Guild Wars 2

If I were just rating on fun probably 9/10. But the game over all is 8/10 which might improve when the legendaries, and raids ship, not to mention the new commander UI.

Knighthonor.4061:

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

solid 10…it was a long time since i had that fun, difficult stuff, unlocking things, progressie exploration…i’ve only done around 50% and i’m craving for MOAR

Played about 2 hours. Average fun.
Disconnected just before the meta final. No fun at all.

I will slit my opinion into 2 areas…

10/10 for sheer amount of new content/items/masteries/achievements.

4/10 for playability… its just a new grind on new terrain…story too short, not immersive etc. etc….

I’d give it so far just a 1/10, because the only thing that they got right in my opinion is the Songtrack and presentation of the game…

Story: Terrible, super predictable as ALWAYS (Eir), as if the writers just copy paste weird player story ideas into their canon, too short, not epic, just same as lame as Zhaitan, but at least not so idiotically easy that you could label it like the Zhaitan battle as “retar# level” where you need to press two minutes long just only 1 button and watch the fireworks … (and not a dragon at all… wtf wouldnt even be able to descrive against what the hell we fight there at all)

Gameplay/Balance: Terrible..the games skill balance is total out of control since June 23 patch and the new Elite specs did nothing at all to solve this, but made it in certain overpowered powercreep spec cases (reaper for example) just only worser

Content: Blocked too much behind Mastery/Hero Point Grind with now having also tons of hero points left ofter after the retro change, that are of NO USE at all for us

WvW: Terrible, I was hoping for the Desert Maps to bring new life to WvW, they essentially made absolutely the opposite and lead to a total WvW desertation!!.. emptym aps everywhere, the desert maps are WAY TOO HUGE and should get scaled down in size by at least 25%
Suchcrap just happens, when you make about something important like WvW just only 1 stupid closed beta and not like they should have done it properly also together with the rest of the game several OPEN BETAS to get more feedback for WvW!!

Performance: SUPER TERRIBLE … since Hot I’m not able anymore to play anythign of the new game content as usual I was able to do so 3 years long ..THREE YEARS LONG!!! with no problems to play the whole game permanently on max settings everywhere!!
And now if I dont cripple down the game to mashed potatoe ugliness, I get püermanent CRASHES like every hour to two max or so in regard of how extrmely I participate in events ect with lots of action and BAM .. OOM crash to the point, that I get it also multiple times a day… THIS IS ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE and needs ASAP improvement to brign back the game to is former good performance.
To have to cripple our settings to potato level is no solutions, thats just only a cheap circumvention of the root problem for the devs to have not to work on proper performance solutions that would make for everyone on the long run far much nmore sense by bringign out finally a 64 bit client (stopping 32 bit support, making 64bit officially the system requirement and updatign the game engine stuff with thigns liek at LEAST DX11 support..

Yes it will be a step that will make alotz of people with ancient old stone pcs unable to play anymore GW2 but who seriously supports this game and wants this ganme to run also very well for the future for the next years to come, will understand, that this freakign stupid step WILL BECOME more and more neccessary and that by haging on your personal junk pcs will only unneccearely cripple Anet down longer to PROGRESS the game technically further to the next necccessary era of technology that is required for a massive complex game like this to A) stay competitive on the market for the next years, to stay modern and strong enough, that such silly problems like OOm crashes won’t happen anymore. Any games that lets these problems happen even these days are a shame for todays technology and to let that techology gettign crippled down unneccarely, just to get only the perople with their stoneage pcs also into the boat to be able to play the game is just the absolute biggest burden, that ANet finally needs to get rid of to receive by this step new fresh air that enables them to expand the game into new heights it would be always unable to reach, as long the game needs to carry the burden of all the millions of stone age pc users and are unwilling to invest a freaking darn dime on a new pc to be able self to enjoy the game A) on a much better quality themself and support the company and everyone else this way passively by givign the develioper the change to expand the game on modern technology STANDARDS which are at least 64bit client and DX11 support for many years by now …

