Guild Wars 2

We’re gonna need a bigger post! Just a heads up – this post is long. You’ve been warned! TL;DR: Just read the bold.

Hello,

I haven’t played this game for a few years. I just happened to watch some press release for PoF a few weeks ago. I decided to give it a shot. After playing the demos for PoF, I figured it might be a good idea to pick up HoT. I haven’t read / heard anything about this game from release aside from a grind that was apparently fixed. I thought it might be a good idea to offer my opinion about the game without any bias from that release hype.

Pros:

• First and foremost, the passion from the Dev team is really apparent. You can see how well thought out their choices were in the story / maps / battles.

• Gliding is very entertaining, and is also a good spin on a typical MMO trope. The creative use of gliding adds to the experience of the game.

• Masteries being account wide was a really good decision, the grind isn’t terrible, but I wouldn’t want to do this per character.

• Elite specs are pretty fun. I could take some, I could leave others, so it was nice not to see them required

• The new combat mechanics from the mobs were really interesting (shadowleapers, snipers, stonetooth, arrowhead, etc.). I know other mobs have charges and line aoes, but the mobs felt really fresh each zone.

• The new races were really interesting. I cared about good ol’ Tizlak and the exalted.

• The rewards for meta events, story quests, etc were adequate. They added more depth to pushing for the tier 4 or asking in map chat if gates had enough players. In other words, the events / rewards seemed to promote teamwork.

Cons:

• In all honesty, I think the mobs overall have way too much health or hit way too hard. I honestly wanted to try to get a refund my first couple of days b/c I kept getting 2-3 shotted by pretty much every mob. I know my gear isn’t great, I know there needs to be challenge, but it seriously got to the point where it really wasn’t fun.

• The story quests are not always solo friendly. I’m sure there are many players here who did these story quests solo, but I think it should be noted they were difficult in some instances. Honestly, I couldn’t finish any mission without dying 3-5xs. Sure, I could suck, bad armor, etc, but story quests are solo. I personally don’t want a challenge. I don’t feel more accomplished after dying so many times in a story quest then beating it. I feel more so annoyed at my time wasted and curious as to why everything is burning my face off in a few hits.

• Lay off the champions in story quests – kinda goes along with the above point, but these mobs worked great once I got a couple people to help me. Solo took me ages and I honestly just didn’t have the time to keep ressing to finish off mobs

• The prison in the final story mission is an awful design choice – I was unable to help my team, I had to watch my character look like an idiot shouting story dialogue from the sidelines, and just in general, it was bad.

Misc:

• Faolin was horrific, seriously, seeing her half torso twisting out of the head part of the vinetooth made me cringe each time. Good job or bad job.. she was a nightmare

• I paid for the HoT / PoF bundle, which was 50$, so HoT was 20$. I really think that price is a fair price for what I got out of the game. The most I’d pay for this game would probably be 30$, so I do think I got a deal. The pricing for PoF (30$) seems like a good choice as well. The initial high price of HoT was one factor I didn’t buy it the first go around.

• One of the reasons I quit was b/c I really just dislike EVERY character in this new destiny’s edge team. I find them poorly drawn / written / just awful EXCEPT Canach. He was not only my favorite out of the bunch, but I think he’s such an asset to that team.

• Mordremoth’s dragon design was awful imo. The art was terrible, his moves looked silly.. he just looked like a bloated lizard Groot stomping around. The concept art for these dragons have been really inspired (hopefully by good). I understand the engine has limitations, but cutting the teeth out of the art to produce some really generic and downright boring designs is not the way to go imo.

• I’ve played a few MMO’s and I’ve never had the experience to play with a dev. On hearts and minds, I asked for help and an A-Net dev joined my party along with another friendly stranger and helped me finish the story. This has nothing to do with HoT, but that was a very unique and notable act for the crew to play with their customer. Thank you

Suggestions:

• If the expansion is around the size of HoT, keep the price at 30$ or less

• Introduce new heroes with expansions instead of dragging the old ones through every storyline. That offers a fresh take on the story and if your customers don’t like the previous heroes, they’re not stuck with them for forever.

• Don’t skimp out on the creative monster designs and keep the final boss looking unique

• Keep up the interesting and creative spins on usual MMO tropes (Gliding / Mounts / Elite Specs). The less you tie down your customers (required expansion builds / gliding / etc) the more fun these new features will be!

• Add 2 versions of the story missions – Solo and Group or Storymode and Hardmode or whatever ; offer an achievement for the hardmode or something. With storymode, easy on the champions / number of mobs / and just overall difficulty.

• More Canach please

Hopefully that’s helpful, maybe some other players that are getting into HoT a couple years later can add to this with their own assessment

All reviews of entertainment products are subjective.

But I really appreciate your approach to a detailed, rant-free, review. Much more useful than a lot of the feedback we see around here.

Thank You for the read.

See this to me is where the disconnect comes in. OP hasn’t played the game for years, comes back and expects to jump into end game content and do well immediately.

Many who have been here all along, didn’t find HOT as difficult. Didn’t have problems soloing the stories. Taking years off and jumping into end game content should be hard, and HOT was always meant to be end game content.

Other than that, I thought it a fair review, so good job OP.

Vayne.8563:

See this to me is where the disconnect comes in. OP hasn’t played the game for years, comes back and expects to jump into end game content and do well immediately.

Many who have been here all along, didn’t find HOT as difficult. Didn’t have problems soloing the stories. Taking years off and jumping into end game content should be hard, and HOT was always meant to be end game content.

Other than that, I thought it a fair review, so good job OP.

Hey there,

Thanks for the response! I just wanted to touch on this, the fact I haven’t been playing for years is the whole reason why I wanted to make this review. I want to give a different perspective than those that have stayed playing throughout this time. I’m a returning customer. I think this perspective offers insight into how ANet could tune / market to customers who fell off out of the loop and introduce them to the game more smoothly.

Maybe the first two zones should be easy then ramp up in difficulty? Maybe there should be a couple different starting zones (one for newbies another for veterans)? Maybe they could scale up or scale down armor accordingly to put everyone on the same footing for a certain time limit? Are these good suggestions? No clue!

In either case, I posted that it could be my bad gear, I could suck, etc. This was just my personal experience that it seemed really excessive. I’m glad to hear that wasn’t the case for the veteran players, tho!

Just a quick note, despite difficulty, I was really impressed with how helpful and generally kind map chat was. If I had a problem and asked, 9/10xs I would get not only information but help. So despite the difficulty and the fact I honestly didn’t enjoy myself for a bit, the community really jumped in and made it a better experience.

Thanks again!

Thanks for taking the time to write in as objective a fashion as can be done. -And- to format it so nicely, that’s appreciated! Other posters have given meaty replies so I’ll just note one tiny thing, you probably didn’t have a “dev” per se (you might have, I dunno, could have been Josh Foreman or suchlike). All the employees of ANet (and possibly their immediate family members? I’m not sure on that part) get to be members of the ANet guild and when repping it they get the logo on their name. The accounts are regular, without any special dev powers. Could have been a coder, a community manager, a custodian … So you certainly had someone connected to ANet, just might not have been a dev.

