Guild Wars 2

2/10

I despise two things: (1) Gated Content and (2) Grinding.

This expansion is full of #1 and #2 above. But I still gave it a couple points because aesthetically is nice and I’m sure there is something else that is nice… just can’t think of it right now.

I adore the story, when I’m allowed to play it.

I would probably say a 7 or 8. I’m having a lot of fun.

10/10 – I guess I should realistically give it more like an 8 or 9 but I can’t think of anything to change, besides wanting more fractals. I’ve never repeated an event so far, the story is challenging in a variety of ways (not just dps but sometimes cerebrally) and engaging… exploring “aimlessly” has never been this much fun! Every time I unlock a new mastery it’s like a map gets a new flavor, which is making it fun on alts and to re-explore paths to “go deeper” as one might say. My boyfriend and I were exploring updrafts underground just to see where we could get to and BOOM suddenly a nearby wall breaks down and we’ve started an event in a place we thought was the complete wrong direction.

I’m usually the kind of person that is like ALL STORY ALL NOW but I’ve been distracted (in a good way) so many times just running around. These maps are an explorer’s dream.

The monsters are tough and for the first time since hitting level 80 I really get to focus on not over-pulling mobs and I am rewarded for using my CC skills well with all those break bars :‘) Plus you’re encouraged to think a little more tactically about line of sight with snipers, which hasn’t been tooooo big of a deal before now. I didn’t get as far through the story as I thought I would because I was so busy jumping off of things or up to things and just enjoying how dense the maps are. And that Auric Basin metaevent? Geeze, I freaking love it.

I don’t understand the hero points complaint… the ones I found were challenging and that made them feel even better to complete. Some were extremely hard to do alone, tough with two and much more forgiving with more. They were harder than vanilla GW2 but that is a huge plus in my book… just hard enough to make me consider my situation and skills carefully before tackling it.

Elite specs are giving me a reason to actually play my alts. Most of them were tomed or EotM’d to 80 so it’s nice to go progress with them in the open world… it makes them feel more alive rather than dress-up dolls.

Admittedly, I haven’t yet tried to do the last story mission people are on about. I try not to rush through one aspect at launch to avoid the bugs and balance issues that are inevitable in the more end-game elements. I don’t think that one thing is enough to make me lower my opinion, though. Hopefully it gets sorted in the next week or so – Anet’s generally really good about re-evaluating and patching up things that are truly frustrating in a timely manner imo (setting aside the NPE), so I have faith.

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 ragequit release night. seriously.

I will arbitrarily rate the new HoT content 7/10.

Open world content is great, if you like a challenge. I die if I go afk somewhere, I fear death because waypoints are few and far between, and I think hard before engaging a single enemy because most of them are pretty tough. I spent an hour yesterday getting to the top of the canopy in Verdant Brink to be rewarded with some pretty amazing scenery and a Wyvern battle. A few times I fell back down to the main level and had to work my way back up. There are no waypoints up there. Jumping into an updraft is really scary prospect because if you can’t make it you go back to the waypoint…

I hope that this content isn’t nerfed. I know some people don’t like the difficulty. That’s valid, and there is nothing wrong with that. But I am personally enjoying the dangerous world experience and would hate to see it go the way of Orr.

World event chains are more immersive and have more steps than in Tyria, so it feels more like a living world than a playground for the players.

Some things I didn’t like:

Personal story mission puzzles. I like the normal combat system in the game, and puzzles that replace your action bar are usually very simple in comparison. I generally don’t enjoy them.

Hero points in Maguuma. It would be nice if some of the champion mobs that need to be killed for hero points would be scaled to be soloable – tough, but soloable. The added timer to complete the challenge is great (so people don’t just wear Nomad gear and earn it without difficulty), but they should be able to be accomplished by a single, skilled player in reasonable gear/trait setup. Alternatively, maybe the hero point count required for the elite spec could be reduced a bit…

I’d give it a 6 overall.

Things I love:
- Maps are beautiful
- New enemy mechanics (not the bosses since they are just giant health pools with 1 hit attacks)
- The music is so much better than the core music
- Mastery system (minus the fact that you have to “earn” points separately from exploration)
- What little of the elite specs I have unlocked.

Dislikes:
- Gating of the Elite Spec, especially since you basically have to do map exploration in order to get HPs, and most of those are mastery gated. (Don’t like map exploration) and redoing on 9 characters is painful.
- Mastery points being “earned” separately from “training”.
- The fact that you can only level HoT masteries from doing the repetitive events. I like the events, and I like the new areas, but I don’t want to have to grind those events endlessly in order to level my HoT mastery. I want to do a combination of activities.

Fun Factor? maybe a 4/10, I don’t find gated content fun.

for me its solid 9/10
the new maps are mostly fun, event chains in some of them reminds me those happy times when I lost whole day at ogre wars during exploration of fields of ruin when leveling up my ranger long time ago because there was an event after event and I just couldn’t break out of it well ok tangled roots map (3rd one to see duirng story) is little bit too much I literally got lost few times at it already….

I really liek elite specs or should I rather say – spec – because from all my characters I had enought hero points to even unlock elite only on my ranger.

well I got little bit burned out on the day one at verdant brink but thats because I totally ignored events that day in pursuit of hero points and other explorations – but later I’ve decided to give up on rushing it and just focus on whats happening around me more – and since then I’m having loads of fun (auric basin is my fav map though)

Honestly, a 4 / 10. Badly tuned and explained progression in game, mob density is wonky, gated masteries required to further explore, weak storyline. Everything feels like a chore. Never looked at my experience bar once during the first three years, now I look at it every few minutes in disgust as I see how much more junk i have to wade through just to get to the next part.