Features: half of the features are uninished and hold back, other features of the game are still announced since 2012 and yet still until today not implemented to the game…
HOT just continues onto this half hearted implementation scheme nd this makes it very disappointign and frustating.. when you see for example that they add new crafting disciplines, like scribing, but yet since 2 yeasrs still have freakign not the intent as it seems to finally make coooking and jeweler equal to Job Level 500 first, before they add anythign new …
other things that were planned basically 2012 as minigames have they implemented now under the concept of Adventures and then they make this absolutely ununderstandable design decision to lock them all behind a silly map event blockign wall that forces you every like 30 minutes to wait on it, that peopel make some dubm events just to get your adventures unlocked to be able to play them /facepalm and yet I stil forget it, that theres is still the announced since 2012 and yet still not finally implemented POLYMOK… what lets mwe come back again to the half hearted full of holes cheese implemention desion that Anets does here since game release….

They permanently add something new in a more or less heaviliy UNFINISHED STATE and continously add new content since then, in the hope as it seems, that people forget the old content over time, in what an unfinished state they left it behind…. this scenario has repeated itself over the last years several times by now in many different areas of the game (it began first with the adding of Southsun Cove) (in certain cases they reiterated the old content in new ways, what is good – as it shows, they don’t forgot everything) and slowly im having enough of this, as it makes it question myself, what is so hard about it to stay on something that got worked on and move first onto something new, once the previous project that got added is added in a complete, finished and polished state without any holes in the general design, so that the content gives the player also the feeling, that theres some QUALITY behind that content and not that quantity is the driving force here by pushing rather more new content out, to focus on to polish and finetune first what the game already provides, before we move too quick onto new projects.

Why must they flood the game constantly with new content before they finish first what they have started somewhere else in the game??? )LS1 anyone …best example…

This is like playing multiple video games at the same time, but never completing any of them, because whenever you started one, you start right after the next game, before you even complete the one that you started playing before. I don’t get it …

Thats the kind of feeling that I have right now in many things Anet has done over the past 3 years …
The same feeling do I get with WvW now after seeing what they did with WvW now, I think now, they should have just beter kept the old aps and polished and improved/redesigned them instead of completely removing and exchangign them, turning WvW into a player desert that totally alienated everyone, because like 99% people got thrown with the new map totally into the ice cold water without any explanations, without any time of testing, because there were no open betas for WvW at all…

I could continue now with alot of things that I dislike currently about the changes and the way Anet handles new content in this game and leaves behind old stuff like a dry desert, because some things sounded awesome on paper, but turned out not to work so well as they hoped it would, earning only bad player reactions (last invasion stuff anyone??? god in hell was that aweful, it was nice meant, but they shouldnt have better never done it at all for the sake of the game’s image) but I think this so far is just enough…

Orpheal.8263:

I’d give it so far just a 1/10, because the only thing that they got right in my opinion is the Songtrack and presentation of the game…

Story: Terrible, super predictable as ALWAYS (Eir), as if the writers just copy paste weird player story ideas into their canon, too short, not epic, just same as lame as Zhaitan, but at least not so idiotically easy that you could label it like the Zhaitan battle as “retar# level” where you need to press two minutes long just only 1 button and watch the fireworks … (and not a dragon at all… wtf wouldnt even be able to descrive against what the hell we fight there at all)

Gameplay/Balance: Terrible..the games skill balance is total out of control since June 23 patch and the new Elite specs did nothing at all to solve this, but made it in certain overpowered powercreep spec cases (reaper for example) just only worser

Content: Blocked too much behind Mastery/Hero Point Grind with now having also tons of hero points left ofter after the retro change, that are of NO USE at all for us

WvW: Terrible, I was hoping for the Desert Maps to bring new life to WvW, they essentially made absolutely the opposite and lead to a total WvW desertation!!.. emptym aps everywhere, the desert maps are WAY TOO HUGE and should get scaled down in size by at least 25%
Suchcrap just happens, when you make about something important like WvW just only 1 stupid closed beta and not like they should have done it properly also together with the rest of the game several OPEN BETAS to get more feedback for WvW!!

