Guild Wars 2

tonyajc.2618:

Except it didn’t. This is a usual case of, the loudest people are the ones not happy, but there are way more happy people. When you make an MMO, you can never make everyone happy. Some want everything at once, others like me, want to enjoy what the game has to offer at a pace. It’s not even a super slow pace, it’s actually nice.

We don’t know how many people are unhappy vs. the number of happy people. We can’t infer anything about people who don’t say anything. I don’t think ANet particularly deserves a disaster here, but you’d still have a hard time convincing me that this isn’t a disaster, and you’d also have a hard time convincing me that they didn’t make mistakes that contributed to this being a disaster.

while we don’t know exact numbers obviously…we can at least make educated guesses by comparing threads. say the number of people posting in this one on page 1:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Elite-Specializations-Hero-Point-Feedback-Merged/first

and the number of people that posted in this one buried on page 9:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Thanks-Anet/first#post5649042

FOX.3582:

Boy oh boy I’ve never seen so much cry babys. So what a lot of you saying is: We wanna play an MMO, we buy an MMO, but we don’t like this game to be so much MMO’ish… Maybe a lot of you forget that masteries are acount wide? So when you have them all unlocked you don’t have to do it anymore on other characters, never again… After that you may come back here to cry about how you all have nothing to do etc… Common guys, enjoy the game, or go play some other crap game like WOW… -.-

Okay, now here is my comment/rating:

10/10. There is no better MMO then GW2… Period…

(I’m not even starting on those sour people who wanted their elite spec on log-in).

Ouchy, you are really not brightest bulb in the room, aren’t you.

IIRC, last time we tried to figure out how populated the game really is, we came up with an answer of something like 2.5 million. A 2600-post thread is a significant event, but a self-selected sample of less than 0.1% of the game’s population tells us nothing.

Also note that that thread is going to include a tonne of debate and mudslinging, which will bump its post count far higher than you’d expect a thread to ‘naturally’ obtain.

Mahou.3924:

FOX.3582:

Boy oh boy I’ve never seen so much cry babys. So what a lot of you saying is: We wanna play an MMO, we buy an MMO, but we don’t like this game to be so much MMO’ish… Maybe a lot of you forget that masteries are acount wide? So when you have them all unlocked you don’t have to do it anymore on other characters, never again… After that you may come back here to cry about how you all have nothing to do etc… Common guys, enjoy the game, or go play some other crap game like WOW… -.-

Okay, now here is my comment/rating:

10/10. There is no better MMO then GW2… Period…

(I’m not even starting on those sour people who wanted their elite spec on log-in).

Ouchy, you are really not brightest bulb in the room, aren’t you.

GEE DUB TUU BEST GAEM EVAR U HATERZ SUX
these are the people that need to stop riding anets kitten and actually look at the game from a critics point of view.

6/10 Not enough gated content.

Selkirk.4218:

while we don’t know exact numbers obviously…we can at least make educated guesses by comparing threads. say the number of people posting in this one on page 1:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Elite-Specializations-Hero-Point-Feedback-Merged/first

and the number of people that posted in this one buried on page 9:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Thanks-Anet/first#post5649042

Besides, Anet has been trying to find reasons to delete/merge threads with negative comments, while leaving positive threads untouched even if those threads are pretty much empty with one or two lines only. Even so, the forums are still filled with negative threads.

One may argue that there may be people who are silently playing and feel all right. This is true, but on the other hand, there are also people have silently stopped playing when finding no fun in HOT, or simply decided not to purchase HOT after reading other people’s experience without making any comments.

By the way, I think it is unwise for Anet to moderate forums in this way. What they are doing may kitten off people more, and negative comments will spread out to other parts of the Internet more quickly as a result.

Selkirk.4218:

while we don’t know exact numbers obviously…we can at least make educated guesses by comparing threads. say the number of people posting in this one on page 1:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Elite-Specializations-Hero-Point-Feedback-Merged/first

and the number of people that posted in this one buried on page 9:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Thanks-Anet/first#post5649042

You cannot infer anything statistically relevant with that data.
First: The sample size is way to small
Second: The people on the forums are not a representative sample of the playerbase, because angry people are more likely to post on the forums than satisfied people
Third: Angry comments are more likely to spread on the internet. There is research about this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-everyone-on-the-internet-so-angry/
And a youtube video to explain it if you are not into reading scientific papers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

evilunderling.9265:

IIRC, last time we tried to figure out how populated the game really is, we came up with an answer of something like 2.5 million. A 2600-post thread is a significant event, but a self-selected sample of less than 0.1% of the game’s population tells us nothing.

