Guild Wars 2

This is coming from a “casual” gamer averaging 1-3 hours/day with most days at 2 or less

This post is sort of my pseudo review/rant. I see a lot of whining on the forums, and while some of it is warranted, I feel the majority is just people not knowing what they want and just complaining.

Valid Complaints
1)Mastery grind – This too me shows that the devs are either un-imaginative or just lazy. It is definitely a “grind” and there is little to no skill involved in unlocking masteries. Just plain and simple, time spent grinding.

I would have rather seen their unlocking being tied to either use or story, or both. Ex: The more gliding you do, the more glider masteries you unlock. Or, learning the different lores being tied to side quests.

2)Elite spec’s taking far too many HP’s (resolved) The fix for this was perfect. With the original being 400 to fully unlock, it meant that for many, they’d complete most of the HoT story having to play with their original specs or a kitten Elite.

3)Healing being thrown into a game that was not designed for healing (Druid mainly) – This one, Im kind of on the fence on. If you are going to be a main healer, the group UI is maybe sufficient to heal efficiently. But healing people outside of your group is very clunky. In small groups, it seems to work and the Druid/staff skills actually feel quite right. But in large zergs, its just a clusterF and I feel so disconnected from the game.

4)Im sure there are others, (maybe others can share)….

Just people whining
1)The game is too “hardcore” or un-soloable. Now this may be profession specific, because I played through as a Druid which is most situations was almost invincible. I did die a lot more in HoT than in the core game, but most of this was falling while tryinig to explore. For me though, the difficulty was perfect about 95% of the time. There were a few battles (non boss) in the story mode where myself and the entire NPC group got wiped immediately These weren’t game breaking, just required a second try.

But I think the problem here is people are either so used to running zerker builds or not knowning how to dodge and prioritize targets or positioning.

Enjoy the challenge, it will make you a better player.

2)Class balance and nerfs. Every single class forum has most people complaining about how they got the worst elite spec and how their class keeps getting nerfed. While some of these are legitimate complaints, give the devs some time. The expansion has been out a week. At least they are making changes and trying to find balance. My advise would be to NOT invest too much into any or your builds at the moment and make something adaptable. Try different things.

3)Hero points are not soloable. This one may sort of be legitimate, but not everything has to be soloable. Case in point, I ended up gliding to one of the more hiddent HPs in Verdant Brink and there were two other guys there. They stated they was no way we could take it without at least one or two more. We tried once and got wiped pretty quickly. We then changed things around a bit, and were able to do it the second time. Me being a healer actually made it all possible. So, yeah, it sucked that it was challenging, but it was more rewarding when we beat it. But there are some that are just ridiculous.

Review at this point
At this point, Id give the expansion an 85%. The story was definitely too short, as I completed it in a little over a week while just playing casually. Im hoping through LS though that there will continue to be regular updates and that this was only a preview to the story. I wish the devs would be a little more imaginative with achievements and tasks. Old school games like Everquest had lore quests and class specific quests to earn unlocks. Instead, the simple formula seems to just be add arbitrary grind to slow players down. Overall though, Im looking forward to going through and earning more achievements while trying to unlock more masteries.

Solid assessment. I think, though, if masteries were tied specifically to the activities they’re related to, people would just be complaining that they have to grind those activities. Whereas now, since it’s all based on gaining experience, you can do anything that gives you experience to train up your masteries.

To YOU it’s not too hard or hard core. To ME it is.
It’s just personal opinions. There are people in the forums that think the challenge of HoT is fabulous, whereas others hate it and can’t get through the areas or story. Each is correct as it is all a matter of opinion and personal experience and what each person wants out of the game.

The mastery system is simply account wide leveling for a game mechanics or other content unlocks. Every level 80 contributes and every character benefits. That’s why the XP is so high. They weren’t meant to be maxed in a week much less a month. I think it’s a reward that’s a darn sight better than SPs we use to get a long time ago.

It’s their game and if ANet is adding healing, there’s probably a reason we haven’t experienced yet (ie raids).