Performance: SUPER TERRIBLE … since Hot I’m not able anymore to play anythign of the new game content as usual I was able to do so 3 years long ..THREE YEARS LONG!!! with no problems to play the whole game permanently on max settings everywhere!!
And now if I dont cripple down the game to mashed potatoe ugliness, I get püermanent CRASHES like every hour to two max or so in regard of how extrmely I participate in events ect with lots of action and BAM .. OOM crash to the point, that I get it also multiple times a day… THIS IS ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE and needs ASAP improvement to brign back the game to is former good performance.
To have to cripple our settings to potato level is no solutions, thats just only a cheap circumvention of the root problem for the devs to have not to work on proper performance solutions that would make for everyone on the long run far much nmore sense by bringign out finally a 64 bit client (stopping 32 bit support, making 64bit officially the system requirement and updatign the game engine stuff with thigns liek at LEAST DX11 support..

Yes it will be a step that will make alotz of people with ancient old stone pcs unable to play anymore GW2 but who seriously supports this game and wants this ganme to run also very well for the future for the next years to come, will understand, that this freakign stupid step WILL BECOME more and more neccessary and that by haging on your personal junk pcs will only unneccearely cripple Anet down longer to PROGRESS the game technically further to the next necccessary era of technology that is required for a massive complex game like this to A) stay competitive on the market for the next years, to stay modern and strong enough, that such silly problems like OOm crashes won’t happen anymore. Any games that lets these problems happen even these days are a shame for todays technology and to let that techology gettign crippled down unneccarely, just to get only the perople with their stoneage pcs also into the boat to be able to play the game is just the absolute biggest burden, that ANet finally needs to get rid of to receive by this step new fresh air that enables them to expand the game into new heights it would be always unable to reach, as long the game needs to carry the burden of all the millions of stone age pc users and are unwilling to invest a freaking darn dime on a new pc to be able self to enjoy the game A) on a much better quality themself and support the company and everyone else this way passively by givign the develioper the change to expand the game on modern technology STANDARDS which are at least 64bit client and DX11 support for many years by now …

Features: half of the features are uninished and hold back, other features of the game are still announced since 2012 and yet still until today not implemented to the game…
HOT just continues onto this half hearted implementation scheme nd this makes it very disappointign and frustating.. when you see for example that they add new crafting disciplines, like scribing, but yet since 2 yeasrs still have freakign not the intent as it seems to finally make coooking and jeweler equal to Job Level 500 first, before they add anythign new …
other things that were planned basically 2012 as minigames have they implemented now under the concept of Adventures and then they make this absolutely ununderstandable design decision to lock them all behind a silly map event blockign wall that forces you every like 30 minutes to wait on it, that peopel make some dubm events just to get your adventures unlocked to be able to play them /facepalm and yet I stil forget it, that theres is still the announced since 2012 and yet still not finally implemented POLYMOK… what lets mwe come back again to the half hearted full of holes cheese implemention desion that Anets does here since game release….

They permanently add something new in a more or less heaviliy UNFINISHED STATE and continously add new content since then, in the hope as it seems, that people forget the old content over time, in what an unfinished state they left it behind…. this scenario has repeated itself over the last years several times by now in many different areas of the game (it began first with the adding of Southsun Cove) (in certain cases they reiterated the old content in new ways, what is good – as it shows, they don’t forgot everything) and slowly im having enough of this, as it makes it question myself, what is so hard about it to stay on something that got worked on and move first onto something new, once the previous project that got added is added in a complete, finished and polished state without any holes in the general design, so that the content gives the player also the feeling, that theres some QUALITY behind that content and not that quantity is the driving force here by pushing rather more new content out, to focus on to polish and finetune first what the game already provides, before we move too quick onto new projects.

Why must they flood the game constantly with new content before they finish first what they have started somewhere else in the game??? )LS1 anyone …best example…

This is like playing multiple video games at the same time, but never completing any of them, because whenever you started one, you start right after the next game, before you even complete the one that you started playing before. I don’t get it …

Thats the kind of feeling that I have right now in many things Anet has done over the past 3 years …
The same feeling do I get with WvW now after seeing what they did with WvW now, I think now, they should have just beter kept the old aps and polished and improved/redesigned them instead of completely removing and exchangign them, turning WvW into a player desert that totally alienated everyone, because like 99% people got thrown with the new map totally into the ice cold water without any explanations, without any time of testing, because there were no open betas for WvW at all…

I could continue now with alot of things that I dislike currently about the changes and the way Anet handles new content in this game and leaves behind old stuff like a dry desert, because some things sounded awesome on paper, but turned out not to work so well as they hoped it would, earning only bad player reactions (last invasion stuff anyone??? god in hell was that aweful, it was nice meant, but they shouldnt have better never done it at all for the sake of the game’s image) but I think this so far is just enough…

You must be a blast at parties.