Also note that that thread is going to include a tonne of debate and mudslinging, which will bump its post count far higher than you’d expect a thread to ‘naturally’ obtain.

i think these are fair points…except that the ‘debate’ is completely one sided (people hate the masteries and hero point system). the only people defending it are the same people that posted in the ‘thanks anet’ thread .

further the level of dissatisfaction is remarkable only 3 days in. as veteran players we are used to lame content and if hot was only bad we would be seeing largely positive posts (with the ‘negative’ threads being bug reporting and edge cases).

however we have seen the community, desperate for content-any content, frankly disgusted with hot. hot is precisely the opposite of what we love about the core game. hot is unpleasant in almost every aspect and that is reflected on these forums.

8/10

Enjoying the various layers of the jungle as well as exploring it and finding out more about the lore. Not too happy about how many HP it takes to unlock elite spec, fell 200 would’ve been enough really. But on the plus side since mastered are account bound it’ll take a fourth of the time to get my other elite specs.

also LOvE how the enemies are actually a threat and not just completely loot bags.

pfanne.9783:

Selkirk.4218:

while we don’t know exact numbers obviously…we can at least make educated guesses by comparing threads. say the number of people posting in this one on page 1:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Elite-Specializations-Hero-Point-Feedback-Merged/first

and the number of people that posted in this one buried on page 9:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Thanks-Anet/first#post5649042

You cannot infer anything statistically relevant with that data.
First: The sample size is way to small
Second: The people on the forums are not a representative sample of the playerbase, because angry people are more likely to post on the forums than satisfied people
Third: Angry comments are more likely to spread on the internet. There is research about this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-everyone-on-the-internet-so-angry/
And a youtube video to explain it if you are not into reading scientific papers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

Give me an example of a game that is truly great, but its forums are full of negative comments within hours of its launch.

You navigate a map trying to understand how the kitten to get where you want to, then you get ambushed and one shot. Then you get there 30 mins later of walking from a waypoint halfway across the map. Then you miss the mastery. Then you get the mastery and come back there 3 hours later. You activate the event and you discover is a group event and nobody is around.

That is, if you discover how to get there in the first place.

Sounds like a 0/10 here.

MyriadStars.5679:

Besides, Anet has been trying to find reasons to delete/merge threads with negative comments, while leaving positive threads untouched even if those threads are pretty much empty with one or two lines only. Even so, the forums are still filled with negative threads.

No, they’ve been merging threads that are all about the same one bloody thing into one thread. That’s perfectly reasonable. The moderators don’t engage in shady practices like you claim, because it would completely defeat the point of even having official forums if they did.

Please also note that neither /r/GuildWars2 nor /r/mmorpg, neither of which are under ANet’s control, have even one rage thread about this on the front page at the time of this post.

MyriadStars.5679:

Give me an example of a game that is truly great, but its forums are full of negative comments within hours of its launch.

Also curious.

evilunderling.9265:

MyriadStars.5679:

Besides, Anet has been trying to find reasons to delete/merge threads with negative comments, while leaving positive threads untouched even if those threads are pretty much empty with one or two lines only. Even so, the forums are still filled with negative threads.

No, they’ve been merging threads that are all about the same one bloody thing into one thread. That’s perfectly reasonable. The moderators don’t engage in shady practices like you claim, because it would completely defeat the point of even having official forums if they did.

Why aren’t they merging threads titled “thank you” into one? These threads are pretty much empty.

Will you do this little experiment: Create a thread titled “thank you Anet”, and in its body, write down “I really enjoy this xpac”. Let’s see if this thread will be merged into an existing one. I bet no.

Many other gaming companies typically do not merge/delete/lock negative posts, because of conflicts of interests. Actually I should stop talking about this, because I don’t want this thread to be locked just because there are a few posts that are not 100% on the topic.

