Guild Wars 2

3.5 for me. Just not fun to be looking at the hoard of masteries and hero points needed to be effective in WvW

Still playing core even tho I have the expansion. Don’t like gliding so I’m stuck w/o the elite specializations. Dungeons give less gold now and they haven’t even revealed the new legendaries. I’d say 0/10

7/10

Would be 8/9 if I could enjoy my herald . ( already unlocked over 70 % for my dragonhunter and reaper. Don’t feel like doing all that work again )

Knighthonor.4061:

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

negative maxint

3, but it’s mainly because even if only half finished it’s fun to run Reaper in the Labyrinth.

2/10 atm…

PvP: 10/10 due to having elites unlocked.

[To view this comment, unlock the gw2grindforlife’s racial mastery.]

here’s some people having fun with the new content
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5H8o1XRlew

9/10
My only complaint really are the mastery required to unlock elite specs. And it is not really even my complaint. Just the friend i play with obsessed over it until we got the elite specs unlocked.

Just give the kitten spec to people for free so they will shut the kitten up about it.

I’ll rate it 7/10.

I admit, I like the challenge in the new regions. The Pale Reavers event chain in Verdant Brink was pretty interesting. Exploring & gliding across the jungle is great. The music & art is fantastic. HOWEVER, most complaints about hero points & masteries are correct & I agree. You cannot restrict people like that! ESPECIALLY in the story! To grind like a madman just to learn to jump on a mushroom to advance in your quest is unacceptable! NOT a good idea. It’s telling that devs took action right away on that.

The hero points & masteries requirements need to be cut down some notches.

Solid 8/10

My only complaints are the over-reliance on Champions for Skill Challenges and not enough that are just Exploration and Jumping Puzzles and clever use of Mushrooms and Gliding. I don’t mind Mastery-gated Challenges, those are up to personal skills. I do mind the Number-gated challenges, though.

Second, the Map could use an update. Good luck finding ANYTHING at all in Tangled Depths. I’ve run across the entire map twice and still cannot tell if I’m on the second or third level.

Third, Rollers can go die in a pit of boiling tar and boyband songs. Mechanics are great, but they’re a BEEP to deal with on Daredevil.

JTGuevara.9018:

I’ll rate it 7/10.

I admit, I like the challenge in the new regions. The Pale Reavers event chain in Verdant Brink was pretty interesting. Exploring & gliding across the jungle is great. The music & art is fantastic. HOWEVER, most complaints about hero points & masteries are correct & I agree. You cannot restrict people like that! ESPECIALLY in the story! To grind like a madman just to learn to jump on a mushroom to advance in your quest is unacceptable! NOT a good idea. It’s telling that devs took action right away on that.

The hero points & masteries requirements need to be cut down some notches.

Grind like a madman? For 30minutes to unlock jumping on mushrooms? Since when is playing the game grinding? <.<

There are hundreds of events, to complete the story you do not even need to do 5% of the events available to you. And you call that grinding like a madman?

Gathslan.1870:

JTGuevara.9018:

I’ll rate it 7/10.

I admit, I like the challenge in the new regions. The Pale Reavers event chain in Verdant Brink was pretty interesting. Exploring & gliding across the jungle is great. The music & art is fantastic. HOWEVER, most complaints about hero points & masteries are correct & I agree. You cannot restrict people like that! ESPECIALLY in the story! To grind like a madman just to learn to jump on a mushroom to advance in your quest is unacceptable! NOT a good idea. It’s telling that devs took action right away on that.

The hero points & masteries requirements need to be cut down some notches.

Grind like a madman? For 30minutes to unlock jumping on mushrooms? Since when is playing the game grinding? <.<

There are hundreds of events, to complete the story you do not even need to do 5% of the events available to you. And you call that grinding like a madman?

Jumping on mushrooms won’t get you anywhere. Trust me.

2 out of 10

I am enjoying the revenant I am leveling.

I am not enjoying any time spent in the expansion maps, other than some of the gliding which I haven’t managed to get very far in.