I’m giving it a 4-5, but that’s obviously after only playing it for around 2 weeks.
I might feel differently at a month or 3 months.

Especially if the maps all die and there’s no one to get things done with overall.

dasaybz.9524:

You must be a blast at parties.

What makes you come to this conclusion out of my playing experience with GW2 over the last 3 year, where I right now just let out a small portion of what all went wrogn with this game over the last years what just continued now in HoT in regard of how Anet handles new content like some kind of switzer cheese when it comes to Quality over Quantity??

Your posting is totally out of context, I hope you realize this …

PS. dont get me wrong, its also not good to hang too long onto old content, bringing out new stuff is a must.. but alot of design mess ups in this game could absolutely have been prevented from the begin on, if new stuff wouldn’t have been rushed out so fast at least before giving the older content at least a look at, of how it could have been left behind at least in a polished and complete state.

Example: They should have brought Cooking and Jeweler first to Job Level 500 before introducing Scribing and then adding it also only with Max Job level 400..
Thid is just this discontinued “switzer cheesehole” game design im speaking of here and I think it shouldn’t be wished too much here that the developers should give more importancy in the game to quality, rather than onto quantity in some cases.

8. bugs are ruining the experience

I would now rate it an 8. (It lost 1 point from release, and had originally lost 1 point due to not completely finishing with skill balance) I think the way small guilds are treated is poor, but otherwise I’m still having lots of fun.

10 for me-I expected way, way less for the money, and got Scout Acan instead. May they give whoever thought of and worked on him a raise.

(His bugged quest was annoying-the character, though is amazing and big fun. I like to literally “hang” with him on that treetop.)

Seriously great expansion, though it has a bit too many “collectibles” for my taste (which is fine, as many players and AP hunters love that.)

The Hero Point thing was fine even at 400-a new sort of leveling, and something to works toward for. Didn’t expect 400, but also did not expect for the new specializations to be immediately handed over.

Low. 3-4 maybe. Story was fine, but the maps are just meh. Exploring VB on launch day was fun, but the later maps have not grabbed me. I did get into a TTS Auric Basin Map and completed the meta, but it seemed like a heck of a lot of standing around waiting.

after getting away from rev, necro, and ranger.

i tried out elite theif, warrior, and unfortunatley….mesmer.

warrior turned out to be fun (i have a history of disliking warrior due to what i call static playstyle….not agile enough) its not a keeper for me, but i can see it being fun(i just prefer more agile animations….like ranger xD)

theif…i hated daredevil design…..and then i got on rev…..so now i’m poking into daredevil again after falling in love with rev staff.
and…i like it now. still wish for a rifle. but right now my biggest problem with thief is trying to figure out how to bring a staff, 2 daggers, and 2 pistols. i love all 3 sets xD go figure!

-actually…that problem is with my reaper as well. i have staff, GS, and dual dagger…hard to bring all 3 xD

lastly….mesmer….
i hate this class….i really do. it might be the thief/ranger/necro in me. but i was raised hating it.
and i hate it even more now……cause it made me have fun on it T.T
why can’t it just accept i want to hate it and leave it like that……why must it make me have fun on it when it knows all i want to do is hate it……

anyway. story is….well i’m sad eirr died…but happy with trahearnes fate….even if i would have prefered a different sort of demise for him <.<

anyway….said i would and so i shall

i gave it 7/10. i now raise it to 10/10 (for story, elites, new zones). but i lower it to 9/10 cause it made me like mesmer……

and now i need to grind gear for mesmer…….thanks alot -.- more work….
why couldnt you have left me happily hatting mesmer…

7/10 Quite pleased. The grinds and events can be a bit much. Masteries could be a bit better. They appear to be nothing but sugar coated time gates that force zone play but i’m fine with that now that we have ascended weapons that go with that grind. Gotta get them golden carrots!