I’d give it a 4/10 for now. So far from what I’ve experienced I just haven’t had any fun with it. The story is gated behind insane amounts of grinding in the new zones. Also I haven’t been able to find any hearts or anything for exp to unlock the masteries to continue the story yet. Not sure if there’s a lack of a tutorial and I’m missing something or what. Usually when an expansion comes out for a game there’s lots to do, but with HoT I’m just kinda finding myself sitting there waiting for events to happen because I’m being forced to grind to even be able to do anything. Now I’m fine with grinding if there’s content, but last night I sat and had to grind the same couple of events over and over again to unlock my mastery.

MyriadStars.5679:
Give me an example of a game that is truly great, but its forums are full of negative comments within hours of its launch.
^
All of them, because nothing makes everyone happy. Modern Warfare was too different from World at War. Borderlands was too ‘cartoony’. Gears shotgun was too OP. Halo was a knockoff of Golden Eye, etc.

ALL of the greats of had their naysayers.

At this point it’s a rock solid 9. Take away some of the time gating and its legendary.

There is tons of enjoyment here, but its tough to solo.

Story was about 9/10 until the very last fight, then dropped to 1/10 because I’ve been suffering from RNG problems.

Otherwise, 6/10. Could really be better.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

MyriadStars.5679:
Give me an example of a game that is truly great, but its forums are full of negative comments within hours of its launch.
^
All of them, because nothing makes everyone happy. Modern Warfare was too different from World at War. Borderlands was too ‘cartoony’. Gears shotgun was too OP. Halo was a knockoff of Golden Eye, etc.

ALL of the greats of had their naysayers.

At this point it’s a rock solid 9. Take away some of the time gating and its legendary.

There is tons of enjoyment here, but its tough to solo.

“All of them”? I am pretty sure that I was browsing the forums on the launch days of D2: LOD and vanilla WOW, and didn’t see so many negative threads. I don’t think I saw so many negative posts for the original GW2 shortly after its launch.

“Borderlands was too ‘cartoony’”? Not that I have any comments on this, but it would be really hard to believe that the entire forum was filled with threads on cartoony on its launch day.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

MyriadStars.5679:
Give me an example of a game that is truly great, but its forums are full of negative comments within hours of its launch.
^
All of them, because nothing makes everyone happy. Modern Warfare was too different from World at War. Borderlands was too ‘cartoony’. Gears shotgun was too OP. Halo was a knockoff of Golden Eye, etc.

ALL of the greats of had their naysayers.

At this point it’s a rock solid 9. Take away some of the time gating and its legendary.

There is tons of enjoyment here, but its tough to solo.

Indeed, it is harder to solo, but personally I take that as a positive as it encourages people to work together. Last night I ran around with an engi for 2-3 hours exploring, doing mastery and hero points. Then just now I had to run from the Chak hero point and request assistance from nearby players. Was very enjoyable compared to soling everything in the base game.

Knighthonor.4061:

How would you rate the HoT Fun Factor?
10 being the most fun
and 0 being the least fun.

It’s context sensitive question- Playing with friends I’d give it 7.5: When playing with 3-5 in party (guildies, friends) it’s a blast. When playing alone I’d rate it horribly low, maybe a 1.5 (the beautiful maps are worth at least 1.5 even under horrible play conditions) When I sign in and no one I know is on and I have to run around and team up with whoever is on the map it’s a horrible experience. The events I want to do are usually void of players making them impossible. So I just run around the jungle from event to event. When I arrive I have to evaluate if it has enough players to make it worth the effort (since the waypoints are so far apart). It’s very frustrating and not fun at all when you’re going at it alone depending on whoever happens to be on the map. You can spend hours running around not getting any XP.

Because the core game was open world solo-able and the new content drastically changes that aspect of play I think the design is very bad for GW2. It’s a design you would expect from any run-of-the-mill MMO that relies on grind as part of it’s mechanic, but GW2 has been above that. Well, until now. So based on that and ArenaNet not really preparing the players for it, I have to say I’m not a big fan of their design decisions. I think making the Elite Specializations a reward for finishing most of HoT instead of being available to play by the end of the first map is a huge mistake. I think everyone who bought HoT wants to play HoT with their Elite Spec not be awarded their Elite Spec for finishing the game or having to resort to go grind map competition for 30-40 hours in the core game or hero point sin WvW in order to qualify to unlock the Elite Spec early in HoT. You have many horrible design decisions made with this expansion. The only people who should really be praised for their effort are the artist and graphic design team. As usual, they have outdone themselves. The game is beautiful to look at. Unfortunately that does’t make up for some of these design decisions.