TheUndefined.1720:

Vayne.8563:

See this to me is where the disconnect comes in. OP hasn’t played the game for years, comes back and expects to jump into end game content and do well immediately.

Many who have been here all along, didn’t find HOT as difficult. Didn’t have problems soloing the stories. Taking years off and jumping into end game content should be hard, and HOT was always meant to be end game content.

Other than that, I thought it a fair review, so good job OP.

Hey there,

Thanks for the response! I just wanted to touch on this, the fact I haven’t been playing for years is the whole reason why I wanted to make this review. I want to give a different perspective than those that have stayed playing throughout this time. I’m a returning customer. I think this perspective offers insight into how ANet could tune / market to customers who fell off out of the loop and introduce them to the game more smoothly.

Maybe the first two zones should be easy then ramp up in difficulty? Maybe there should be a couple different starting zones (one for newbies another for veterans)? Maybe they could scale up or scale down armor accordingly to put everyone on the same footing for a certain time limit? Are these good suggestions? No clue!

In either case, I posted that it could be my bad gear, I could suck, etc. This was just my personal experience that it seemed really excessive. I’m glad to hear that wasn’t the case for the veteran players, tho!

Just a quick note, despite difficulty, I was really impressed with how helpful and generally kind map chat was. If I had a problem and asked, 9/10xs I would get not only information but help. So despite the difficulty and the fact I honestly didn’t enjoy myself for a bit, the community really jumped in and made it a better experience.

Thanks again!

I don’t know that I agree with this. I’d been playing for years and I didn’t pay for 2 end game maps and 4 easy maps.

The problem is Living Story Season 2, Drytop and the Silverwastes are all interim content that you probably didn’t play. So what you did was go from 6th great to 9th grade and found it hard. Well yeah, sure, I’d find that hard too.

That doesn’t mean the game should be made easier. It means the game should teach better. Really there should be a warning on HOT saying this is meant to be end game content and you really need to know your class well in order to conquer this area. There will be deaths, but if you perservere you can learn your way through this dangerous war zone.

HoT worked for me because it was a war zone and it was dangerous. If that didn’t happen for two maps, I’d have been disappointed.

I think one part that you could incorporate into your review is LS3. Anyone who’s been playing this last year would consider it an integral part of HoT… you can notice a definite change in the style and philosophy of the gameplay and presentation.

And this would be useful to any new players that have just bought the HoT/PoF package and are wondering if it’s worthwhile to spend the gems to unlock LS3.

Donari.5237:

Thanks for taking the time to write in as objective a fashion as can be done. -And- to format it so nicely, that’s appreciated! Other posters have given meaty replies so I’ll just note one tiny thing, you probably didn’t have a “dev” per se (you might have, I dunno, could have been Josh Foreman or suchlike). All the employees of ANet (and possibly their immediate family members? I’m not sure on that part) get to be members of the ANet guild and when repping it they get the logo on their name. The accounts are regular, without any special dev powers. Could have been a coder, a community manager, a custodian … So you certainly had someone connected to ANet, just might not have been a dev.

No it was a dev lol. I asked if they were a GM and the person said, I’m a dev, I worked on the workaround for this quest. It was really neat!

@Vayne,

That could definitely be the case! In all honesty, I’m sure the content was working as intended, but from my perspective it was a bit much. That’s why I say this is my opinion. Honestly, I doubt the devs are going to give my opinion any weight in that department considering your points. Still, I think even if just 1 map IN the expansion eased all players in then increased in difficulty even in that zone map alone would be a good idea. Verdant Brink was just chaos from start to finish. Auric Basin was FAR easier than Verdant Brink. Shoot, I’d argue all the maps were easier than Verdant Brink. In either case, I don’t think you’re wrong and neither do I think I’m wrong. I think these are two valid opinions for different perspectives of the game.

@LS3,
I was considering getting it, but again.. I seriously can-not-stand those heroes LOL. I didn’t want to rant about it too much in the review, and I don’t want to do so here. In either case, LS3 seems to JUST be story heavy stuff and I really dislike the main characters of the story. I really hope they shift from this model, set these characters in the background and offer new ones (for a variety of reasons aside from my own personal dislike). However, that’s just my opinion.

Thanks so much for the responses. Everyone has some really interesting points and I appreciate you all sharing!

I know you said you dont like the heroes but if you watch my Season 1 Movie, it will better introduce you to them and you might like them better.

Here’s the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joLmVI5URak&t=926s

TheUndefined.1720:

That could definitely be the case! In all honesty, I’m sure the content was working as intended, but from my perspective it was a bit much. That’s why I say this is my opinion. Honestly, I doubt the devs are going to give my opinion any weight in that department considering your points. Still, I think even if just 1 map IN the expansion eased all players in then increased in difficulty even in that zone map alone would be a good idea. Verdant Brink was just chaos from start to finish. Auric Basin was FAR easier than Verdant Brink. Shoot, I’d argue all the maps were easier than Verdant Brink. In either case, I don’t think you’re wrong and neither do I think I’m wrong. I think these are two valid opinions for different perspectives of the game.

Not to invalidate anything you’ve said, but if you had played through the game all along, you would have seen a progression in difficulty from core GW2 through the second season of Living Story, including Dry Top and the Silverwastes. HoT was not really much harder than those zones, although some of the mobs had different mechanics that had to be gotten used to.

All of that does nothing for someone like you who came back and jumped into HoT without going through the ramp-up to HoT, but that ramp-up is there. You even had to go through Silverwastes to get to Verdant Brink at the start of the story.

Anyway, I’m glad the community was helpful to you and made the experience more palatable. I hope you enjoy PoF.

TheUndefined.1720:

• Add 2 versions of the story missions – Solo and Group or Storymode and Hardmode or whatever ; offer an achievement for the hardmode or something. With storymode, easy on the champions / number of mobs / and just overall difficulty.

Maybe you didn’t pay enough attention to the game, but it already works like that. By default, all story instances are made with a solo player in mind and all enemies are scaled to 1 player. If you open that instance with a party, all enemies will scale accordingly and get more health to compensate for higher group DPS. Everything is dynamic – instances will look different to parties of 1, 2 or 4 people…
Just because an enemy in storymode has a champion ring around his icon, that doesn’t make him the same as open-world champions, which are always scaled to AT LEAST 5 people, even if there’s 1 person fighting them. Champions in personal story are all easily soloable, their champion-status is there only to indicate that enemy is somehow important and distinguish it from the myriad of trash mobs.

Yes, HoT story was slightly harder and more demanding than core game story. That’s to be expected, players have been improving and the game cannot stagnate. There’s no shame in dying once in a while, especially if you play for the first time and are not familiar with the mechanics. But if there’s some part of the story you cannot progress even after multiple tries, it’s an indication you should look more into your build or your gameplay (or both).

