Guild Wars 2

Just want to say to Anet: thank you for these amazing maps.
Now I’m a veteran player, and I pre ordered HoT. Rushed through the story, was hugely dissatisfied with how short it felt. I’m sort of in that camp ’I’d rather be forced to go through maps and do meta’s for that grandeur feel’. But I understand most ppl would hate that.

So it ended up that I never spent much time in the maps. Time I did spend was only to get HPs for specializations, which for me is 1 DragonStand, Verdant brink, and some Auric basin. Anything I did I was rushing toward that goal/HP and considered the difficulty/maze-ness of the maps a nuisance.

But now! Now I am crafting nevermore. So here I am doing map completion on HoT maps and just chilling, exploring all the nooks and corners. And it’s amazing. No flat map even comes close. I’m starting to notice patterns, and pre-defined paths, and the thought that had to go into arranging these maps.

These maps are, quite literally, a work of art, and I think it’s a bit of a shame and hurts HoT maps that the rest of HoT legendaries won’t come. They’d bring many more players in with incentive to explore the maps than otherwise will be the case. But oh well.

Anywho, back to exploring I feel a bit like I am in a roleplaying game where I have to hide/take circuitous paths around mobs, or fight to the death Just shame took me so long to get to this propertly

Gimli.9461:

And it’s amazing. No flat map even comes close. I’m starting to notice patterns, and pre-defined paths, and the thought that had to go into arranging these maps.

These maps are, quite literally, a work of art, and I think it’s a bit of a shame and hurts HoT maps that the rest of HoT legendaries won’t come. They’d bring many more players in with incentive to explore the maps than otherwise will be the case. But oh well.

I agree completely. The layouts and visual environments in HoT are incredible! Gliding in them is even more amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it in any game!

However, there are some things I don’t like, the “LFG meta game” chief among them. I feel I should be able to just log in and play the game. Showing up at the right time to hit the LFG train to an organized map feels antithetical. The icing on the cake is that by far the best method of earning loot in HoT consists of the LFG game in fast forward!

I also greatly dislike adventures and wish there were more alternative sources of mastery points. I feel the masteries are worthwhile, but I’m not willing to put myself through this to complete them all. I hope they continue to add more mastery points to give players more freedom in how they go about unlocking masteries.

In any event, I am greatly anticipating more of these excellent maps. Even more if they can provide them without these issues!

This is what I keep telling people and when they accept my offer for help,. what I show them. The HoT maps are truly truly awesome. The most fun I have in this game right now is figuring out new ways to improve how I get around on those maps.

Today I took a guildie into VB and we got 10 of the 11 Hero points in like record time. I avoided the bat guano because I’m lazy. lol

Then I ran her to TD and got her the points she needed there to get around.

No hassle at all. She was like I didn’t even die once. I’m like of course you didn’t. You were there with me. lol

I agree absolutely. I finished the HoT story quite quickly too and was a little dissatisfied with how short it seemed (not so much of a problem now with the Living World Season 3).
I’m adventuring with a new character now and I’m trying to “role-play” all the areas – the core campain’s maps are very pretty as well. I’m in the end of the main story and can’t wait to come back to the Heart of Maguuma again, glide here and there, jump on mushrooms again, and listen the the wonderful soundtrack. I love HoT atmosphere.

HoT maps are absolutely amazing. So many events going on feels like it’s more real. After awhile my favorite map is TD, so complex and beautiful. Also the forest theme helps a lot.

HoT maps are indeed great, though I do admit that Dragon’s Stand is a bit of a pain for me to navigate. I can’t go back to Central Tyria (except for Orr, Silverwastes and Dry Top) simply because of how boring the old maps are in comparison.

HoT maps are also just beautiful, and the dynamic events are quite fun.

HoT maps are still my very favourites when it comes to their designs and layout. I really really hope we will still get more complex maps in the future. Not all of them have to be this way, but it’s alot more fun to explore a map if it’s not just flat with a few hills and small caves every now and then.

I want to agree, but there’s still some critical issues with the time-gates, etc. And it feels like it gets worse the deeper in you go.
Verdant Brink I generally like, though. Off-hours access for those with the masteries and insider knowledge, and otherwise not a huge pain to get around.
Auric Basin has a few time-limited spots (and how bad it sucks to walk out of Gilded Hollow at the wrong time…), but overall, most of the map is open. Also some of the best music for the expansion. Thumbs-up.
Tangled Depths mostly suffers from the lazy, unreadable minimap. Learning my way around, I definitely get some good use out of Wallows. Catching event chains can help as well, but it all sort of starts with finding the central waypoint buried in the zone. Honestly, if I had my own in-game mapping tools, Tangled Depths might actually be fun to get around.
Dragon Stand could be a better map for so many players, if we were ever allowed into it. The “LFG exactly 11 minutes before the event starts and taxi in, get dead, revive in the one map that will actually accomplish anything” requirement really puts me off from trying, and it’s made worse by the 2-hour cycle. Since ANet opened the map more back in April, it’s much better to just roam and do map completion off hours.

So, I kinda like HoT maps after getting used to them, but it’s a huge emotional cost of entry to start caring. And the toll stays high because of the not-so-little bits that needle at my resolve.