I believe the Elite Specializations were advertised as something we play the game with and not and end-game reward and so on those grounds I think the design is deceptive, I also think it’s insulting and disrespectful to the casual fans who bought it thinking they were buying an expansion that held to the same tenants of the core game manifesto. There is zero casual friendly about HoT PvE content.

MyriadStars.5679:

Why aren’t they merging threads titled “thank you” into one? These threads are pretty much empty.

Because they don’t need to.

The purpose of merging threads into one is to make sure that the devs can skim all of the feedback on a subject. Because, you know, if a lot of people don’t like something, that implies that perhaps something will need to be done. The devs might like to see “thank you” posts, but they’re not going to inspire debate (so they’ll fall off the front page naturally on their own), and they don’t imply the presence of anything that actually needs addressing.

You are literally just trying to find malice where there is none.

Have a look at the front page of the game’s subreddit — looks to me like the moment you leave ANet-controlled space, people actually get a bit more positive (although in theory, upvotes and downvotes aren’t supposed to be like/dislike buttons — people just tend to use them that way in practice anyway).

0/10

My experience is summed up thusly. Yesterday some friends asked me if I wanted to explore with them and I did. So I zoned in and asked where are you? They said in the canopy but you are only level 1 in masteries so you can’t get here…

This game doesn’t even allow me to play with my effing friends. Great design.

Now this doesn’t take into account that I really preordered this crap for the elite specs that take 460 hero points to unlock. Where is my level 80 with world completion going to get that? I honestly don’t know. Now multiply that by the alts and the fact that I want to open the specialization on all of the professions (classes that I don’t play very much at all) and i am looking at years worth of grind to just experience new skills that we should only have to unlock once and then not grind an obscene amount to use.

Not good. Waste of money.

Indeed, it is harder to solo, but personally I take that as a positive as it encourages people to work together. Last night I ran around with an engi for 2-3 hours exploring, doing mastery and hero points. Then just now I had to run from the Chak hero point and request assistance from nearby players. Was very enjoyable compared to soling everything in the base game.

Agreed.

I would give it an 8 for design and a 1 for making people grind what seems to be the same as reputation in WOW. Also you get no mastery xp in WVW or the Halloween events it seems so they are basically forcing you into those zones.

The lag on the new WVW maps was terrible in big fights it was unplayable.

evilunderling.9265:

MyriadStars.5679:

Why aren’t they merging threads titled “thank you” into one? These threads are pretty much empty.

Because they don’t need to.

This is a really convenient excuse.

So, you’re unhappy that you have to level up a glider?

When the whining from the peanut gallery was ‘we want things to do at 80’?

Pop a teleport to friend. Problem solved.

MyriadStars.5679:

This is a really convenient excuse.

As I said, threads with feedback get merged so that the devs can skim the feedback and get a feel for what needs to be done. “Thanks ANet” threads aren’t feedback.

There was one thread that got locked, but you can see for yourself that someone was just spamming it with utter kitten.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

Pop a teleport to friend. Problem solved.

I have seen literally one of those since I started playing. Is there some source of them that I don’t know about?

evilunderling.9265:

MyriadStars.5679:

This is a really convenient excuse.

As I said, threads with feedback get merged so that the devs can skim the feedback and get a feel for what needs to be done. “Thanks ANet” threads aren’t feedback.

There was one thread that got locked, but you can see for yourself that someone was just spamming it with utter kitten.

Why not just remove the spammer’s post instead of locking the entire thread?

All right, if this thread is locked because you and I are arguing about what is the right way of forum moderation, then I automatically win:P

Back to the topic, I don’t think a customer forum of a big public company and an independent private forum should be moderated in the same way. Think about conflicts of interests.

I’m not in the right frame of mind to rate yet. I’m looking forward to having all my mobility Masteries completed so that I can get everywhere. Once that happens I think I’ll enjoy myself a lot more.

But last night I did a story part that involved jumping and flying through a cave to avoid a monster and I just could not pull away from the computer until it was done. As I watched my toon do the ending cinematic in her underwear, I had this great smile on my face and if it weren’t for the mastery gate that followed I probably would not have gone to bed that night.