TheUndefined.1720:

That could definitely be the case! In all honesty, I’m sure the content was working as intended, but from my perspective it was a bit much. That’s why I say this is my opinion. Honestly, I doubt the devs are going to give my opinion any weight in that department considering your points. Still, I think even if just 1 map IN the expansion eased all players in then increased in difficulty even in that zone map alone would be a good idea. Verdant Brink was just chaos from start to finish. Auric Basin was FAR easier than Verdant Brink. Shoot, I’d argue all the maps were easier than Verdant Brink. In either case, I don’t think you’re wrong and neither do I think I’m wrong. I think these are two valid opinions for different perspectives of the game.

I mostly must say, that I really appreciate your posts, regardless of whether I share your opinion regarding difficulty and other points. It is refreshing to see such a positive attitude to negative points.

Also not to worry, if the difficulty in the PoF demo was any indication, they already made the starting experience of PoF alot better regarding returning players rather than the veterans. So dont doubt the feedback you gave here, you were not alone in the slightest that it felt too hard in the beginning. Its not unlikely that they already took that into consideration when moving on to the next expansion. Especially considering that there was alot of criticism regarding difficulty in HoT.

Ofcourse, now people are claiming that it was too easy.

Thanks for all the responses!

I honestly appreciate the comments, I definitely agree that from a long term player’s perspective my opinion can be pretty frustrating. I also agree that A-Net should probably know how a returning customer that is clueless probably feels. Maybe this review gives better insight to other similar complaints that don’t really go into detail and are primarily letting off steam

I’m also thankful that my intention of an unbiased review was successful. Having played other games for years, I get curious to see how other people who are new or fresh to content I’ve done, see it through their unbiased eyes. It’s a real brainteaser sometimes when I hear players talk about content pretty comfortably that may cause me to rage or squeal with nostalgia!

Honestly, any other critique / feedback I could think of would just be about the story. Still, as I’ve said before, I feel that’s incredibly subjective, and considering I don’t like it, I’m not the right person to give that kind of feedback. XD

Just a quick note:

• Mordremoth’s dragon design was awful imo.

That wasn’t Mordremoth you saw in the last story mission. It was just the impersonation of his mind, as that is where the instance took place.

If you want to see Mordremoth per se, you will need to play the Dragon’s Stand meta event, where you defeat the actual dragon.

Generally speaking, if you are expressing an opinion, it IS a biased view, biased in how you feel about it. Since other people can have a YMMV moment, therefore, you really should take the BIASed part of your thread title out of the title; my opinion would be just as biased because, like you, it’s my opinion.

I like your post, OP. I understand if many on here don’t agree with it, and I can’t say I agree with all your points, but I understand where you’re coming from.

However, when I first came back to the game to try HoT, I had a difficult time in the new maps. I grew frustrated at times, but overtime, learning the new mobs mechanics, understanding the map terrain and environment, and really synchronizing my character build, it allowed me to ease through the expansion content without a problem.

Now, I go through HoT maps like a breeze, for the most part. What I once thought difficult, is now mediocre at best.

Just an insight into another perspective.

Morfedel.4165:

Generally speaking, if you are expressing an opinion, it IS a biased view, biased in how you feel about it. Since other people can have a YMMV moment, therefore, you really should take the BIASed part of your thread title out of the title; my opinion would be just as biased because, like you, it’s my opinion.

Perhaps a better word would be even-handed, since the OP listed pros and cons, which for these forums passes for unbiased, even if by strict definition it isn’t.

It’s weird – I never thought of HOT maps as end game content but just new maps/content for all players to explore with the new expansion. End game content for me could be Raids/Fractals/Dungeons.

When you release an expansion you do it mostly to attract new players or convince the older ones to come back. The ones that are playing are still there… playing. So in this regard I can’t agree with the end game content remark.

Anyway, for me the main issue with the difficulty in HOT was that it’s in the wrong game genre. Maybe I’m wrong but I’ll try to explain it.

MMOs are usually huge time sinks, played in larger game sessions with frequent breaks, interrupts or just not being fully present to what’s happening on the screen. I usually attend to various other things while playing a MMO.

The HOT maps are just a mess in this regard – the enemies in there only need a couple of seconds in which you weren’t on your toes to kill you. This coupled with the annoying map layout (how the hell do I get to that point?!), mob density and their annoying CC skills meant it was a frustrating experience overall. I didn’t really explored Tangled Depths because of that and I avoid it at all costs.

Just my 2 cents.

As opposed to making a new thread I’ll add to your thread.

I too recently purchased the HoT/PoF bundle. I never purchased HoT because I loathed Dry Top and Silverwastes, the Mordrem mobs, and the new hero team. Instead I just played the core game, and got a 80 of every class along with map completion and story completion for several of them.

So my Pros:

- Verdant Brink, initially I hated this map but once you unlock some Masteries it actually pretty fun. I especially enjoy the meta.

- Specializations, not all of them are perfect but I love the fact they are adding them

- Story, pretty good and I found the fights to be better and much easier to solo then those in Dry Top/Silverwastes but still harder than core game

Cons:

- Gated Exploration, too much of being able to explore the map is dependent on masteries and metas this is bad design because the part of the game that is supposed to be pick up and play now needs to be scheduled and LFG’ed

- Champion Challenges, they are called HERO Challenges singular, they are meant to be the challenging part of the game for solo players, certainly beef them up from core but requiring a group was horrible call, that’s what meta is for

- No RED warnings, this was a huge issue I had with Living World season 2 many attacks have no visual cue and those that do give very little time to react, whats worse most of these attacks aren’t just big damage but have an element of CC

I think there were some good ideas here, but ultimately falls flat for me.

Ashivan.5216:

It’s weird – I never thought of HOT maps as end game content but just new maps/content for all players to explore with the new expansion. End game content for me could be Raids/Fractals/Dungeons.

When you release an expansion you do it mostly to attract new players or convince the older ones to come back. The ones that are playing are still there… playing. So in this regard I can’t agree with the end game content remark.

Anyway, for me the main issue with the difficulty in HOT was that it’s in the wrong game genre. Maybe I’m wrong but I’ll try to explain it.

MMOs are usually huge time sinks, played in larger game sessions with frequent breaks, interrupts or just not being fully present to what’s happening on the screen. I usually attend to various other things while playing a MMO.

The HOT maps are just a mess in this regard – the enemies in there only need a couple of seconds in which you weren’t on your toes to kill you. This coupled with the annoying map layout (how the hell do I get to that point?!), mob density and their annoying CC skills meant it was a frustrating experience overall. I didn’t really explored Tangled Depths because of that and I avoid it at all costs.

Just my 2 cents.

Guild Wars 1 had Eye of the North, the only true expansion for the game (other releases were all stand alone games) and Anet did the same thing. Eye of the North was harder by far than anything else in the “open world” in the vanilla games. There’s a reason why, though.

At the time you get to that content, everyone is max level. That is to say, everyone is there with 40 zones of easier content, and virtually no open world end game content. At least of of the things an expansion should so is expand this game. This could mean just in area, but Anet took it to mean in the options you have.