Gathslan.1870:

JTGuevara.9018:

I’ll rate it 7/10.

I admit, I like the challenge in the new regions. The Pale Reavers event chain in Verdant Brink was pretty interesting. Exploring & gliding across the jungle is great. The music & art is fantastic. HOWEVER, most complaints about hero points & masteries are correct & I agree. You cannot restrict people like that! ESPECIALLY in the story! To grind like a madman just to learn to jump on a mushroom to advance in your quest is unacceptable! NOT a good idea. It’s telling that devs took action right away on that.

The hero points & masteries requirements need to be cut down some notches.

Grind like a madman? For 30minutes to unlock jumping on mushrooms? Since when is playing the game grinding? <.<

There are hundreds of events, to complete the story you do not even need to do 5% of the events available to you. And you call that grinding like a madman?

To be fair, I glided to the next area with the green star WITHOUT the mushroom mastery. Still, I fully agree that the points as is are steep, for elite specs and masteries.

10/10 fun for now.

Jumping puzzle heaven <3

Have a fun time explore new map. Learning how to engage mob //and get1 shot crit a few time .. my squishy daredevil.

Have fun with story. Really an improvement from LW SS2 . Not end it yet but have fun so far.

Mastery make me care about exp again.. with food and free boosters I got .It’s fill up pretty decent just from killing mob. Not feel so grindy for now. I just having a fun time

Spent about 12 hours in the Verdant Basin chasing events, trying to unlock masteries, etc in the first 2 days. I’m now spending most of my time on Mad King events, which I’ve seen for the 3rd time, because they’re more fun.

3/10. Good audio and visuals. Linear story, gated by masteries XP; painful map navigation; events are worse than vanilla GW2 (require too many people; run too long; poor rewards; contested waypoints galore); guild reset and new mechanics are very unfriendly to casuals (rich get richer).

A lot of love and effort went into this expansion, I don’t criticize the quality. However, I do think they opted for a design philosophy that undermines the core values of the original Guild Wars 2 launch. Play your own way? Nope. No grinds? Nope. Encourage world exploration? Nope. Impact the world you play in? Nope.

I’d ask for a refund, but i pre-purchased the top tier package with gems and spent some of them.

I’ll probably come back and play off and on over the coming years, but I haven’t been this disappointed in a game purchase in many years. Serves me right for pre-purchasing.

2/10
they get one point the sound and one for the technical stability
they have failed on all other levels
dont believe me? look at silverwastes now
that is the future for maguma

Somehow I managed to get to a HP today. It spawns a Champion Mordrem Vinetooth. Of course nobody is around and I know for sure I won’t be able to find my way there again so I won’t try to solo it. I called for help in map chat, but there aren’t any PoIs or other stuff to ping to show where I am so people can’t get there. I’ve been waiting for 30 minutes now. Sounds pretty fun right?

Earlier today I was hunting waypoints in some cave system. They were up above me or down below all the time. Still have to actually find one.

Rate fun factor?

-Maps in HoT have… questionable design. I see many ppl who didnt like… “vertical map sistem”. It’s can be realy uncomfortable. Those maps are realy… chaotic. And i dont like it too.
-Many bugs (events, HP, even story line).
-We didnt got new dungeon (many ppl like dungeon and fractal. i can see many guilds who doing ONLY fractal\dungeon). It’s one of the main cores of any MMRPG – and we didnt got it!
- And yep – stupid hero-points sistem and grind.

Ok… some things not bad – like music (but not much).

So.. in the end: 333333

3/10 — way too grindy.

11/10 maybe 12/10.

This is by far the most fun I have had playing GW2 since the original beta over 3 years ago. The exploration and maps you can literally get lost in and getting point A to point B can e an interesting challenge by itself.

My wife and I have not felt gated at all as the experience for the mandatory masteries took 3 hours of exploring and doing events in verdant brink. We have been completely unable to stop exploring the new zones.