As for the elite specializations, I see more crying that they aren’t some God Mode variant of the base profession. That’s partially due to the phrase that describes the specialization, elite because it’s more than just a trait line, propagated to the sub-profession and then echo chambered until a portion of the player base thinks that was what was promised by the devs. They are meant to be different, not superior.

Still, I’m enjoying learning a new way to play on my existing characters, the new area and mechanics (gliding).

the title should be " HoT is not hard its Tedious. "

the game has alot of pointless mob density, combined with all the knocked downs, i can defeat the enemy’s. not hard just zzzzzzzzzzzz it needs a balance not a nurf

I’m not surprised people find it hard, but I am surprised that people haven’t found builds that help them get through it. I’m lazy. My goal is to survive doing the least possible. l’ve been able to take 4 professions through Verdant, solo by being lazy and finding the easiest builds to play that get me through it. Necro, Engi, Guardian and working on Ranger.

I’m not saying you can solo EVERYTHING, but certainly those 4 classes I’ve played have builds that gets me through story, the majority of mappoints, alive through events … How the difficulty is a showstopper for people, I can’t understand.

Andred.1087:

Solid assessment. I think, though, if masteries were tied specifically to the activities they’re related to, people would just be complaining that they have to grind those activities. Whereas now, since it’s all based on gaining experience, you can do anything that gives you experience to train up your masteries.

This is exactly true.

I’m fine with how masteries are. They are account bound, not per character so its OK that the progression is slow.

dankid.9321:

3)Hero points are not soloable. This one may sort of be legitimate, but not everything has to be soloable. C

I still think this was a bad decision on their part because I think months down the road there are going to be a lot of legitimate complaints about people not having enough players on a map to finish these. Having map completions soloable when there is plenty on any given map that is group-oriented doesn’t really seem game-breaking to me.

Tyrantis.8640:

Andred.1087:

Solid assessment. I think, though, if masteries were tied specifically to the activities they’re related to, people would just be complaining that they have to grind those activities. Whereas now, since it’s all based on gaining experience, you can do anything that gives you experience to train up your masteries.

This is exactly true.

I’m fine with how masteries are. They are account bound, not per character so its OK that the progression is slow.

Im perfectly fine with the rate of gain, I just think they could have been a better way to progress them. XP grind is a simple formula, but its not going to wow anyone.

I will say that the actual masteries themselves and the gating areas (MP / HP) behind certain specializations is a nice change.

I would still like “Epic” quests as an option for something different to do. The collection achivements that unlock unique skins look like a step in the right direction though.

Celtic Lady.3729:

dankid.9321:

3)Hero points are not soloable. This one may sort of be legitimate, but not everything has to be soloable. C

I still think this was a bad decision on their part because I think months down the road there are going to be a lot of legitimate complaints about people not having enough players on a map to finish these. Having map completions soloable when there is plenty on any given map that is group-oriented doesn’t really seem game-breaking to me.

Initially, when I was frustrated, I felt the same way. But they can always scale them down later when/if the populations drop. I’d rather have that, then have them be too easy now, and everyone just breezes through them.

Also, keep in mind with the lowered amount needed for full unlock, you only need a few Hero Point unlocks from HoT. I think I was only at about 52% world completion, and did all the “Commune” HPs I came across in HoT, and then maybe about 3-5 actual fights.

OP’s title should have been ‘HoT isn’t too hard with my super tanky pets’.

Ranger has got to be one of the easiest characters to run through HoT as you have a huge meat shield taking all the damage and can swap to another meat shield without even bothering to heal it.

Try it on a melee toon, or anything that doesn’t rely on stealth or clones, etc and has to tank the damage itself, and it’s a completely different game.

Outside of prime time most of the champ HP’s aren’t solo able, and you can call in the second map for a very long time before there is 3 of you to try the champ.

I’m finding the difficulty level fine, personally (on Ranger and Mesmer).

I don’t do Zerker in HoT, though, so that may be why.

If anyone is having having problems, try Soldier gear (or the equivalent) and maybe tweak your build, a little, for more survivability.

The only issue I have with harder mobs, is that I find it hard to navigate unfamiliar maps, while either fighting mobs, or trying to avoid them.

I think it’s just that my brain goes into survival mode and I sometimes forget where I was supposed to be going. xD

The Ranger pet thing is a little harsh, as our class mechanics are gated by an event.