Because this isn’t another MMO and people can still go back and play old zones, it made sense for them to add to the menu, give people something else to choose.

Clearly that won’t work for everyone but there were plenty of players who were bored with how easy the open world is that aren’t particularly found of either instances or grouping. So dungeons/fractals/raids don’t work for those people. I’m one of them.

The stuff that bothers you about HoT is the stuff that makes HOT repeatable for me. There’s a reason to go back to those zones. To get better at them. To learn them. To figure out better ways through them. To deal with them. To help me learn the game better, without going into instances.

An MMO needs to have lots of content for lots of different players. I believe there are enough people like me to justify a harder expansion.

Anet did return to the expansion and make a few things easier and give more to solo players by way of events with vets instead of champs, but I’m glad they didn’t nerf it entirely.

The people who have the most problems with HoT tend to be guldless without people who run that content with them. They avoid grouping and they’re not necessarily very good at playing their characters.

Anet has in the past tried to introduce harder content into the open world, and every time they do, there are complaints. This isn’t some new thing Anet has suddenly done. It’s something they’ve been gearing up to all along. Southsun is harder than Orr. Silverwastes and Dry Top are more complex and harder. The game has been moving in this direction because some of us need something to sink our teeth into.

For years there were forum threads ridiculing how easy the game was. Those have largely stopped because those people who enjoy harder content are finally satisfied.

The different I think is that some people who aren’t as good at the game can get better. There’s not much for better players who want open world content to do other than HoT.

Vayne.8563:

Clearly that won’t work for everyone but there were plenty of players who were bored with how easy the open world is that aren’t particularly found of either instances or grouping. So dungeons/fractals/raids don’t work for those people. I’m one of them.

…….

The people who have the most problems with HoT tend to be guldless without people who run that content with them. They avoid grouping and they’re not necessarily very good at playing their characters.

Hi Vayne

In the first part you are saying that are plenty of people that are not fond of grouping to play Raid/Fractals/Dungeons – fair enough.

But in a later fragment , you are saying that the people that find HOT difficult are the people that also avoid grouping (also bad at their characters).

Not sure you are consistent with your conclusions.

Anyway, for me an expansion is targeted to all the people interested in the game, not a minority that likes their difficulty in the open maps. And speaking of difficulty, even after I ‘got good’ playing my char those maps were still frustrating to move through. I spent most of my time in the Auric Basin – the tamest of those zones, that also has a nice city hub.

I don’t think being alert 100% of a game session is healthy for a MMO or for the people playing it

I also expect the next expansion to not have the same level of open world annoyance so we can get back at an enjoyable exploration. Hopefully I’m not wrong…

Hi OP,
I liked your review, however, since you said you bought HoT just after the demo weekends, I’m pretty sure you were’nt able to explore all that HoT has to offer, including the LS3, which, as mentioned above, was a big part of the expansion, with new maps being added with each new chapter. I see the “main” HoT story just as a very minor part of the game and just as an introduction into the new content.

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

Clearly that won’t work for everyone but there were plenty of players who were bored with how easy the open world is that aren’t particularly found of either instances or grouping. So dungeons/fractals/raids don’t work for those people. I’m one of them.

…….

The people who have the most problems with HoT tend to be guldless without people who run that content with them. They avoid grouping and they’re not necessarily very good at playing their characters.

Hi Vayne

In the first part you are saying that are plenty of people that are not fond of grouping to play Raid/Fractals/Dungeons – fair enough.

But in a later fragment , you are saying that the people that find HOT difficult are the people that also avoid grouping (also bad at their characters).

Not sure you are consistent with your conclusions.

Anyway, for me an expansion is targeted to all the people interested in the game, not a minority that likes their difficulty in the open maps. And speaking of difficulty, even after I ‘got good’ playing my char those maps were still frustrating to move through. I spent most of my time in the Auric Basin – the tamest of those zones, that also has a nice city hub.

I don’t think being alert 100% of a game session is healthy for a MMO or for the people playing it

I also expect the next expansion to not have the same level of open world annoyance so we can get back at an enjoyable exploration. Hopefully I’m not wrong…

While Auric Basin obviously has the least layered/complex layout of any HoT map, the enemies you face are significantly more difficult as are the events. I may be misunderstanding you, but you seem to be suggesting that the other maps have you on high alert all the time while AB doesn’t?

I’ve seen similar opinions numerous times and I’ve always found it confusing. I understand why players who dislike complex layouts prefer AB to TD/VB, but I really don’t understand why some players seem to believe that AB is somehow more solo friendly.

AliamRationem.5172:

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

Clearly that won’t work for everyone but there were plenty of players who were bored with how easy the open world is that aren’t particularly found of either instances or grouping. So dungeons/fractals/raids don’t work for those people. I’m one of them.

…….

The people who have the most problems with HoT tend to be guldless without people who run that content with them. They avoid grouping and they’re not necessarily very good at playing their characters.

Hi Vayne

In the first part you are saying that are plenty of people that are not fond of grouping to play Raid/Fractals/Dungeons – fair enough.

But in a later fragment , you are saying that the people that find HOT difficult are the people that also avoid grouping (also bad at their characters).

Not sure you are consistent with your conclusions.

Anyway, for me an expansion is targeted to all the people interested in the game, not a minority that likes their difficulty in the open maps. And speaking of difficulty, even after I ‘got good’ playing my char those maps were still frustrating to move through. I spent most of my time in the Auric Basin – the tamest of those zones, that also has a nice city hub.

I don’t think being alert 100% of a game session is healthy for a MMO or for the people playing it

I also expect the next expansion to not have the same level of open world annoyance so we can get back at an enjoyable exploration. Hopefully I’m not wrong…

While Auric Basin obviously has the least layered/complex layout of any HoT map, the enemies you face are significantly more difficult as are the events. I may be misunderstanding you, but you seem to be suggesting that the other maps have you on high alert all the time while AB doesn’t?

I’ve seen similar opinions numerous times and I’ve always found it confusing. I understand why players who dislike complex layouts prefer AB to TD/VB, but I really don’t understand why some players seem to believe that AB is somehow more solo friendly.

All the maps are solo friendly to me.

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

Clearly that won’t work for everyone but there were plenty of players who were bored with how easy the open world is that aren’t particularly found of either instances or grouping. So dungeons/fractals/raids don’t work for those people. I’m one of them.

…….

The people who have the most problems with HoT tend to be guldless without people who run that content with them. They avoid grouping and they’re not necessarily very good at playing their characters.

Hi Vayne

In the first part you are saying that are plenty of people that are not fond of grouping to play Raid/Fractals/Dungeons – fair enough.

But in a later fragment , you are saying that the people that find HOT difficult are the people that also avoid grouping (also bad at their characters).

Not sure you are consistent with your conclusions.

Anyway, for me an expansion is targeted to all the people interested in the game, not a minority that likes their difficulty in the open maps. And speaking of difficulty, even after I ‘got good’ playing my char those maps were still frustrating to move through. I spent most of my time in the Auric Basin – the tamest of those zones, that also has a nice city hub.