I’m a bit sad I don’t have a full/nearly full unlocked Herald yet, but not having it, I am finding that non-Herald Revenant is in fact better and more fun than the betas made me think it would be.

I know I will like it once I get used to it and finish leveling masteries. And whatever is making maps empty gets fixed. The jungle is beautiful, story is interesting and fun, gliding, exploring, that’s all good. I miss the episode method of delivering content, so everyone could focus on a small area for awhile. Now people either don’t know what they want to do first, or they do know and find it’s impossible unless they do a whole lot of other things first.

I’d give it at least an 8, but I couldn’t care less about elite specs. Loses 2 points because I find HoT mastery xp to be really scarce. It’s hard to find events and once you find one there is no one around to help. I can solo, but it takes so long. There has to be something wrong with the maps. We can see guild members now, so I know they are around, but we have to group up and taxi if we want to be on the same map.

3/10

First two maps are beautiful and enjoyed the gliding and mushroom hopping.

But overall I find myself having to push myself to even go back to the jungle. Everything is gated, the rewards aren’t in line with the work, the vast majority of things can’t be solo’d, players are often few and far in between, the mobs hit too hard and take too long to kill given the rewards, most events haven’t been very fun, I won’t realistically be able to play my elite specializations for all of my characters for at least a month given my play time.

If I would have known this is the direction the game was going I would have quit long ago. They have actually made a pretty hardcore grindy mmo when the original game was the complete opposite.

Nemesis.6938:

im very frustrated because
the maps are stunning
the story is fine
the enemies, weapons, armors – all good to great

but – the pathfinding, complicated maps, hero points and mastery grinding – its incredibly frustrating to me right now….especially cause i feel im running around for 2 hours only to achieve something worth 15 minutes…

and this is really a shame – cause it has so much great and beautiful stuff – but after hours of not finding stuff im ready to throw my keyboard into the screen

I’m on board with this. I’m enjoying some of it, but I’m frustrated more than enjoying it. I find myself unable to complete too many things because of mastery gating. For me it’s around 3/10…maybe 4/10.

This weekend I’d play the new zone until I got too frustrated, then zoned over to SW for a while, or do the Halloween stuff. Back to new zone…frustrated, roll Revenant.

Overall a pretty disappointing experience, and I’m a relatively new player (bought the game in May). I understand why they did what they did. You don’t want an expansion to be a rehash of what we’ve had so far. This expansion gives us fresh new stuff, the problem is the frustration that I’ve experienced.

10/10 If I can glide outside of HoT maps too.

8/10

Coming back from a hiatus and playing other games, i am finding this expansion fresh. Characterization, theming, and encounter design is above what i expected. I am very supportive of the break bar, and that is allows for role diversity in some specific ways. I have been commanding dragon’s stand and it is a very satisfying event chain overall- i liken it to straits of devastation done right.

Points off for pacing as experience gains to mastery achievement feels a bit off but, we are 3 days in and i have a ton of masteries already so maybe my expectations were off? It just seems like very little content is gated behind masteries and so it’s frustrating doing so much for so little.

I also don’t like the ending of the story in that i felt it was noncommittal, but i will give them the benefit of the doubt.

All in all, pleasantly surprised. Keep it up Anet- you are going in the right direction.

@ MoonRaiden.7423

Stop rushng the game…take your time, and you will find in achievements wher to unlock your home instance upgrade. You just need eyes for that.

And dont grind enjoy the maps.