I am having a lot of fun.

Just so we have an idea of where we stand votes are as follows:
REMINDER 0=NO FUN AT ALL, 10=MOST FUN I’VE EVER HAD!

(score given) – (number of votes)
0 – 25
1 – 12
2 – 21
3 – 20
4 – 13
5 – 7
6 – 6
7 – 8
8 – 18
9 – 15
10 – 11

if you gave multiple numbers rating scenery, music etc and I could not decipher a clear rating → you got skipped

Personal thoughts:
-I love the aztec/myan (whatever you want to call it!) feeling temple area, it’s beautiful!
-I regret having so many alts, no I do not want to grind hero points for them all to unlock their specialization. Sometimes I want to play an ele that LOOKS different, is a different race etc → looks like I won’t be doing that if I want to utilize tempest. Some grind is okay, I have over 8k hours in game, I will work for what I want if it is reasonable – but unlocking multiple characters is not. People do not have the TIME to fully unlock specializations on multiple toons, specializations is just a fraction of the new content…. The amount of experience required to unlock higher mastery levels…..I don’t think I need to say more about that for those who have experienced it.

My rating: 3/10

Comments that stood out:

-beautiful
-game is grindy, Grind of Thorns
-HoT is like a second job if you want to get anywhere in it
- tedious
- not good for solo players

8/10 Tons of stuff to do, the Masteries are long giving me alot to work towards which is a plus.

The elite spec is really cumbersome to unlock though. Also tangled depths is one of the worst maps I have ever seen.

So I docked points on the elite not being ready to unlock and tangled depths being horrible… Other then that, having a ball.

pfanne.9783:

Selkirk.4218:

while we don’t know exact numbers obviously…we can at least make educated guesses by comparing threads. say the number of people posting in this one on page 1:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Elite-Specializations-Hero-Point-Feedback-Merged/first

and the number of people that posted in this one buried on page 9:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Thanks-Anet/first#post5649042

You cannot infer anything statistically relevant with that data.
First: The sample size is way to small
Second: The people on the forums are not a representative sample of the playerbase, because angry people are more likely to post on the forums than satisfied people
Third: Angry comments are more likely to spread on the internet. There is research about this:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-everyone-on-the-internet-so-angry/
And a youtube video to explain it if you are not into reading scientific papers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

Point number two is null and void because when anet implements good content and good changes, they receive waves upon waves of praise(look at corrosive poison cloud change for necro and more recently minion/pet pve changes)

anet is getting called on the BS and no amount of fanboy can cover it up

scientific american is not peer reviewed – toss

I’ve been around a while, mostly liked what was around and the whole story. But HoT feels just like the STO expansion Delta Rising did. Progression speed is somewhere between glacial and continental drift and all you need to do in order to move it forward is mindless grinding of rather boring events.

Add to that the terrible decision to effectively lock elite specs behind masteries so you basically have to do everything before you can go and unlock an elite spec fully and on top of that the mess of the zones. Basically hallways with enemies everywhere making it frustrating just to get around then those enemies often have far, far too many knockdowns/knockbacks. Being chain bounced until you die is even less fun than being one shotted out of nowhere.

My score for this has to be 0/10 as its probably the /worst/ expansion i have ever seen in its current state.

I hope that it can be fixed in time because before long people will start bailing.

PzTnT.7198:

I hope that it can be fixed in time because before long people will start bailing.

This has already started. I am only here to complain and hope they fix this. Eventually I will get bored of that and just uninstall.

I am not wishing the people that like HoT to not have fun and I am glad they are having fun. I am saying this because most of the people that like HoT are extremely defensive and are refusing to see the merit of the complaints, of which there are maaaaaaaaaany.

But for someone like me, meaning I have a job and a life and games are there for me to relax, Anet as a company I will purchase games from is dead.

Lilly Satou.1482:

Mahou.3924:

FOX.3582:

Boy oh boy I’ve never seen so much cry babys. So what a lot of you saying is: We wanna play an MMO, we buy an MMO, but we don’t like this game to be so much MMO’ish… Maybe a lot of you forget that masteries are acount wide? So when you have them all unlocked you don’t have to do it anymore on other characters, never again… After that you may come back here to cry about how you all have nothing to do etc… Common guys, enjoy the game, or go play some other crap game like WOW… -.-

Okay, now here is my comment/rating:

10/10. There is no better MMO then GW2… Period…

(I’m not even starting on those sour people who wanted their elite spec on log-in).