Lets do a countdown.
Specializations: 7/10 some are good some are worthless
New maps: 8/10 lot to explore, lot to find and see
New story: 5/10 short, short, short.
New armors/weapons: 5/10 some are ugly, most is decent, very few are nice
Masteries: 1/10 Exp sink to force event trains on new maps. Tyria masteries are just cof p1 repeated over and over
Improved graphics/game stability/new achievement system “oh, i made a new record on how many crashes in 1 hour i can get” and a kittenload of bugs that doesnt allow people to play even in core game: over a million/10

Whoops, the system crashed and now it shows only 0/10. I guess it must be your 32bit systems or your non-existent 3rd party software. Shame on you ppl

Knighthonor.4061:

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

9

I rate it a 9 on fun factor. I really enjoy the new maps (except for Tangled Depths… confusing as all hell), the new meta events and the new builds. I’m looking forward to doing some WvW and fractals in a few months once they iron those out.

6. It’s beautiful and reasonably hard but there’s way too much confusion for me. I have unlocked all the way points and got a bunch of mastery points but I feel like I stumbled (or glided) onto everyone of them by accident. If I was a lab rat trying to get to the cheese in the centre of these maps I’d die of starvation.

6/10. Pve maps is for me a mostly you have to be in party or commander everywhere. WvW maps are amazing, but laggy and need some fixes.
Maguuma hero points take way too long. It’s ok you have to work for it, but I’m not going to do event after event after event all the time to get my stuff. Hell no.
I also kinda miss the heart missions, I don’t want to be forced playing events all over, where mostly you cannot do anything on your own. Some late weekends I couldnt even finish anything because people were not online. So basicly you cannot do anything too.
Maps is too much searching some poi or hp I don’t even see on the normal map. It’s just to overwhelming and chaotic.

Love the revenant class, and the class upgrades are amazing. With beauty in overall it’s just amazing, but gameplay wise it’s holding somewhat back.

Game lags hard, pretty much everywhere and the amount of dc is quite big too. This evening I had 2. Last nights 3 or more.

This is a tricky question. I’d say when HoT launched I’d have rated my fun factor at 5 or 6. There was good stuff, also some frustrating stuff.

Now, a week and a half later, I’d say the fun is 7 or 8. The point reduction for Specializations helped. I’ve gotten Masteries required for getting around the maps. I’ve learned how to deal with enemies that were total pains at first.

Only time will tell if it continues to get better, worse, or stays about the same.

I’m wavering somewhere between 6 and 7.

The Revenant has certain aspects and elements are really, really fun, but I think it still needs a bit of work to make builds more enjoyable (it’s not great that you essentially have no choice of skillset, but so far at least the Shiro build is decent), and it needs some degen/regen modifiers for equipment.

Elite specialization traits/skills/skill lines have to be heavily farmed. It’s nice that we now have a use for skill points, but I’d rather Anet added new skills (even just PvE if it was balancing issues, like they did in Guild Wars 1) rather than force drastic grinds.

The WvW borderland maps used to be great. Now they’re just miniature Edge of the Mists maps. I’ve long thought Anet should have different maps for each borderland (makes it worth taking another over, or holding your own, if you like and can play the style of gameplay a certain map suits), but rather than doing that, Heart of Thorns has replaced all the (perfectly enjoyable) borderlands with confusing mazes and unappealing terrain.

I haven’t had a good chance to experience Stronghold yet, but so far it feels too much like a supply grind. I thought it was going to be more like a Dota-style mode, and I was super-excited about that. Heroes shouldn’t be focusing on picking up supplies. Maybe they could protect supply-gatherers, but why would they drop their swords on the battlefield to carry barrels to and fro? That said, with a bit of development, Stronghold could be something neat on the PvP front. As it currently stands, it’s pretty much just the same as Strategy gameplay – dust off enemy heroes while you try to kill their lord.

As per earlier comments, I’m noticing the empty maps as well. I’m guessing that’s because so many people are discouraged by the price-tag (and are either waiting for a sale of have left the game), but if that’s the reason it’s so hard to move through the new maps, Anet could probably scale the difficulty better to accommodate that.