So far I’d give a 8 or 9.
During the week end I only saw so few… In two and half days I could :
-level my Rev to level 15 and started to toy around with Legend
-Did some Halloween event/Laby but felt overwhelmed by all the new things to buy/craft/earn
-Unlock the Espec on my 8 characters to start the collection (only my main got world completion)
-Played/Farmed in Orr with my reaper (only got the line + heal shout) and enjoyed the new weapon and Reaper shroud. Since I never got to Orr with him I found plenty of skill points to unlock the Espec a bit more.
-Played the first act of story with my Tempest (only heal and one major trait unlock) and had fun with it. Then I rushed through the first map to see Tarir in which I had a blast! I tried to understand the octovine event, we lost. Then went to the third zone, felt overwhelmed, change character. During that time I found something like 5 skill points.
-Played some story with my main Scrapper (I just unlocked the last minor trait with him) and Verdant Brink. In the zone I still didn’t do the Sashoo meta, did the Pale Reaver once, Faren once, the Itzel chain once and a half (guildies told me the Wyvern was arriveing) and Doctor Elly twice (well in one chain it bugged). During the night (and I must say I don’t like night events) I couldn’t do all the canopy boss.. mostly Wyvern.
-Wanted to try Fractals, we only made the low tier daily with guildies and got some 5 gold worth gray items and got a rare gear shower.
-Did the pvp guild mission and then unlock the guild hall, which is not so easy when you start to scale up the event (we were more than 30 in the event).
-In total I unlock the first Fractal mastery in core Tyria and Gliding lvl 2, Itzel lvl 2, Nuoch lvl 1, Exalted lvl 1 masteries.

At no point I felt forced to do anything, I simply tried the new things to do. I haven’t set a foot in the new WvW maps because I could find the time to do it. I still don’t have any clue of the new stat combo nor of the required mats for them. It feels like there is so much to do that I foresee hours and hours of fun gameplay.

The only things that were a problem for me are the champion skill points and the inventory bloating. The new pry bars (and then chest keys) are really difficult to manage when you have plenty of characters. I also hate Verdant Brink night events because they are less clear and I think the scaling is not good so that if people tend to scatter and you are alone you know you won’t defend the point yourself. People around me (guild or not) were also pretty much overwhelmed, it felt good.

Asudementio.8526:

MoonRaiden.7423:

Crovean.7891:

10/10
Why?

1. Elite specs take some time to unlock. ( thats why they are called ELITE specs, you must work a bit for them).

2. You cant get all the masteries in 1 day which is awesome ( stop complaining about them, you couldnt level your character fast when Gw2 started also, but some ppl forgot about that).

3. Mobs are much harder all over the place, on all maps. Again great, now im using my brain in combat. ( And yes its SOLOABLE ).

4. Personal story is awesome PERIOD. ( yes it gated so WHAT ?)

5. Just exploring new maps is intresting and rewarding ( You can unlock home instance upgrades just form exploring).

6. Hero challenges give you 10 HP instead of 1. ( and thats why they are maybe 10 times harder —> which is great).

7. Seeing carebears on forums rating HoT with 3 out of 10 just because Itzel poison lore
(which got fixed) adds soo much fun to the game PRICELESS.

You my friends were used to just 1 2 3 every mob of every map for sooo long that you just cant get used to actually doing something which is not braindead content.

You forgot the feeling of finish cof p2 for the first time wiht blue eq back when game started. Some of you never had that feeling, dont know anything about the game other than pressing 1 2 3 on your keyboard and still you gave yourself a RIGHT to trash talk the half of features just because my 2 year old son cant finish it 1 day and max everything…. So0 sad…

2 days of reading this thread made me feel sorry for a lot of you….

Carebear Wars 2

Shut your trap and watch this video.
https://youtu.be/TrwtWAGGGB4?t=1m22s

Unlock home instance? Tell me where? Dam, post a guide.

Work for it? You mean grind the same events or different events over and over even though it is against their manifesto?

Soloable in event? Really? Please record a video of you doing an event by yourself.

Let me answer this question :
4. Personal story is awesome PERIOD. ( yes it gated so WHAT ?)

So what you ask? Why do I have to GRIND A MILLION EXP + just to play a story where I am supposedly to enjoy and where MY CHARACTER was supposed to rush to save people? IT BREAKS IMMERSION.

See bolded.

That is not a hill to die on- trust me.