It’s not so much people having to wait to get the new pets themselves, it’s the realisation that other classes just got their mechanics; whereas, Rangers have to jump through hoops (almost literally!).

Re. hero points: not really bothered, personally, as am not desperate for the new specs.

But, I can see why people, who were, were upset.

Re. masteries: they are pretty slow to acquire, if you just wander around randomly (and try not to consult guides), as I tend to do.

Again, I’m not that bothered, but still.

Like you, I mainly died to falling, especially as my glider doesn’t always deploy, for some reason.

Which can be annoying, mainly due to the sparseness of waypoints.

Also, all those 1s somethings eventually add up of you’re not rich ingame.

BTW, your post is a pretty reasonable one and I agree with a lot of it, apart from the mention of people “whining”.

If I were you, I would drop that particular word, because it is quite patronising and what may seem like “whining” over practically nothing to you, may seem like a legitimate concern to them.

Notsoperky.2348:

OP’s title should have been ‘HoT isn’t too hard with my super tanky pets’.

Ranger has got to be one of the easiest characters to run through HoT as you have a huge meat shield taking all the damage and can swap to another meat shield without even bothering to heal it.

Not quite true – many pets still die pretty easily and then there is a considerable CD on pet swap.

So, if you get that wrong, you can have no pet at all, for a while.

Not to mention that you often have to choose who to spend your Heal as One on…

Do you spend it on your pet, when you don’t need it yourself yet, or do you wait until you do and risk your pet dying?

If you choose to spend it on your pet, because you know your pet swap is on CD and then take a big hit yourself, you have no heal.

Having a heal pet ability would make things easier, actually.

Same with a res pet ability.

Also, pets don’t really tank effectively, in this game.

You have to pick the Beastly Warden talent, which makes them taunt when you hit F2, otherwise they don’t seem to taunt at all.

Not saying solo PVE on Ranger is not easier than on some other classes; it may well be, but it’s not quite as easy as you seem to think.

HoT will get nerfed. It’s already happened. I recall the sniper’s rapid fire to be deadly for example back during the beta, but it seems to be heavily nerfed now. In comparison, shadowleapers. They have a rapid fire on their leap/evade, they also stealth, are immune from range and can shoot a poison AoE twice if you’re in melee range, which is very deadly. As a staff elementalist (solo zerker), shadowleapers are the most dangerous enemies I’ve encountered (veteran+, haven’t been to the last zone yet). Half the time they’re in stealth or evading, and any single 1 of their attacks is deadly. In comparison, snipers are trivial.

HoT will likely get nerfed regardless due to balancing. Considering that the average player plays solo and they’re usually casual (as in less effort), I would assume that HoT will get nerfed. Not everyone is going to want to play as the easiest class in the game – the ranger.

Tigaseye.2047:

You have to pick the Beastly Warden talent, which makes them taunt when you hit F2, otherwise they don’t seem to taunt at all.

I haven’t played HoT with a ranger, but I’ve never had a problem with the pet tanking without using that. Using a longbow/greatsword, enemies naturally seemed to go after the pet. If not, I simply stealthed, moved back and AoE crippled.

Using 2 tank pets, that’s ~50k health on a 15s cooldown (swap before death). You can tank almost anything, especially if you bother to call them back to avoid the stronger attacks and AoEs.

dankid.9321:

Celtic Lady.3729:

dankid.9321:

3)Hero points are not soloable. This one may sort of be legitimate, but not everything has to be soloable. C

I still think this was a bad decision on their part because I think months down the road there are going to be a lot of legitimate complaints about people not having enough players on a map to finish these. Having map completions soloable when there is plenty on any given map that is group-oriented doesn’t really seem game-breaking to me.

Initially, when I was frustrated, I felt the same way. But they can always scale them down later when/if the populations drop. I’d rather have that, then have them be too easy now, and everyone just breezes through them.

Also, keep in mind with the lowered amount needed for full unlock, you only need a few Hero Point unlocks from HoT. I think I was only at about 52% world completion, and did all the “Commune” HPs I came across in HoT, and then maybe about 3-5 actual fights.