I’ve not unlocked the glider mastery yet, but I have looked through information about it, and I have to say… if gliding is really only something you can do in specific areas, I’m disappointed. If my character learns how to glide, why couldn’t he/she jump off a Shiverpeak mountain and experience the fall in style (and without dying)? I’m not asking Anet to seed all other maps with thermals and other gliding assists, I’d just like to be able to pure-glide in maps that aren’t eyesores (personal opinion, yes; I’m not big on jungles).

I’m a bit sad that the war/story/expansion didn’t go north, where there was an actual invasion. Asura have Inquest (civil war), Norn have Sons of Svanir (again, civil war rather than invaders), Sylvari have Nightmare (civil war again), Charr have Flame legion and ghosts (civil war and historical haunting), and all the races have Risen to contend with. Only humans have an actual invasion going on – Centaurs raid and ransack human holdings on an hourly basis! And even with all the Living World story updates, it still appears that no effort has been put into pushing them out.

But I’m still in the 6 or 7 range, which means I’d give it 6.5.

Updates:
-Gliding is fun and interesting, but the fact that my character has mastered gliding and cannot glide in the Shiverpeaks is kind of annoying. Just… use the wings?
-The Revenant is still a lot of fun. Not too worried about the skillset rigidness, but I do agree with other people that it’s strange they can’t use race abilities.

8/10 I’m having a ball. Mastery is taking forever though.

Story 2/10 – forced, contrived and very short

Total disappointment. 1/10 The game that I liked so much, went into a terrible direction. Grind, mazes, gates, monotonous game events … The new location just cause rejection. Missing the spirit of adventure, he was replaced by a feeling of endless stupid arcade. + 1 only for the elite specs.

first day – 7
second day – 4
third day – 1 (the music is good)

I wonder if it would be possible for a game like Guild Wars 2 to keep its core maps and add procedurally-generated maps like Elite: Dangerous does… that would add huge chunks of adventure and exploration to the picture, and if players discover cool places that Anet thinks it can develop into something cooler, Anet could do just that.

It boils down to having a good guild. When the expansion was released I had a horrible experience, I had even contemplated getting a refund.

Recently I had an epiphany, instead of arguing with White Knights why not try to join one of their guilds because they’re obviously having fun right?

I sent an in game mail to Vayne asking for a guild invite, get an invitation and proceed to have one of the best nights I’ve ever had playing this game, even prior to HoT when I was having fun.

With a laid back group of knowledgeable people HoT becomes a lot more enjoyable and immersive.

In the beginning while first starting in Verdant Brink I would have said a 7-8. After experiencing more of it I would say a 4-5. Better question is would you get your money back if in a magical world you could undo your purchases? I think I would honestly.

Before TD: 7/10
When TD is needed for everything: Fallout 4

Initial impression was around 7 or 8, dropped to around 4/10 now that the novelty’s worn off.

I love how beautiful some of the zones are, some of the mobs have interesting mechanics and the elite specs are fun to play. Story rewards have been surprisingly good. There’s some interesting collections to complete that will keep me busy for a while. I like most of the new armour and weapon skins as well.

But…..

Masteries do not feel like progression, just gating. Nothing I’ve unlocked is particularly special, just basic requirements to get things done in the new zones. Getting around is still a bit of a pain. Rushing from event to event to get enough participation points to be rewarded is tedious. I don’t care for the map-wide meta in general (my view might change if this stuff eventually becomes infallible and can be farmed for rewards).

And worst of all, my favourite content has been nerfed to death. I always did stuff in this game between dungeon and fractal runs, but the reward remoal made that content virtually worthless. As a result I’ve been spending more time in the new areas that I truly care to, which just makes the flaws I’ve outlined seem that much worse.

With as few biases as possible I would say:

When population and map activity is high
Solo player – fun factor 7-9/10 (depends on builds and masteries)

Depending on your mood – if you want to do the meta and there’s low pop
Solo – Low pop – fun factor is 3/10

If it’s low population and you can manage to gather 1-3 friends / random people it can be lots of fun without events scaling up to the zerg. 9/10 small group play

Crashing out of the game and losing meta progress 0/10

The fact that there are parts of this expansion that I can’t do because I need the mastery for it but to get to some mastery points I have to have the mastery to get it, I’m gonna say 4/10 and steadily declining. Why would Anet put mastery points in areas that require a mastery to get to it is beyond my comprehension. I’m stuck now, not enough mastery points to get the mastery to get to the other mastery points. Can’t use my Central Tyria mastery points for the new content. I can’t make the new elite specialization weapons because I need the mastery points to do the different tasks. All I can do is run around with zergs all day doing meta events in this expansion.