I solo’d plenty of the hero points and events in both verdant and auric basin. Haven’t done much of tangled so can’t speak to that map. The content in this expansion is harder, but it quite legitimately reminds me of BWE2 for the original launch- which is the level of difficulty i wanted so dearly for GW2. It’s all doable but punishes sloppy play; you can make mistakes but the worse you are the more help you need to recruit. And frankly that’s how it should be. I have seen plenty of players rise to the challenges presented with this new content and i think that this is really a non issue long term.

People need to get over the fact that they will have to do more than stand still, not dodge, and ping their auto attack to flail down mobs now.

Please post a video of you doing a Maguuma hero challenge.

It seems quite good… Just Anet put a shocking 400 points for elite in. Even if its easier and more fun than it looks it ruined the first impression. People want the elite specs and now can´t get them fast unless being hardcore players (which already did it within the first days) and now get frustrated.
On the first map verdant brink i did two hero challenges with a partner (one was a fight) and i think three solo. Most are commune and fly there with the glider. So a bit exploration.

I would rate it very highly.

Some of the hindrances:

Elite spec grind:
See my post here
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/People-Gotta-Chill-Just-a-Little-Bit/5663039

Too many contested waypoints.
I actually don’t mind dying here and there, whether to mobs or falling or whatever, but when I then have to run half way across the map (losing credit for events in the process) this is not fun.

I don’t have a problem with masteries being a grind actually, they’re supposed to be a long term progression sort of thing, not something you grind out in a week (seriously I see all these people grinding their minds out who are going to be whining about not having anything to do in just a couple weeks tops (sorry I think that’s kind of stupid, imho))
For some of it, the gating makes sense and is kind of cool, like older games (back in my day get off my lawn blah blah) such as OoT where you needed new stuff to get to whole areas and it was fun getting those.
But you didn’t get them by killing redeads a thousand times.
Imagine if instead of simply grinding kills/events for mastery exp, you did events specifically for the Itzel, and as you build favor with them they start to sell you stuff (A gliding instruction manual that simply unlocks gliding)
Or an unlock for something being part of exploring a mini dungeon or at the end of particular event chains related to certain things.

Not making Ascended significantly more expensive and then lying about it.

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

MoonRaiden.7423:

Asudementio.8526:

MoonRaiden.7423:

Crovean.7891:

10/10
Why?

1. Elite specs take some time to unlock. ( thats why they are called ELITE specs, you must work a bit for them).

2. You cant get all the masteries in 1 day which is awesome ( stop complaining about them, you couldnt level your character fast when Gw2 started also, but some ppl forgot about that).

3. Mobs are much harder all over the place, on all maps. Again great, now im using my brain in combat. ( And yes its SOLOABLE ).

4. Personal story is awesome PERIOD. ( yes it gated so WHAT ?)

5. Just exploring new maps is intresting and rewarding ( You can unlock home instance upgrades just form exploring).

6. Hero challenges give you 10 HP instead of 1. ( and thats why they are maybe 10 times harder —> which is great).

7. Seeing carebears on forums rating HoT with 3 out of 10 just because Itzel poison lore
(which got fixed) adds soo much fun to the game PRICELESS.

You my friends were used to just 1 2 3 every mob of every map for sooo long that you just cant get used to actually doing something which is not braindead content.

You forgot the feeling of finish cof p2 for the first time wiht blue eq back when game started. Some of you never had that feeling, dont know anything about the game other than pressing 1 2 3 on your keyboard and still you gave yourself a RIGHT to trash talk the half of features just because my 2 year old son cant finish it 1 day and max everything…. So0 sad…

2 days of reading this thread made me feel sorry for a lot of you….

Carebear Wars 2

Shut your trap and watch this video.
https://youtu.be/TrwtWAGGGB4?t=1m22s

Unlock home instance? Tell me where? Dam, post a guide.

Work for it? You mean grind the same events or different events over and over even though it is against their manifesto?

Soloable in event? Really? Please record a video of you doing an event by yourself.

Let me answer this question :
4. Personal story is awesome PERIOD. ( yes it gated so WHAT ?)