Ouchy, you are really not brightest bulb in the room, aren’t you.

GEE DUB TUU BEST GAEM EVAR U HATERZ SUX
these are the people that need to stop riding anets kitten and actually look at the game from a critics point of view.

We are. After getting all the hero points required to get Berserker on my main last night without actively going for said points, I think it is an acceptable time investment, especially since said masteries I earned while doing so help speed up future HP runs.

There are a lot of complainers not giving constructive feedback other than ‘WANT IT RIGHT NOW’. How do you go months without expecting some effort to be put into getting the Specializations for your characters?

And here I thought Elitists were the worst thing to run into GW2.

0/10 Play mainly for WvW and the new BL maps are horrific—way too big, too much PVE and can’t find any groups to fight. Crafted all my ascended weapons and armor for Druid before Anet released it would take 400 hp to fully unlock the class—forcing me and others alike to grind for hero points on multiple classes for specializations. That, coupled with the grind to upgrade the guild hall to get our wvw buffs back and to have a guild arena to scrim in has killed this game for me.

I’m not a stranger to grind in mmos, but for a non subscription based mmo it makes no sense. I’m still trying to understand what I paid for as well. People who didn’t purchase the xpac can still enter our guild hall and the new wvw maps. I’m guessing its for the elite specs that I can’t play yet till I grind out the hero points?

I see much of the PVE population isn’t happy either. Square Enix came out with an xpac series called Abyssea that killed FFXI many years ago. It was a slow kill and it took a few years for the player base to completely fade out. Looks like you all at Anet found a way to fast kill GW2. Daum’s Black Desert NA alpha launches tomorrow and I for one can say playing the Korean version that GW2 is gonna have a hard time competing with it and Camelot Unchained. Most gamers nowadays want sandbox pve, open world pvp and competitive RvR where GUILDS and their WARS mean something!!

Bottom line, I wish I could get my money back from HoT and put it toward a game which shows promise to be fun. Huge disappointment. I really hoped this Xpac would’ve revitalized this game and kept me here for many years to come and unless something major changes I don’t think I will be coming back.

It’s worth mentioning the game has a 5.8/10 on Metacritic right now.

Granted, thats with only 23 user reviews.

I’d give the game a 5/10, and really only because its riding on the base game’s coattails. The maps feel claustrophobic. Acquiring mastery points and hero points is confusing with the mastery gating system not being explained anywhere on the map. The open world content is limited and repetitive. And the thought of doing all this over, and over, and over again, each time I want to unlock the elite spec on an alt makes me want to just put the whole thing down.

There were so many poor design choices made for HoT. It’s not unplayable, but the idea of playing it is not attractive to me at all.

Sykper.6583:

Lilly Satou.1482:

Mahou.3924:

FOX.3582:

Boy oh boy I’ve never seen so much cry babys. So what a lot of you saying is: We wanna play an MMO, we buy an MMO, but we don’t like this game to be so much MMO’ish… Maybe a lot of you forget that masteries are acount wide? So when you have them all unlocked you don’t have to do it anymore on other characters, never again… After that you may come back here to cry about how you all have nothing to do etc… Common guys, enjoy the game, or go play some other crap game like WOW… -.-

Okay, now here is my comment/rating:

10/10. There is no better MMO then GW2… Period…

(I’m not even starting on those sour people who wanted their elite spec on log-in).

Ouchy, you are really not brightest bulb in the room, aren’t you.

GEE DUB TUU BEST GAEM EVAR U HATERZ SUX
these are the people that need to stop riding anets kitten and actually look at the game from a critics point of view.

We are. After getting all the hero points required to get Berserker on my main last night without actively going for said points, I think it is an acceptable time investment, especially since said masteries I earned while doing so help speed up future HP runs.

There are a lot of complainers not giving constructive feedback other than ‘WANT IT RIGHT NOW’. How do you go months without expecting some effort to be put into getting the Specializations for your characters?

And here I thought Elitists were the worst thing to run into GW2.