The rest of the expansion is ok, soloing hasn’t been an issue, I do enjoy the new profession Revenant, and visually the maps are gorgeous, but I’m really starting to regret buying the expansion at the price I purchased it at. If I’m still playing when Anet comes out with the next expansion I’m going to be hard pressed to buy it at all let alone at the higher price. Lesson learned!

7.5 and climbing (now that I’ve done a fair amount of the xp grinding required). I am loving the complexity and detail of the maps, I love the new mobs and mob mechanics (especially the defiance bar, so much better than defiance stacks and seeing a control wasted on a slow). I like the new fractal setup a lot though I would still like to see the ascended drop chance be added back in. I’m very excited for raids and Squad UI and I’m very happy to have better repeatable endgame content.

Also, the elite specializations add so much variety and are a ton of fun, and I really like how zerker is no longer the optimal meta for all circumstances.

9/10

Only compliant is the difficulty getting hero points for elite spec, having most of the hero point locations requiring a decent sized group is not fun, hero points where previously a exploration experience not a raid one.

I don’t get the gripe with masteries. Masteries are imo a much more player friendly system compared to a traditional leveling system, since with masteries I can pick which ones I want to go up rather than being chained to a purely linear leveling system.

9/10 – the 2 main issues I had on release Hp points and crashes have mostly been resolved. I don’t care for TD, but like the other zones. Tarir is just awesome. Still marked down slightly for GH costs and no wvw love…..

maps 10/10

elite specs (scrapper mainly at the moment) 10/10 hammer is very fun, too bad I will still probably be running condi pistols in raids.

masteries 7/10 would have liked to have a more organic progression process instead of generic xp

map events
-VB 9/10, Time between end of day events and night events is in a decent place, hard to herd people into all the little events at night, but I think squad ui will facilitate that. Some of the events seem unnecessarily long and uneventful, guard laranthir while he plants explosives for instance should have double the total mobs and take half as long (yes that would mean 4x the mobs in a given time period. That would be a defense)
-AB 8/10 (does not need a set timer should be more like silverwastes),
-TD 4/10 (same as AB, and what is with the crazy time delay between events and the boss? 40 minutes on my last not really very organized map),
-DS8/10 (In my experience, if you dont get in right when it resets or soon thereafter, you dont get in a decent map at all but I have a small sample size on that so far, should be a case that, the timer starts after all the lanes complete a “prep” event. it would let maps start late an would allow maps to be running all the time at different stages)

Guild hall content 9/10 (some things like the boosters should not be locked behind HoT)
Guild hall upgrading 6/10 (the current amount of materials is just fine for a large guild, but guild halls should have had a scaling system of some kind for smaller guilds)

Fractal changes 4/10 (1 island per run is great, decreasing the low level difficulty to make them more accessible is great. scaling toughness and hp to very high levels not so great, essentially removing ascended chests, terrible)

pvpN/A
wvw N/A

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’ve still got a rage headache, so right now a 4/10.

Might hit a 7/10 if not for the rage headaches

Class features 5/10
Story 7/10
Content features 3/10
Rewards 2/10
Grind 1/10

I would give HoT a 10! I never find a bored moment in HoT maps, so many things to do, challenged events. Worth every penny I spent so far!

10/10 have had the most fun in the new maps in a loooong time.

Verdict: 3/10 – Obviously Rushed.

I could spend pages on each part of the game where I’ve encountered both good and bad; but boiling it down, I think everyone can agree on the following.

Map:
+ Gliders and Vertical mobility is the only unilaterally good thing with the expansion
- Unfortunately none of the maps make sense until after you’ve got Glider and Mushrooms unlocked.
- Its also clear they were going for a Metroid style exploration setup, but Verdant Brink’s opening area went out of its way to disempower the player in a bad way. From the beginning, its taunting you to use the 2 mobility options you don’t have in order to get around; and of the paths you can take without falling, its over crowded with pocket raptors AND a CC monster. Facing a huge difficulty spike in mob fights, while simultaneously disorienting navigation, is extremely frustrating from the get-go; And I can guarantee a large number of players opted to skirt around them for that very reason.