So what you ask? Why do I have to GRIND A MILLION EXP + just to play a story where I am supposedly to enjoy and where MY CHARACTER was supposed to rush to save people? IT BREAKS IMMERSION.

See bolded.

That is not a hill to die on- trust me.

I solo’d plenty of the hero points and events in both verdant and auric basin. Haven’t done much of tangled so can’t speak to that map. The content in this expansion is harder, but it quite legitimately reminds me of BWE2 for the original launch- which is the level of difficulty i wanted so dearly for GW2. It’s all doable but punishes sloppy play; you can make mistakes but the worse you are the more help you need to recruit. And frankly that’s how it should be. I have seen plenty of players rise to the challenges presented with this new content and i think that this is really a non issue long term.

People need to get over the fact that they will have to do more than stand still, not dodge, and ping their auto attack to flail down mobs now.

Please post a video of you doing a Maguuma hero challenge.

If i have time i will, i am not sure i can redo some of the more doable ones i am aware of though? Like can i redo hero challenges that i have completed, because i focus on a single toon.

But if you are seriously this kitten about this you are really showing the quality of player you are. There is no serious discussion to be had about the soloability of the content in maguuma, unless you are focusing on that ALL maguuma content is not soloable.

Well for the $20 that this expansion should have cost: (without the HP debacle) 7/10.
For the $50 that they charged along with the HP debacle, the over-tuned events, no gliding outside HoT, etc….. 2/10.
I have been playing since HoT launch, but mostly the holiday event and other random things. I only set foot in HoT to get a few ranger pets. I wont be going back there until anet comes in and fixes things.

Asudementio.8526:

MoonRaiden.7423:

Asudementio.8526:

MoonRaiden.7423:

Crovean.7891:

10/10
Why?

1. Elite specs take some time to unlock. ( thats why they are called ELITE specs, you must work a bit for them).

2. You cant get all the masteries in 1 day which is awesome ( stop complaining about them, you couldnt level your character fast when Gw2 started also, but some ppl forgot about that).

3. Mobs are much harder all over the place, on all maps. Again great, now im using my brain in combat. ( And yes its SOLOABLE ).

4. Personal story is awesome PERIOD. ( yes it gated so WHAT ?)

5. Just exploring new maps is intresting and rewarding ( You can unlock home instance upgrades just form exploring).

6. Hero challenges give you 10 HP instead of 1. ( and thats why they are maybe 10 times harder —> which is great).

7. Seeing carebears on forums rating HoT with 3 out of 10 just because Itzel poison lore
(which got fixed) adds soo much fun to the game PRICELESS.

You my friends were used to just 1 2 3 every mob of every map for sooo long that you just cant get used to actually doing something which is not braindead content.

You forgot the feeling of finish cof p2 for the first time wiht blue eq back when game started. Some of you never had that feeling, dont know anything about the game other than pressing 1 2 3 on your keyboard and still you gave yourself a RIGHT to trash talk the half of features just because my 2 year old son cant finish it 1 day and max everything…. So0 sad…

2 days of reading this thread made me feel sorry for a lot of you….

Carebear Wars 2

Shut your trap and watch this video.
https://youtu.be/TrwtWAGGGB4?t=1m22s

Unlock home instance? Tell me where? Dam, post a guide.

Work for it? You mean grind the same events or different events over and over even though it is against their manifesto?

Soloable in event? Really? Please record a video of you doing an event by yourself.

Let me answer this question :
4. Personal story is awesome PERIOD. ( yes it gated so WHAT ?)

So what you ask? Why do I have to GRIND A MILLION EXP + just to play a story where I am supposedly to enjoy and where MY CHARACTER was supposed to rush to save people? IT BREAKS IMMERSION.

See bolded.

That is not a hill to die on- trust me.

I solo’d plenty of the hero points and events in both verdant and auric basin. Haven’t done much of tangled so can’t speak to that map. The content in this expansion is harder, but it quite legitimately reminds me of BWE2 for the original launch- which is the level of difficulty i wanted so dearly for GW2. It’s all doable but punishes sloppy play; you can make mistakes but the worse you are the more help you need to recruit. And frankly that’s how it should be. I have seen plenty of players rise to the challenges presented with this new content and i think that this is really a non issue long term.