I don’t think being alert 100% of a game session is healthy for a MMO or for the people playing it

I also expect the next expansion to not have the same level of open world annoyance so we can get back at an enjoyable exploration. Hopefully I’m not wrong…

Well, if someone is finding something difficult that others find quite easy, then they either have bad machines, bad internet connection or not as much skill. That’s the only conclusion I can come to.

I’m not the worlds best player. I’m not a raider. I don’t use meta builds. I’m living in Australia, so my ping often sucks, but I’m still doing fine in HoT maps. I’m also an older guy with shoulder and neck and back problems. I’m even colorbind. I still do fine.

Seems to me with all the disadvantages I have, HoT should be hard for me, but the truth is, it’s not. It did take a bit to get used to it, but I think the problem is people just hate dying, They think they should never die in a game, or they should die hardly ever. But dying is what teaches you how to play better.

Some people feel if they die they’ve lost. This is probably a holdover from older games, where you couldn’t save your progress and had to get to the next checkpoint or start over I hated that too.

Death is Guild Wars 2 just isn’t that costly. I think people would rather give up than learn to play their profession better.

I thought that the HoT mobs were hitting way too hard as well. But I started to look more carefully at how the creatures and areas were designed. And how the specs were designed. There’s ways to get around them without a hassle. And the area was designed to obviously not be friendly to pure glass cannons, and probably to discourage the use of Zerker and favor something that provides you with more durability. (Look at silverwaste, a good number of the mobs can absolutely chunk you).

Vayne.8563:

Well, if someone is finding something difficult that others find quite easy, then they either have bad machines, bad internet connection or not as much skill. That’s the only conclusion I can come to.

I can live with you labeling me bad at the game. But I’m not the only one that found the HOT maps frustrating. Also, it’s not really about how hard the mobs hit – it’s the density of them (so you can’t catch a break, understanding your surroundings), the constant barrage of CC skills of some of them and the maps confusing layouts.

I don’t have anything bad to say about the events in those maps, just the general annoyance of having to navigate them.

Vayne.8563:

Some people feel if they die they’ve lost. This is probably a holdover from older games, where you couldn’t save your progress and had to get to the next checkpoint or start over I hated that too.

Death is Guild Wars 2 just isn’t that costly. I think people would rather give up than learn to play their profession better.

It would have been fine to die if that allowed to resurrect in that area. But having contested waypoints so you have to get back to the very first WP you started from… while not even close to my goal… why should I spend my game time doing that?

Also did no one saw the irony of having masteries that let you cross those maps easier – like using shortcuts? It looked like the designers understood the annoyance of having to deal with those maps and added tools to skip them. Looks like a freemium mobile game scheme ^^

Anyways all my comments are mostly from my time spent playing around 2 months after the HOT release.

AliamRationem.5172:

While Auric Basin obviously has the least layered/complex layout of any HoT map, the enemies you face are significantly more difficult as are the events. I may be misunderstanding you, but you seem to be suggesting that the other maps have you on high alert all the time while AB doesn’t?

I’ve seen similar opinions numerous times and I’ve always found it confusing. I understand why players who dislike complex layouts prefer AB to TD/VB, but I really don’t understand why some players seem to believe that AB is somehow more solo friendly.

Indeed. I don’t dislike the mobs hitting me hard or the events themselves. I like them, actually.

What I didn’t like was the mobs density, their number of CC skills with low cooldown and really confusing map layout.

I found really hard to navigate because I couldn’t just stop and understand where the hell I am and how to reach my next point because I would just die to random mobs roaming around or being stealthed. And then having contested waypoints so I couldn’t resume my exploration but go back… just wow.

For me at least the Auric Basin is the most enjoyable (I love the even there – just getting to open all those chests ^^) , Verdant Brink coming in a close 2nd.

Ashivan.5216:

What I didn’t like was the mobs density, their number of CC skills with low cooldown and really confusing map layout.

Sums up about 80% of my frustrations with HoT.

I saw some good enemy designs.

I saw some very bad enemy designs. I had to put up with one of those bad designs not too long ago (specifically of the “attack lasts longer than two dodge rolls” variety…).

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

Well, if someone is finding something difficult that others find quite easy, then they either have bad machines, bad internet connection or not as much skill. That’s the only conclusion I can come to.

I can live with you labeling me bad at the game. But I’m not the only one that found the HOT maps frustrating. Also, it’s not really about how hard the mobs hit – it’s the density of them (so you can’t catch a break, understanding your surroundings), the constant barrage of CC skills of some of them and the maps confusing layouts.

I don’t have anything bad to say about the events in those maps, just the general annoyance of having to navigate them.

Vayne.8563:

Some people feel if they die they’ve lost. This is probably a holdover from older games, where you couldn’t save your progress and had to get to the next checkpoint or start over I hated that too.

Death is Guild Wars 2 just isn’t that costly. I think people would rather give up than learn to play their profession better.

It would have been fine to die if that allowed to resurrect in that area. But having contested waypoints so you have to get back to the very first WP you started from… while not even close to my goal… why should I spend my game time doing that?

Also did no one saw the irony of having masteries that let you cross those maps easier – like using shortcuts? It looked like the designers understood the annoyance of having to deal with those maps and added tools to skip them. Looks like a freemium mobile game scheme ^^

Anyways all my comments are mostly from my time spent playing around 2 months after the HOT release.

It’s called an attrition mechanic. Running back means you’re not good enough to advance past that. It encourages you to rethink your strategy. Figure out what you did wrong. Maybe change your traits or skills. With no penalty at all for failure (and there’s little enough of that in this game) there’s no reason to get better. That’s why.

Ashivan.5216:

Also did no one saw the irony of having masteries that let you cross those maps easier – like using shortcuts? It looked like the designers understood the annoyance of having to deal with those maps and added tools to skip them…

I think you are looking at this backwards. I sincerely doubt they designed the maps and then added masteries because of the way the maps turned out. They most likely had the ideas for the masteries first and designed them side-by-side with the maps so the maps utilized those masteries.

Ashivan.5216:

It would have been fine to die if that allowed to resurrect in that area. But having contested waypoints so you have to get back to the very first WP you started from… while not even close to my goal… why should I spend my game time doing that?

This was something that annoyed me to no end. No only are there very few waypoints for such large maps, but then you allow almost all of them to be contested 50% of the time making death a very large penalty in terms of time sink. Which exacerbates the death of the main draw for me on core game, which was freedom to explore.

In the core game I could take risks and not worry about dying because I could generally rez close to my location and it wasn’t to much of a time sink to get back to where I was. But HoT is not explorer friendly in that you don’t have the ability to get back quickly nor the time to just stop and analyze your surroundings.

TheUndefined.1720:

• I paid for the HoT / PoF bundle, which was 50$, so HoT was 20$. I really think that price is a fair price for what I got out of the game. The most I’d pay for this game would probably be 30$, so I do think I got a deal. The pricing for PoF (30$) seems like a good choice as well. The initial high price of HoT was one factor I didn’t buy it the first go around.