I think most of them are just having difficulties expressing themselves or rather they only know how to QQ.

But I will just take reference to FF14 because it is one of the most well designed MMO I ever played. Job advancement is done usually thru’ questing/storyline and then ding, you advanced, then you proceed to learning skills/gearing your toon which can take quite a number of hours but still acceptable because the progression is linear.

However, what HoT had is something not of a norm which is getting hero points and for some of those points in the jungle are locked behind mastery and to level up mastery is yet another grind, progression is hindered by another progression. Not a very popular mechanic here. (at least based from the raging forum threaders).

I don’t hate HoT but I am a tad disappointed with the design choices. If the intention is for players to unlock elite spec while in the jungle, I think it would be better that the acquisition of traits to be more direct (i.e. reward from an event) so player will really roam around, have a couple of traits behind another progression but just make sure the progression does not require a tonnes of exp gain to unlock. (balance ~) and not collecting points to unlock….. :/

David.5974:

Map: 10/10 (sorry but I really like it)
Elite spec scrapper(main) : 5/10
Fun: 8/10

I read that many ppl frustrating from new maps. Idk why..

The maps felt very labyrinthian compared to the core maps. And that frustration is understandable. Though it did not bother me too much and whenever I’m in a bind, all I had to do is ask for directions.

I just dread the idea of having to farm hero points on all my alts to unlock their elite specs instead of just doing what I find enjoyable and eventually unlocking them.

nobleroar.2078:

Sykper.6583:

Lilly Satou.1482:

Mahou.3924:

FOX.3582:

Boy oh boy I’ve never seen so much cry babys. So what a lot of you saying is: We wanna play an MMO, we buy an MMO, but we don’t like this game to be so much MMO’ish… Maybe a lot of you forget that masteries are acount wide? So when you have them all unlocked you don’t have to do it anymore on other characters, never again… After that you may come back here to cry about how you all have nothing to do etc… Common guys, enjoy the game, or go play some other crap game like WOW… -.-

Okay, now here is my comment/rating:

10/10. There is no better MMO then GW2… Period…

(I’m not even starting on those sour people who wanted their elite spec on log-in).

Ouchy, you are really not brightest bulb in the room, aren’t you.

GEE DUB TUU BEST GAEM EVAR U HATERZ SUX
these are the people that need to stop riding anets kitten and actually look at the game from a critics point of view.

We are. After getting all the hero points required to get Berserker on my main last night without actively going for said points, I think it is an acceptable time investment, especially since said masteries I earned while doing so help speed up future HP runs.

There are a lot of complainers not giving constructive feedback other than ‘WANT IT RIGHT NOW’. How do you go months without expecting some effort to be put into getting the Specializations for your characters?

And here I thought Elitists were the worst thing to run into GW2.

I think most of them are just having difficulties expressing themselves or rather they only know how to QQ.

But I will just take reference to FF14 because it is one of the most well designed MMO I ever played. Job advancement is done usually thru’ questing/storyline and then ding, you advanced, then you proceed to learning skills/gearing your toon which can take quite a number of hours but still acceptable because the progression is linear.

However, what HoT had is something not of a norm which is getting hero points and for some of those points in the jungle are locked behind mastery and to level up mastery is yet another grind, progression is hindered by another progression. Not a very popular mechanic here. (at least based from the raging forum threaders).

I don’t hate HoT but I am a tad disappointed with the design choices. If the intention is for players to unlock elite spec while in the jungle, I think it would be better that the acquisition of traits to be more direct (i.e. reward from an event) so player will really roam around, have a couple of traits behind another progression but just make sure the progression does not require a tonnes of exp gain to unlock. (balance ~) and not collecting points to unlock….. :/

That’s a much better set of feedback. But the thing is they designed the Hero Points to be replayable for those who already completed them by offering the map currency (Wanted heavily) plus some extra loot. Although I am of the sound mind that if one were skilled enough to mitigate the damage the hero point boss puts out and do the mechanics properly, they should be able to kill it in 5 minutes and not have the mob have too much health.

The issue I have with the traits being locked behind certain content or events is that those could be considered worse, especially if the event for weeks was practically impossible. For instance, say a GM trait for all the elite specializations were locked behind the main Meta Event completion in the 2nd map, if you have progressed that far in, you know how challenging it is and how no one has done it yet. Certainly would be a big incentive to have players start actually getting their heads in the game and have a map-wide attempt at it, but how frustrating would it be?

