leads directly to this third issue ~ There needs to be some reliable camps to sit at and generate experience besides gigantic made for blobs/zergs events. We need some 5 or 10 person camps we can rely upon.

Issue 4: Standing Around Hoping
(Loosing events / not being able to do events because of client issues)
I’ve noticed most of my Heart of Thorns experience has been grouping. Not full groups, but at least one other person. I like this a lot. Unfortunately, when it comes to events (where most of the experience is at) … Issues 1 through 3 means I am standing around A LOT waiting for enough people to get onto the map that we can do something, then the game crashes (which is happening a lot too).

Issue 5: Client Crashes
(Client crashes often and bugs)
I gave up on personal story because I would crash on the cutscenes. It was bad enough my Guild started using teleport to friends to get around the personal story JUST SO WE COULD PLAY Heart of Thorns.
Please, please, please, never ever make accessing an expansion or any other map content gated by Personal Story ever again. This is beyond frustrating.
The game really seems to like to bug during events so this has the bonus impact of eliminating those of us players that are trying to do events (which would be just about everyone right now).

Issue 6: Issues 1 through 5 In Variation Together
(It’s really hard to organize or plan much right now because of these)
Just about the time we get a map ready to go a chunk of the players are lost from something above: either because of the client itself or having exhausted their patience on it.
This issue extends to doing events again as well. Once we have trained up the people we need to do these events we switch maps, randomly, and loose all of those people we just got ready and able.

Agreed.

They have put so many gates on things that something will trip you up and become a ‘grind’. For me atm it’s the EXP/MASTERY Bar. I have 8 Masteries of which four have been activated, but getting the fifth is gated by experience. Thing is getting Exp within HoT maps just isn’t much fun, so the chances of small groups forming is very low.

The drawbridge has been pulled up and casual players are stuffed. I suspect that peeps unlocked their masteries etc then went elsewhere to farm experience.

This weekend HoT has not been worth playing, Halloween has been much more enjoyable.

The EXP gained from killing mobs on HoT Maps just doesn’t scale with the difficulty involved in killing them – unless you’re in a Zerg when really you’re farming the Event Exp.

You log in, see all the contested WPs and logout —> Empty VB Maps.

The developers didn’t learn anything at all from pre-nerf Orr*. So you just have to wait till the penny drops.

*In pre-nerf Orr your experience was measured against your level bar, so the pain was not as high. In HoT it’s measured against you exponential Mastery Exp Gate Bar. At which point you go ‘stuff-it’. What’s the point of playing in HoT for all the ‘goodies’ when everything is going be gated by exponential Exp requirements?

Eirdyne.9843:

SNIPPED

Issue 5: Client Crashes
(Client crashes often and bugs)
I gave up on personal story because I would crash on the cutscenes. It was bad enough my Guild started using teleport to friends to get around the personal story JUST SO WE COULD PLAY Heart of Thorns.
Please, please, please, never ever make accessing an expansion or any other map content gated by Personal Story ever again. This is beyond frustrating.
The game really seems to like to bug during events so this has the bonus impact of eliminating those of us players that are trying to do events (which would be just about everyone right now).
SNIPPED

I haven’t experienced any crashing issues but my ranger friend I normally duo with crashes frequently. We have both also seen issues with map population.

However, I really just posted to say there are no maps nor events gated behind personal story. You do not even have to start the personal story to get into any of the zones. I’ve personally confirmed you can go from SW->VB->AB->TD->DS without a single step being done on the personal story quest.

As for empty maps I suggest checking LFG. Most of the time, even on off hours, people are taxing into maps.

Not a perfect solution but until things level out it is better than nothing.

You can also do adventures. Find a few that you can easily get silver or gold in and do those on a daily basis.

lol I think the bulk of my experience gain is strictly from killing enemies. If I’m on a non-meta map ( which is often since I’m getting a lot of crashes since HoT ), I’ll pop some boosters, food, utility and start the rampage. Most of the time I’m netting more experience than had I participated in an event since, a lot of people skip trash which gives bonus exp. the longer they’re alive.