Stuff like this really confuses me. I mean, considering how much play you get out of an MMO like this with no sub fee should make this a very good buy for the price, particularly when you compare the amount of gameplay you get from other AAA game titles that sell for $60.

This comment really isn’t entirely meant in response to the OP since I’ve seen a lot of people with the same opinion. It also isn’t a judgement against people who don’t believe that an expansion of an MMO is worth $60. I really mean this as more of an observation.

And I think this is kind of emblematic of why the MMO genre is fading out (at least in NA). There’s some very high expectations for content that takes a lot of development resources to produce.

Vayne.8563:

It’s called an attrition mechanic. Running back means you’re not good enough to advance past that. It encourages you to rethink your strategy. Figure out what you did wrong. Maybe change your traits or skills. With no penalty at all for failure (and there’s little enough of that in this game) there’s no reason to get better. That’s why.

Vayne, you have a very stern way of looking at what is considered entertainment. I do respect your options.

We’ll have to agree in disagreeing on what is an enjoyable experience in those open maps

[Edited to remove an unnecessary remark on my part]

Wolfheart.7483:

Ashivan.5216:

Also did no one saw the irony of having masteries that let you cross those maps easier – like using shortcuts? It looked like the designers understood the annoyance of having to deal with those maps and added tools to skip them…

I think you are looking at this backwards. I sincerely doubt they designed the maps and then added masteries because of the way the maps turned out. They most likely had the ideas for the masteries first and designed them side-by-side with the maps so the maps utilized those masteries.

Well, it was mostly a hyperbole on my part just to show what I consider a dubious design decision. You shouldn’t create game content just to be skipped by a core feature… in this case frustrating map navigation by masteries shortcuts.

Ordika.9513:

This was something that annoyed me to no end. No only are there very few waypoints for such large maps, but then you allow almost all of them to be contested 50% of the time making death a very large penalty in terms of time sink. Which exacerbates the death of the main draw for me on core game, which was freedom to explore.

In the core game I could take risks and not worry about dying because I could generally rez close to my location and it wasn’t to much of a time sink to get back to where I was. But HoT is not explorer friendly in that you don’t have the ability to get back quickly nor the time to just stop and analyze your surroundings.

HoT, and Dry Top and Silverwastes before it, could basically be summed up as ‘Orr II: BOHICA’. They all have that same philosophy that makes exploration very challenging at best, and screamingly frustrating at worst, and also makes it such that a sparsely populated map is death. I feel for anyone trying to even just do the HoT story once PoF comes out and the HoT maps become ghost towns.

Though on the plus side, if you get comfortable with HoT maps, the vanilla maps feel like EZ mode when you visit them.

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

It’s called an attrition mechanic. Running back means you’re not good enough to advance past that. It encourages you to rethink your strategy. Figure out what you did wrong. Maybe change your traits or skills. With no penalty at all for failure (and there’s little enough of that in this game) there’s no reason to get better. That’s why.

Vayne, you have a very stern way of looking at what is considered entertainment. I do respect your options.

We’ll have to agree in disagreeing on what is an enjoyable experience in those open maps

[Edited to remove an unnecessary remark on my part]

You only think it’s stern because you either haven’ t played or don’t remember how other games/MMOs handle it. In Guild Wars 1, every time you died you lost 15% of your health and mana cumulative to 60%, so it became harder every time you die.

In WoW you have to run back to your corpse or pay to rez at a cemetary which may or may not be close to your goal (and when I played it those were few and far between).

The fact is the death penalty in the game is very small. The trip back to the same place lets you practice what you learned until you’re almost never dying at which point it doesn’t matter.

Vayne.8563:

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

It’s called an attrition mechanic. Running back means you’re not good enough to advance past that. It encourages you to rethink your strategy. Figure out what you did wrong. Maybe change your traits or skills. With no penalty at all for failure (and there’s little enough of that in this game) there’s no reason to get better. That’s why.

Vayne, you have a very stern way of looking at what is considered entertainment. I do respect your options.

We’ll have to agree in disagreeing on what is an enjoyable experience in those open maps

[Edited to remove an unnecessary remark on my part]

You only think it’s stern because you either haven’ t played or don’t remember how other games/MMOs handle it. In Guild Wars 1, every time you died you lost 15% of your health and mana cumulative to 60%, so it became harder every time you die.

In WoW you have to run back to your corpse or pay to rez at a cemetary which may or may not be close to your goal (and when I played it those were few and far between).

The fact is the death penalty in the game is very small. The trip back to the same place lets you practice what you learned until you’re almost never dying at which point it doesn’t matter.

I played most MMOs with the exception of the very fist like Everquest or Ultima Online and I still think the HOT maps are the most annoying open world content out there.

In both GW1 and WOW those penalties were actually fair because I could choose my own battles and not be ambushed every other minute while roaming around. In GW1 from what I remember there were some points/shrines in which you could remove that health penalty and they weren’t locked/constested. And in WOW I don’t remember having to make long runs back to my corpse – it wasn’t that big of a deal.

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t consider open maps – that you travel through for normal questing / story progression / vistas / mining … whatever, the place to put that type of content. I can’t really remember a lot of moments in those maps in which I could stop and just enjoy the scenery

I feel that good games need to have a nice flow/rhythm with different intensities for the players to go through like a roller-coaster ride. When your roller-coaster ride is mostly using segments in which you are upside down… ready to throw up, it’s not very enjoyable for most.

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

It’s called an attrition mechanic. Running back means you’re not good enough to advance past that. It encourages you to rethink your strategy. Figure out what you did wrong. Maybe change your traits or skills. With no penalty at all for failure (and there’s little enough of that in this game) there’s no reason to get better. That’s why.

Vayne, you have a very stern way of looking at what is considered entertainment. I do respect your options.

We’ll have to agree in disagreeing on what is an enjoyable experience in those open maps

[Edited to remove an unnecessary remark on my part]

You only think it’s stern because you either haven’ t played or don’t remember how other games/MMOs handle it. In Guild Wars 1, every time you died you lost 15% of your health and mana cumulative to 60%, so it became harder every time you die.

In WoW you have to run back to your corpse or pay to rez at a cemetary which may or may not be close to your goal (and when I played it those were few and far between).

The fact is the death penalty in the game is very small. The trip back to the same place lets you practice what you learned until you’re almost never dying at which point it doesn’t matter.

I played most MMOs with the exception of the very fist like Everquest or Ultima Online and I still think the HOT maps are the most annoying open world content out there.

In both GW1 and WOW those penalties were actually fair because I could choose my own battles and not be ambushed every other minute while roaming around. In GW1 from what I remember there were some points/shrines in which you could remove that health penalty and they weren’t locked/constested. And in WOW I don’t remember having to make long runs back to my corpse – it wasn’t that big of a deal.