Yeah, I know I only need, what, 4 HCs in order to max out my elites? But since I do them as map completion items, too, I’ll do them all for that.

Healix.5819:

HoT will get nerfed. It’s already happened. I recall the sniper’s rapid fire to be deadly for example back during the beta, but it seems to be heavily nerfed now. In comparison, shadowleapers. They have a rapid fire on their leap/evade, they also stealth, are immune from range and can shoot a poison AoE twice if you’re in melee range, which is very deadly. As a staff elementalist (solo zerker), shadowleapers are the most dangerous enemies I’ve encountered (veteran+, haven’t been to the last zone yet). Half the time they’re in stealth or evading, and any single 1 of their attacks is deadly. In comparison, snipers are trivial.

HoT will likely get nerfed regardless due to balancing. Considering that the average player plays solo and they’re usually casual (as in less effort), I would assume that HoT will get nerfed. Not everyone is going to want to play as the easiest class in the game – the ranger.

Tigaseye.2047:

You have to pick the Beastly Warden talent, which makes them taunt when you hit F2, otherwise they don’t seem to taunt at all.

I haven’t played HoT with a ranger, but I’ve never had a problem with the pet tanking without using that. Using a longbow/greatsword, enemies naturally seemed to go after the pet. If not, I simply stealthed, moved back and AoE crippled.

Using 2 tank pets, that’s ~50k health on a 15s cooldown (swap before death). You can tank almost anything, especially if you bother to call them back to avoid the stronger attacks and AoEs.

The point is, it’s not as easy as he, or she, thinks.

Yes, you can use tanky pets, but that obviously reduces your damage and requires forethought.

Much as wearing non-Zerker gear and building for survival does.

Also, they die a bit less now (due to the AOE reduction thing), but when I tried to solo dungeons, in the past, even tanky pets would die a lot, relative to WoW pets.

I often get aggro.

I normally stealth and wait a second, or two, for pet to take it back (or use F2 now, if available), but it definitely happens.

Whereas, in WoW, you set your pet to Tenacity (or not) and switch Growl on and pet taunts by itself.

WoW Hunter is definitely better than most other classes, for harder PVE soloing (excluding tank specs, like Blood DK).

I’m mentioning WoW, because I think people come here from WoW, thinking Ranger is exactly the same as WoW Hunter (because, on the face of it, it seems fairly similar), but it’s actually not.

BTW, when you say Ranger is the easiest (and I assume you only mean for solo PVE, here, because it’s a nightmare in WvW/EotM and almost no one seems to want Rangers in group PVE) – it’s not, if you want to skip mobs.

It’s pretty wearing playing Ranger, on the new maps, because you are constantly pulling everything, whether you want to, or not and 3 second stealth (especially when you have to hit something for it to work) is normally not enough to get away entirely.

So, you have to keep moving until you lose them.

At which point, you run into another group…

Whereas, skip on Mesmer and you can run around freely in stealth and pick your battles.

Which, in many ways, is easier, IMO.

I don’t know. The difficulty on some of these maps has been insane. Like, you put in all this time and effort and then the boss just random crashes you to your desktop.

How can you protect against a move that one-shots your character so hard the game refuse to keep running?

These bosses need to be tuned. I mean, I get the one-shot. But why do they have to cause us to crash so much and rob us of all of our map progression?

As a good player, this game is very easy, killing mordy was easy high lvl fractals just lots of hp but raids! Raids were special

There’s a lot of enemies that really need do a balance pass (mushrooms, Coztic frogs, and wyverns, primarily).

dankid.9321:

3)Hero points are not soloable. This one may sort of be legitimate, but not everything has to be soloable. Case in point, I ended up gliding to one of the more hiddent HPs in Verdant Brink and there were two other guys there. They stated they was no way we could take it without at least one or two more. We tried once and got wiped pretty quickly. We then changed things around a bit, and were able to do it the second time. Me being a healer actually made it all possible. So, yeah, it sucked that it was challenging, but it was more rewarding when we beat it. But there are some that are just ridiculous.