I don’t think locking traits and skills behind those certain events is all that good, especially if some events were part of a chain and the earlier event gets bugged out…

Short version: 7.5/10

Long version:
Note: below I also put my reasoning for the score in here together with some minor suggestion for improving stuff.

Story: 8/10
I haven’t completed the story yet, but it’s being pretty great. They lost points for requiring specific masteries at regular intervals.
Also: can we also have a way to ONLY see the achivements tied to a story instance? (as they are grouped together for each act in the ‘achivement panel’ :p)

Mastery points / skill points: 7/10 – The idea isn’t bad. I only fear that (since some of them are hard to reach) in a month (or so), when the maps die down a bit, it will be impossible to get some of these mastery/skill points done on both your alts and for new(er) players. For the simple reason that some of them are hard and require a group. Problem being that people either can’t get there (lacking the needed masteries) or they are too hard too reach and people won’t bother going to help out. (Being kitten itself is not a problem, but it requiring a group may become a problem in the future)
Suggestion: Scale the mastery and skill point stuff, depending on how many people are around :p (This has the added benefit, that they can’t simply be ‘zerged’ down by 20 people like I have seen happening :p)

Mastery lines: 7/10 – On itself not a bad thing. I just hate how the story forces a certain mastery on you. I heard you need one to be at level 4 (forgot what one it was, but it’s still a bunch of grind just to do 1 story instance) For me, it also felt (when entering ‘verdan brink’ for the first time) I couldn’t do anything because I didn’t have any mastery.
And I haven’t done the math, but are there enough mastery points to fill up every mastery? (I think achivements are the only way of getting them, and I’m not sure if there are enough of them. Let me know if I’m wrong. I’m just scared of the story forcing me to get a mastery point and I’m not able to find more mastery points ’cause I spend everything on other mastery lines :p)
Suggestion: Have a pvp track. If you completed the entire line. You get mastery point (or maybe get a ticket. 10 tickets = 1 mastery points? Again just worried about the amount of mastery points :p). This may get more people into pvp and forcing them to at least try to be good at it (hey positive thinking at work )

Specialization: 8/10 – The only problem I have is that currently hate the idea of doing that massive (skill point)-grind on every class.
Suggestion: Now you 1 long ‘thing’ to spend points on. Just split them in 1 for only skill and 1 only containg “trait”-stuff. People will still need the same amount of points but can choose what they want to focus on first (that awesome skill or that nice trait).

5 at best, closer to 4. I can’t actually do any relevant content with my Revenant until I unlock Herald, which I have to spend 100% of my playtime grinding XP for in order to reach the hero points that I need. Stronghold isn’t really holding up either.

Tons of fun. I’m already over the game again, at least until they cave and reduce either Mastery XP requirements or hero point requirements for the elite specs. They should have only cost 200 to begin with. Let characters with 100% completion of Central Tyria have their elite spec right away, reduce the workload for new characters.

2 on a good day. I am looking for a new MMO. be seeing you.

I am not looking for any mmos ever again. I am pretty convinced that no company can make a good mmo and that mmo as a game type are fatally flawed by the past and the mechanics themselves that are seen as part of what makes up an mmo.

It is like every mmo is born with a poison pill and the inherent flaws of the agreed upon genre systems and the lack of imagination from developers doom each new project from the start.

1/10.

The fact I am feeling compelled to do stuff just to access what I want to have (elite specs) is ruining what would probably otherwise be enjoyable content.

How they can have gone back so much on the original design ethos of GW2 still amazes me.

10/10 Currently having a blast.

5/10. Exploration is fun. Map is a visual feast. Gliding is awesome.

Everything else underwhelms. Combat is tedious, if you’re not playing a ranged/ pet/minion build, you’re in for a very rough/unfun ride, some mobs are way over-tuned, dealing an incredulous amount of spike damage to a 3000 armor character. HoT offers a cheap form of challenge that encourages grouping or zerging. And the events are not even rewarding; for the vast majority of the time, you are rewarded caches that dropped fine/masterwork gear. “Challenging” content + mediocre rewards isn’t good for map longevity.

And don’t even get me started on the hero point issue.