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t consider open maps – that you travel through for normal questing / story progression / vistas / mining … whatever, the place to put that type of content. I can’t really remember a lot of moments in those maps in which I could stop and just enjoy the scenery

I feel that good games need to have a nice flow/rhythm with different intensities for the players to go through like a roller-coaster ride. When your roller-coaster ride is mostly using segments in which you are upside down… ready to throw up, it’s not very enjoyable for most.

If you can’t pick your battles in HoT, you’re not playing very well, because 90% of the time I pick my own battles.

And there were some hellishly long runs in WoW back to your body in the old days.

In Guild Wars 1, if you knew the zone, you could definitely pick your battles. But you had to play the zones to learn the zones.

If you played HoT enough you’d learn the zones and you’d be able to pick your battles.

People want to know the zones while investing no time They come to the zones to get a hero point, not to play the game, and then they complain because they can’t reach that hero point. That hero point is one goal, it’s not all of HoT.

Those who play HoT more holistically, more as a regular map getting stuff as they go and learn it are always going to know it better. Saying you can’t pick your battles in HOT is mostly false.

I know where all the outposts are in VB where the big events spawn at night. I know where all the event chains go in the day. I can absolutely pick my battles…in much the same way I could in Guild Wars 1.

Edit: Anyone who played the War in Kryta content in Guild Wars 1 (again end game stuff) and went to try some of those bosses and got totalled know just how annoying the run back from the shrine could be.

I’ve been trying to do the daily events task when it’s in Tangled Depths as part of trying to learn my way around that zone. Here’s what I find frustrating.

• Wherever I am, I generally see an event on the upper right of the UI. However, it’s not on the minimap. Sometimes, it’s a long ways away.
• If I look on the main map, I can often see where such an event is. However, the way to get to it is at times unclear, and very often deceiving. There’s an awful lot of “can’t get there from here” in Tangled Depths.
• Doubtless, if you know the tricks and have spent two years playing the zone off and on, you know where to go to get somewhere. If you don’t, time spent exploring can be unproductive. It often has been. I’ve never seen that anywhere else in an MMO, and that includes the other three HoT maps.

I’ve not given up. I don’t want to have to admit to myself that I have not given the zone a chance. I am getting to the point where I will write the zone off, though, although I’d like to get some of the MP locked there. I have no interest in watching videos or being led around.

TD can be flat out frustrating at the best of times if you’re still in the learning process. I suppose if your play style is like Vayne’s, TD is fine. I rarely have the extended play time to play the way he presents himself as doing.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’ve been trying to do the daily events task when it’s in Tangled Depths as part of trying to learn my way around that zone. Here’s what I find frustrating.

• Wherever I am, I generally see an event on the upper right of the UI. However, it’s not on the minimap. Sometimes, it’s a long ways away.
• If I look on the main map, I can often see where such an event is. However, the way to get to it is at times unclear, and very often deceiving. There’s an awful lot of “can’t get there from here” in Tangled Depths.
• Doubtless, if you know the tricks and have spent two years playing the zone off and on, you know where to go to get somewhere. If you don’t, time spent exploring can be unproductive. It often has been. I’ve never seen that anywhere else in an MMO, and that includes the other three HoT maps.

I’ve not given up. I don’t want to have to admit to myself that I have not given the zone a chance. I am getting to the point where I will write the zone off, though, although I’d like to get some of the MP locked there. I have no interest in watching videos or being led around.

TD can be flat out frustrating at the best of times if you’re still in the learning process. I suppose if your play style is like Vayne’s, TD is fine. I rarely have the extended play time to play the way he presents himself as doing.

Doing the daily events is possibly the worst way to learn the zone. That’s because you’re always under pressure to get to one specific place fast and fast doesn’t always help you learn.

There are two “halves” to tangled depths. The east part starts with a waypoint called leyline confluence and it’s one of the two most important waypoints in the zone. From that waypoint, there are four lanes that make up the meta that sprout from it. Each lane has within it a nuhoch wallow that takes you to a sort of base camp that feeds that lane.

So for example, if you go down ogre lane, there’s a nuhoch wallow that takes you to ogre camp. If you go down Rata Novus lane there’s a wallow that takes you to Rata Novus. Same with Scar Lane and Nuhock lane. Each of those base camps has a waypoint as well. Using the wallows as teleports to and from base camps is how you get around about 2/3s of the map.

Teku Nuhoch is an importnt waypoint, accessed from Nuhoch lane, because it has a hub of three nuhoch wallows that take you to different places.

The easiest way to get to the central waypoint from the start of the zone is to get to that little stream, follow it down to where it falls and follow the water all the way down to the bottom. That puts you into Nuhoch lane. You can then run down nuhoch lane right to the wallow to teku nuhoch. They can you get that waypoint and come back and continue on to confluence waypoint.

The other important waypoint is at the end of ogre lane that takes you to the last waypoint in the zone by dragon stand.

Once you have the general layout the rest of the map is much much easier.

You’d have learned about 80% of the map knowing those areas. You’d have to learn three or four more easier areas from there, the great tree, the chak nest, the area around the troll HP (I forget what it’s called now) but most of it goes from around those hubs.

In fact, the best way to learn the area is to wait until a meta ends, and then stay in the zone because that begins the event chain from each of the outposts. So if you go to ogre camp you can go through the story of the ogres and what they do to prepare for the meta, Some of those event chains are very good.

I’d be happy to do them with you since I love those event chains. Two people is enough for 90 plus percent of them.

TD can be a very profitable map too, once u understand how its work.

Theres a “lane preparation” phase, which consists of events of each lane. Once a lane is done, the description on Event Panel will have “Sucess” on it. When a lane complete its events, its spawn more Chak Acid Pods to be opened on the respective lane area.

The time gap between theses events, and the Big Boss Gerente Event, is the time u will use for open acid chak pods, with keys u get from events, u can open 50+ in a run.

Once Gerent is done, u can fast swap to Tarir Meta-Event, that way u “farm” the HoT maps.

Vayne.8563:

Many who have been here all along, didn’t find HOT as difficult.

And many who have, did. It’s highly personal. You can’t really argue, i’m sure, that there was a spike in difficulty from core to HoT.

I’m okay if they want to make harder content in the OPEN world. But the entire development team doesn’t seem to be fully aligned on this design principle. I’m sure many of us still recall outrageous (Confessor’s End?) boss fights for many story chapters (instanced and thus private). Where is the design principle in that? I have no freedom to adjust the difficulty or therefore scale the rewards accordingly. I feel that the key here is to remember Guild Wars 2 branded itself as a themepark MMO. That means people should be able to choose how they want to experience the game. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case any longer.

Making story chapters or instanced experiences unfairly hard means locking out casual gamers. In 4 of my guilds, I’m aware many guildies in North America or East Asia either struggles with work or life (especially those who aren’t living with the best of opportunities). This means that they don’t put in the same number of hours a week to have enough resources even for story completion. Just because someone’s casual doesn’t mean that they don’t deserve to experience the story too. Even Dark Souls has learnt this lesson well in subsequent games. Story completion is crucial to a story-driven game, and Guild Wars 2 is an MMO; locking gamers out of its story means no incentive for casual gamers to make more purchases.

e.g. Why would I purchase POF or its related items on the Gem Store, if I know I’ll be locked out of the expansion’s content through unreasonable difficulty?