The hero points need to be soloable. Even aside from elite specs, they’re required for map completion (which ties into multiple collections and the new legendaries), and locking people out of that due to the whims of other players is bad design. It’s going to be a big problem down the road once the players move on to whatever the newest content is (new zones added with LS3? Another expansion?).

Hero points are the new minor open world group event. They are equivilent to the low level world bosses in core Tyria in and around the starter maps.

Behellagh.1468:

The mastery system is simply account wide leveling for a game mechanics or other content unlocks. Every level 80 contributes and every character benefits. That’s why the XP is so high. They weren’t meant to be maxed in a week much less a month. I think it’s a reward that’s a darn sight better than SPs we use to get a long time ago.

They might have been if they were QoL/side upgrades, and weren’t used as a gate mechanics.
Since they are, they moved from a longterm advancement category into “unlock as soon as possible” one. With predictable results.

dankid.9321:

I played through as a Druid which is most situations was almost invincible.

That simple statement is the reason you think the way you do, as you would if you played a ‘minionmancer’ as I’ve seen it described.

Yes, a few classes/build are OP and don’t have a huge problem in HoT, you happen to be playing one of them so don’t see what the majority of players’ problems are.

Just so much troll bait here lmao. You guys talk as though you have never ran through the content with a pet. Most areas have several mobs and it is common that some mobs will go for you the player instead of the pets.

Ran through it to collect my HP’s on ranger the other day.

By far the easiest class to play it on, losing mob aggro is easy (LB/GS mainly) and on a pet/tanky build it’s very easy to survive being hit multiple times by mobs.

My favourite bits are when I use heal as one and copy all the buffs my pet picked up, or just use the pet as a draw to drag mobs off when running through piles of them.

You’ve made a good assessment, and I agree with most of it. But the thing that discourages me is the navigation! I need a GPS to get me around the block in real life, and in game, to this day, still have trouble finding my way into Mount Maelstrom’s volcano! So when I entered Verdant Brink, and experienced literal layers of navigation, it is infuriating to me.

The NAVIGATION is what I think is too much. Not saying it should be removed, because apparently not everyone thinks so, but imo it’s ridiculous. I enter Verdant Brink and just end up zoned out, sitting in one spot because I don’t know where to start. I’ve played for about 9 hours a day for the past 3 days and have only managed to get THREE hero points! Not because I’ve had trouble killing the mobs, but because I can’t figure out how to get to them! I’ve been to Auric Basin and even though I still find it very difficult to get around, I know the more I play, the more it’ll make sense to me. I honestly can’t see Verdant Brink ever making sense to me. And from what I hear, it’s like Queensdale compared to Tangled Depths.

Not looking forward to that.

I try and hold out for the best, and I DO love this game, but this crazy navigation is the first time in two years I truly feel discouraged, anxious and angry the entire time I play. It makes me not want to.

Is it just me?

I think the Opp is right if it’s for too hard or not. Probably everything is playable, that is, with the necessary insight in how mobs work, how to navigate, what build you need on what places, etc. But a lot of people simply don’t like to play it this way. They want to play a straightforward game with 1 skillset on maps scaled up or down to meet their level. That is what most of the discussion is about.

land down under.3872:

The title should be “HoT is not hard, it’s Tedious.”

The game has a lot of pointless mob density, combined with all the knocked downs. I can defeat the enemies. Not hard just zzzzzzzzzzzz it needs a balance not a nurf

^
This guy.

I certainly have my gripes about Champion hero points as well, but at least 50% of the encounters in Verdant Brink and Auric Basin are designed to put you on the floor on the shortest cooldowns possible. Or the other tactics that negate attacks and drag the fight out.

Even some of that would be forgivable if the mob density wasn’t so high. If 1 mob is built to handle 1 player, they shouldn’t be occurring in groups of 2-5, with a wandering veteran off to the side in aggro range.

OP,

I don’t grind for my masteries and yet have 94 points already used. Just play the game with XP boosters/food and the xp just comes rolling in so fast. If you think playing the game is a grind than that’s on you. I enjoy doing events and such.

Not sure why you would want to do events, story, gathering, adventures and such for masteries if you feel they are grindy for masteries that only benefit the same pve environment that you already don’t enjoy.