There are certain exercises that expose weaknesses. You do them and your only response is, “Wow I didn’t know my (insert) was so weak.”. HoT overall has been an expose over how weak the core game is in terms of difficulty and how reward minded most of the vocal community is.
“This is too hard”, said by so many it is synonymous with hot. Truth is the content is not too hard players have been spoiled by cake walk PvE. Sad thing is animations are still visible and pay half attention will keep you alive. Now I never made it to high level fractals or anything like that but have played PvP and WvW primarily my time here with PvE being the bank to support the now dead WvW. The thing I noticed is in most cases you could run full zerk and if you pay just a little attention you will come out unscathed. This was the old rule. The new rule is the same but you have to pay just a little more attention.
SO why is the content hard for some? Reflexes mostly and entitlement. I will talk about refelxes first. PvE to most PvP players is as slow as watching paint dry because PvP is simply quicker. Not better or worse just quicker paced. So the idea of having to dodge or press button X or get hp taken away isn’t that complex. Yet many players have fought NPCs that posed them no credible threat. Pew and loot whether you are ranged or not has been the name of the game. It still is but the mobs can kill you now. So if the attack can kill you dodge or block it right? WRONG! Go to the forums and proclaim that the NPC with the obvious animation and the marker on your head is too hard to handle.
The other part is entitlement. Players tend to feel that their time pew-pewing dumb mobs equals skill and something note worthy. Like full ascended gear they feel they earned something special. Yet it is not. It is time and money but not skills. Its kind of like titles and finishers. Having a dragon finisher means you PvP a good deal. But you may still be garbage. Because with enough time you get there regardless. time shouldn’t necessarily equal reward. getting better and honing your skills in some cases should be your only shot at some things.
See with all the titles, gear, and self importance many players forgot the joy of beating an actual challenge or how to even approach it. There are things that require you to just get good enough t win. GW2 has disregarded this in most cases. Strats trumped skill and gave everyone a big head. That’s the real problem here. Self importance built on a solo players experience that wasn’t very challenging and group players who have an elitist attitude to content that wasn’t that challenging.
Now this may be a bit scathing but it isn’t a lie. There is one case where we have something earned based primarily on skill and execution. Every player with Liadri the Concealing Dark understand there was a point where the only thing that would get you past it was your own skills. A strat helped but it required awareness and decent reflexes. You had to earn it and too this day some very old accounts with many points do not have that mini.
So before you let that tongue go waving I will ask you the same thing I ask pvp players. Did you ever consider the problem might be you? You slacked and never got better?