Masterys: The conceptual break down is fit for purpose, but it suffers from 2 glaring issues in how they’re used. First, the order of the mastery abilities are out of whack. Basic mobility should had been stream lined, and unlocked faster… or alternatively, the style of maps should had been presented in a different order. Verdant Brink’s pit falls would had been better as a second map, while the Hylek’s network of Tree towns should had formed the first half the of first map introduced to players (even if presented in a damaged state). This would had allowed players time to work on the initial exp requirements, while still enabling them to move vertically among the Itzel structures.

A second issue is that progressive discovery is pointless, as lot of things aren’t marked visually or purposely obscured. Using VB’s hero points as an example, even knowing where they are on the map, it still proved difficult to see how to get to them, much less understand what you would need in order to reach them. Understanding the map relies too heavily on advanced knowledge of the Mastery functions, and without that its difficult to tell if you’re supposed to be able to reach it or not. Its an aspect of Metroidvaina games to make it obvious when something is out of reach, but also somewhat obvious of what type of mechanic you need even when you don’t have it.

Elite spec: Speaking only for Scrapper, its a step forward, but suffers from painful lack of polish. The hammer is all around excellent, but I can’t help but feel it only reached that due to its simplicity. Its a strong stand alone that doesn’t play into any other skills, including gyros, at the level of synergy normally seen within the core specs of most classes. The gyros themselves are also clearly half finished, as the concept and theoretical power is excellent, but the implementations are just horrid. This creates a linger fear that they’ll never get fixed, as Anet has proven they’ll take years to even admit a problem exists; even dismissing player feedback when its objectively on point.

World Events: Also another area of undisputed improvement, but suffers greatly from the buggy soft cap behavior.

Story, WvW, Raids: All on hold until bugs are fixed, and my guild settles down and focuses properly on one task at a time.

ridiculously overtuned mobs, and the new area is like one giant annoying jumping puzzle, this will be great for those that love jp’s but if i want to play a platformer, i’ll just play one… i’ll be going back to wow, this makes me sad

7/10
Content is good, grinding factor contradicts the principles gw2 was advertised for on its origins (probably can be fixed with rewards towards the elite skills via story progression) but not everything should come easily, … love the general design of the events sadly it has great flaws like loosing everything if you get disconnected during an event …and to be fair you should get no reward at all for no participation yet I see chests popping out like a piñata on my screen corner just by being around. probably this big meta events should be instanced separately or something! what kinda keeps me from enjoying the game more is the fps I get while on this new maps full of animations, it gets laggy to the point I cant aim AOE spells properly nor land several of position related skills.

1/10

The one point comes from gliding which is a moderately fun novelty feature. Everything else takes huge leaps into opposite direction from what I find enjoyable in a game. I endured the experience just long enough to unlock the elite spec for my main, checked it out and found it lackluster enough to revert back to my old build. Left the HoT area and have no intention to go back for more rage-inducing grind. The maps are kitteny for the sake of being kitteny, and the artificial barriers feel exactly that, artificial. The expansion as whole isn’t worth my time.

Knighthonor.4061:

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

Fallout 4 out of 10.

Lisa sighs a mighty sigh.

I have not read any of the answers yet but I can guess…..

The young whippersnappers with young whippersnapper reflexes and who were raised on video games from the cradle will give it a triple AAA rating.

Those with not so good reflexes but have a ton of friends /guildies to shepherd them through will give it a handful of gold stars.

The solo players, (Me), who are not blessed to be in the first group, will give it a big fat zero.

Lisa-sad.

Update: 0/10 . Because I don’t play it anymore. Just checking forums now and then.

It’s somewhere in the ballpark of The Old Republic Online, without any of the neat pre-existing lore to support it. At least that MMO had a waifu sim-date mini game to distract me from how bad it was.

Noa.7490:

-10 at the moment. I regret having prepurchased this. Should have waited for the reviews.

this, specially for the wvw thing

Hiding levels behind mastery’s and how the new maps are designed makes me give the fun factor a 2/10.