People need to get over the fact that they will have to do more than stand still, not dodge, and ping their auto attack to flail down mobs now.

Please post a video of you doing a Maguuma hero challenge.

If i have time i will, i am not sure i can redo some of the more doable ones i am aware of though? Like can i redo hero challenges that i have completed, because i focus on a single toon.

But if you are seriously this kitten about this you are really showing the quality of player you are. There is no serious discussion to be had about the soloability of the content in maguuma, unless you are focusing on that ALL maguuma content is not soloable.

I am sorry, I asked for evidence, I am a skeptic yes, and my quality is how you based me so base what you want; I am just realistically pointing out the flaws that this expansion presents itself with, and even against its own manifesto which actually what got players into GW2 in the first place. Oh, and all Hero point events in Maguuma are repeatable, I will be waiting for a video from you.

9/10

I’m not a big fan of the hero point gating for specializations, even though I totally don’t mind how long it may take to grind out masteries. However, there’s so much good, solid content in addition to stuff that I never expected would be in a GW2 expansion that it’s easily the best MMO expansion I’ve played.

Well the labyrinth is still going on so there’s that.

I tried the new areas and they are just plain confusing, I tried for 2 hours to find one single hero challenge (need 10 at least) and could not find any. It took me about an hour of grinding to even get to being able to use my glider.

I don’t mind having to work for my elite spec, I would be happy if it required 100000 events in the jungle to complete, but these hero challenges are just a pain in the kitten to even find let alone do.

Thus far I wold give the xpac a solid 4, but if they make elites easier to attain, then I may bump this up to a 6. I am not a fan of vertical maps and thus have yet to even unlock 90% of dry top, nor did I enjoy SAB. The guild halls and such I cannot comment on as I have yet to get into one, however the WvW new maps are just as bloody confusing as the jungle is, but at least we still have ebg.

In the future If you are offering an elite spec in an Xpac, for Christs sake include a disclaimer to the effect that unlocking them will make you want to quit the game entirely.

For me, Only 4 because I really like the map, the event, etc … BUT I hate how is the actual balance for the monster, they are so OP and don’t speak about the final mission of the personnal story ! It’s impossible, undoable ! To that you can add the multiple bugs and crash of the client that came with the extension and finally the masteries … Too long to up one level !

Keep in mind it’s still super early and generally in mmo xpacs there’s a lot of tweaking to new systems/events before it’s the way they plan to leave it.

I say wait a couple weeks while playing casually before making up your minds. Let them roll out a few patches and make adjustments. This is their first xpac after all…and it’s not like we all get everything perfect on the first try, ok?

Goldenrevolver.4371:

cant rate…must grind…

That made me Lol!!!

Andromeda.8293:

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

Averaging 4.37/10

Not ideal, but only 150ish reviews

Kal Spiro.9745:

Andromeda.8293:

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

Averaging 4.37/10

Not ideal, but only 150ish reviews

Its up to 6.9/10 on Metacritic with 330 votes.

I have only had a chance to play the daredevil, but I’d give the expansion a 9 so far. Could use some improvements, but it has so many things I like I couldn’t give it an 8.

Really enjoy the challenge and the feeling of progression is real. It really reminds me of an old school rpg. Can’t wait to finish unlocking my daredevil. I played almost all week-end without traits. XD Every hero challenge I grew stronger it was awesome.

3 for me.
I love the new maps (but the abilities to access the full map is XP gated too heavily).

I love the story so far (I’ve barely done it since I’m trying to unlock Masteries to access it).

I like the elite specs least of all particularly Druid as the Devs Copy Pasta’d the class and it feels cheaply done (and I need to XP unlock them (nice of me to avoid using grind)).

The game runs smoothly and I’ve only run into a few bugs (although one is game breaking (I’m looking at you mega server)).