Other aspects of a game’s design also need to be aligned. With recent examples, Jade Bows and Jade Armors simply do not account for those who have high-latency internet or less-capable hardware. If I’m at 400ms ping and jittering around 30fps, how is it possible for me to dodge those attacks? Whenever we slam down on gamers who make a complaint, we make it harder and harder to have genuine constructive dialogue for the community. And this is a great loss for the developers, who end up with an echo chamber of highly abrasive and intolerant gamers.

There are many basic aspects of the game that should be aligned. Unfortunately, the forums is seldom a place for such discussion. What happens is that gamers eventually become jaded and leave the game, reducing community vibrance.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Many who have been here all along, didn’t find HOT as difficult.

And many who have, did. It’s highly personal. You can’t really argue, i’m sure, that there was a spike in difficulty from core to HoT.

The people who are saying it’s diffcult or not soloable are speaking as if they’re in some kind of majority. This conversation is so prevalent, it’s stopped people from buying/trying the expansion because they thought it was harder than it was. This isn’t something I’ve seen or heard once or twice either. I’ve heard it a lot. People see people saying how hard the expansion is and they make purchasing decisions based on that.

A person with reasonable knowledge of their profession, who also don’t have a slow/old machine is probably not going to have that much difficulty. Is there a learning curve? Sure. Is it harder than some of the achievements in LS Seaosn 2? Not really no.

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Many who have been here all along, didn’t find HOT as difficult.

And many who have, did. It’s highly personal. You can’t really argue, i’m sure, that there was a spike in difficulty from core to HoT.

The people who are saying it’s diffcult or not soloable are speaking as if they’re in some kind of majority. This conversation is so prevalent, it’s stopped people from buying/trying the expansion because they thought it was harder than it was. This isn’t something I’ve seen or heard once or twice either. I’ve heard it a lot. People see people saying how hard the expansion is and they make purchasing decisions based on that.

If they keep hearing that everywhere, from many other sources, isn’t it possible you may be underestimating the number of people that found the content to be too annoying?

Vayne.8563:

A person with reasonable knowledge of their profession, who also don’t have a slow/old machine is probably not going to have that much difficulty.

Depend on what you consider to be a reasonable knowledge. Personally, i think the bar lies somewhere above average level.

Vayne.8563:

Is it harder than some of the achievements in LS Seaosn 2? Not really no.

Oh, i agree. All it means is however that some of the LS2 content was equally annoying.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Many who have been here all along, didn’t find HOT as difficult.

And many who have, did. It’s highly personal. You can’t really argue, i’m sure, that there was a spike in difficulty from core to HoT.

The people who are saying it’s diffcult or not soloable are speaking as if they’re in some kind of majority. This conversation is so prevalent, it’s stopped people from buying/trying the expansion because they thought it was harder than it was. This isn’t something I’ve seen or heard once or twice either. I’ve heard it a lot. People see people saying how hard the expansion is and they make purchasing decisions based on that.

If they keep hearing that everywhere, from many other sources, isn’t it possible you may be underestimating the number of people that found the content to be too annoying?

Vayne.8563:

A person with reasonable knowledge of their profession, who also don’t have a slow/old machine is probably not going to have that much difficulty.

Depend on what you consider to be a reasonable knowledge. Personally, i think the bar lies somewhere above average level.

Vayne.8563:

Is it harder than some of the achievements in LS Seaosn 2? Not really no.

Oh, i agree. All it means is however that some of the LS2 content was equally annoying.

They’re not hearing it everywhere. They’re hearing it from less than a dozen guys who repeat stuff over and over.

That is to say the amount of people saying it are not as much as the repetition would seem to support.

I’m not saying it’s not harder, because it is. But EoTN was harder than the early Guild Wars games too. Progression should up difficulty.

The real issue has always been that the core game never taught people how to play it. And not everyone played Season 2, which is another problem. The jump from Season stuff to HoT is not nearly as big as the jump from Core to HoT.

But there are a ton of players running around who really don’t know how to play well and that’s not a good thing. It’s the game’s fault. I think Anet wants the community to teach people how to play which only works if you’re not soloing everything and trying to remain immersed by never looking at website. Unfortunately there are people who play that way.

My guild is very very casual. And we did lose a couple of people due to either the difficulty of HoT or the map complexity, but it’s a very small percentage.

And there are in fact handful of people on these forums who will attack HOT at every opportunity because they personally don’t like it.

It’s a lot of noise that’s hard to ignore, which is why some people don’t try HoT. And it’s why I keep answering.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Many who have been here all along, didn’t find HOT as difficult.

And many who have, did. It’s highly personal. You can’t really argue, i’m sure, that there was a spike in difficulty from core to HoT.

I can argue that.

Most of the HOT mobs are similar in terms of challenge to mobs in DT and SW (and thus LS2). The actual challenge progression is more a gradual rise than a plateau with a spike. Now, if someone jumps straight from leveling in core to HoT without doing LS2, they might see it as a spike, but that’s an artifact of their missing a significant chunk of the game.

Some people always see new mobs as too hard (and thus a spike in difficulty). This is because they’ve gotten used to the old mobs due to the practice effect. PvE mobs always get perceptibly easier even if their numbers — and players’ numbers — stay the same. That’s also why we always see “thank yous” from those who want a challenge when harder content is introduced, followed later by claims of “too easy.”

Tenelia.9035:

I have no freedom to adjust the difficulty or therefore scale the rewards accordingly.

Reroll necro for a much easier experience or you can bring a group into the story instances to trivialize it.

Tenelia.9035:

Making story chapters or instanced experiences unfairly hard means locking out casual gamers.

ArenaNet has never been for the casual majority like other MMOs. GW2 was meant to be casual, but only in the sense that they weren’t wasting your time. ArenaNet’s mistake was giving you false hope; a bait and switch. The difficulty of the core game was originally much higher, but it was heavily nerfed during beta because it was bad for business. Obviously the higher they go, the more they’ll lose, but it seems they’ve lost too much considering PoF is looking to be easier.

Vayne.8563:

The people who are saying it’s diffcult or not soloable are speaking as if they’re in some kind of majority.

Considering that, in general, the majority plays MMOs like single player games and that most MMOs are balanced similar to Queensdale, the majority probably didn’t like HoT. It would be simple to tell if most people did, since expansions are supposed to bring people back and increase profits.

Vayne.8563:

The real issue has always been that the core game never taught people how to play it.

The core game can be much more challenging than HoT. The problem is that you’re not actually forced forwards, as you would traditionally be required to level in appropriate areas.

Healix.5819:

Reroll necro for a much easier experience

This is very sound advice. I’d normally go through the story missions with my necro first in order to get familiar with the mechanics, then try with my other classes.