Solid 3 sounds fair. Since most of us are farming dungeons for XP to unlock Masteries we’ve already earned.

Knighthonor.4061:

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

8
its a great expansion and i love the elite proffessions

but i will admit the mastery grind can be a little of a turn off when u going for the story and your extremely curios what happens next.

as for how u get elite profession. i’m honestly ok with how costly it is. its ELITE.
but i play necro and rev…….so i will admit people on theif might find it annoying not to have their new dodges.

will drop to 4/10 if either of these 2 requirements aren’t met
1. Trahearne is dead
or 2. I can kill Trahearne.

10/10 would play again

3 for small guilds

8/10

- only complaint is a few visual bugs
- I had crashes but it was fixed a few patches ago

Honestly I would view the majority of reviews on the forums with a grain of salt. Usually if something is so blatantly bad as most of the negative reviewers here proclaim, you would get multiple complaints in Map chat thought out Tryia. I personally have not come across an “empty map” in the new areas from Friday-Sunday. I had no trouble doing hero points solo other than the vampire broodmother that was constantly feeding off my minions. I don’t expect to solo the Legendary Wyverns that spawn in the new map, but then again I don’t need to wait long to yell on map chat “leg wyvern on apple south of such-in-such”. No one on map chat was complaining about being gated, the only thing close to it is a map chat conversion that comes frequently in Verdant Brink.

Player A: how do I get the mastery at Fumerol Caves?

Player B: there is a mastery to be immune to poison

Player A: aww

I never heard a negative response, just a reply either acknowledge that they understood or gratitude to be given the answer.

7/10.

The new maps are breath taking and have been implemented very well. There are so many new features with HoT that I haven’t tried yet but so far, I’m impressed by the awesome job done by Anet.

Unfinished concepts/ideas are the negatives.

Right now 4/10

I played more than I ever play on a given weekend and looking back I feel like I should have gotten farther than I did for the hours I invested which is why I am falling into the “too much grind” outweighing the “fun I should have had playing the new content.” I am happy to have new things to do, but I’m having to focus too much on maximize that XP! to be able to enjoy the new content.

Some of the things I feel have already been said but I want to add things that make the game lean towards grinding for me personally:

-As an alt-o-holic, I don’t want to do the massive hero-point acquisition 20 times for all my toons. I made a new mesmer before HoT released for chronomancer so I wouldn’t need to regear my other two, one of which has world map completion. With the way the hero points unlock being “soulbound” – I am forced into taking my main mesmer and finishing her hero points off to get chronomancer or go with a gear-less toon or spend money on gear that won’t be as effective until I unlock the elite… Now times this by 9 because I have multiples in each profession and it is usually my alts I experiment with, not my mains who have more hero points to begin with. I think the elite spec should be account bound since they make it so much harder to get. I don’t mind that it is hard, but I do mind the redundancy.

-My second qualm is the manipulative blocks/nerfs that are sprinkled into many aspects of the game. Why shoehorn players into the new content? The mastery “grind” that is happening right now would be less “grindy” if players got to unlock them and earn XP the way they enjoy best. The joy part mixed with variety is what removes the grind status. Things with blocks right now: Hero Points in the beginning HoT map that need very advanced masteries, spvp ranks 1-9 can’t be in conquest but guild missions need conquest, dungeon loot nerf means LFG is dead so dungeons are gone, need fractal mastery unlocked to reap rewards of doing fractal and fractals give less XP towards masteries, halloween doesn’t give you XP towards masteries, the beginning map for HoT blocks players from exploring who haven’t gotten masteries.

-The masteries seem unnatural in their function compared to their acquisition. The masteries unlock when you do something related to what you are unlocking. It would be awesome to glide a lot which would unlock gliding masteries, craft a lot to unlock crafting masteries, gather in HoT to unlock gathering masteries, talk to NPCs a lot to unlock speech, do fractal runs to unlock fractal masteries, etc. There should also be more of them: spvp, wvw, dungeons, personal story.