Halo 5 tomorrow, Fallout 4 next month. Destiny is looking good again, there’s an expansion for the Witcher 3 and the re-release of Wasteland 2. Too many better choices, and another lesson learned: don’t pre-order, ever.

There’s a lot of people who are loving this expansion though; and their opinion is not wrong — you like what you like. I guess the mistake here is that Arenanet created an expansion that has been polarizing: bad prioritization or design for some people, perfect balance of wants and needs for others.

3/10
Love the story, hate how I can’t play the story without grinding in PvE for mastery points.
Was planning on just not doing the story and playing WvW like I always do but I play WvW for fights. The new borderlands suck.
I have no drive to play the game at all. I keep logging on, going to WvW, then logging off.
Gonna give it 2 weeks and if I can’t do story and WvW still sucks then i’ll just keep not playing.

Also, credit where credit is due, this was the smoothest MMO expansion I’ve ever seen

7/10
I’m mostly a casual player and I will probably be getting masteries long after everyone else in my guild. I don’t really mind the masteries being hard to get to, however I would like it more if masteries had 2 options of unlocking. Something like, X amount of experience OR some scavenger hunt, achievement in PvP or WvW, or something along those lines.

I LOVE the maps as far as the art style and gameplay. I am really enjoying the multi-level exploration, sometimes it is annoying that some areas are mastery gated, but that just gives me something to look forward to later on.

I was excited for the elite specs and the new weapons and abilities we could get. Now… I’m mildly annoyed it will take a long time to get the specs for the classes I play occasionally, but once I finish the masteries that make navigating the jungle done, the H.P. should be easier to get to.

The only other issues I’ve had with the expansion so far are technical and are just bugs that need fixed, but there’s not much that I can do about those except wait for the patches to fix them.

I run round for literally hours at a time finding NOTHING to do in the maps and when i do find something i need a group of 5-10-20+ people to even accomplish it, of which you’ll find said group maybe 1/5 times.

There is no possibility of completing ANYTHING solo and the maps are so sprawling and vast that nobody is ever around for you to cooperate with.

0/10, waste of money.

I would give it around an 7-8/10
maps- I rather like the maps, the mastery gating is rather annoying but once I got updraft it was rather fun just exploring (while still getting rewards because my credit had not fallen off yet). The event density/flow bothers me, this is partially due to the maps feeling empty at times but also to do with that a lot of the events are so spread out/hard to find. If there was some system that told you where event chains were going on it would be much better (like scouts that say the pact is having a hard time over by blah).

HPs- I strongly dislike how many are gated by champs/impossible by solo player, the mastery gating I find ok I just wish it wasn’t so prevalent. The out-of-the-wayness of a lot of the points can make it had to get a group together of killing champs but not much to be done about that.

Mastery- I like the idea but dislike the huge amount of xp you need for them. I don’t want them to be handed to me and I feel low lvl mastery require an ok amount of xp but the xp required ramp for getting the higher ones could be reduced significantly IMO. Additionally/alternatively you could put more xp in other places like exploration, so people actually explore instead of encouraging a massive event grind purely to be able to explore in the 1st place.

Have not progressed much in the story so I don’t have anything to say about that at the moment.

Honestly the biggest thing that irked me about release is that halloween not providing mastery xp. I was really looking forward to leveling up my masterys while participating in the event but that is a separate issue.

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

It’s pretty skewered though. I’ve seen a few people post 0/10 to then say they are still playing it…I mean….who does that?Plays a game they rate 0?Neglecting them and the 99/10 fanboys 5-6 seems to be a more realistic medium.

Great read though

Can you post negative?

-1/10

I can’t believe I paid $50 for LESS content.

The content I enjoyed is now worthless to do (dungeons and fractals), and the content I paid for is gated behind a pointless grind.

It’s a brand new expansion that I’ve been excited about since it’s announcement on a game I’ve played on and off since beta and have loved for over three years, yet I’m sitting here on the forums reading instead of IN the game playing. That right there should tell you everything.

At this point I feel I’ve spent my hard earned money on an expansion pack that has turned my favorite game into a game I can’t even force myself to log into right now (despite having a very narrow window in which I can actually play). The game has gone from an alt friendly, progress your characters how you want, fun, solo friendly game to a massive grind forcing you to grind 400 hero points, which in turn forces you to grind masteries in the jungle, which in turn forces you to do group events on maps that almost always seam empty. Not a kitten ed thing is soloable and everything is gated. The game’s original play philosophy has done a complete 180.

How fun is HoT? To quote scoorps on reddit: “This isn’t just not-fun, it flies in the face of what the game was supposed to be about.”

Having said that they could go a LONG way in improving this and making this MUCH more enjoyable and fun by not gating our Elite Specializations behind a huge grind. I don’t think I or many others would mind the rest of the grind if we could at least do it on our elite specializations.

Hot totally worth money i paid for. Hero points are hard to beat alone what i dont like. Map completions are doable with some help. I did beat story it was ok. It did have some real learning curve and it made me rage. Its rewarding. I cant recom this to my friend but i love this game.

You just cant give number.

At best a 3. The grind is ridiculous if every mastery step in Maguuma Heart takes 1 million XP to complete than you need 23 million XP to max out all the masteries in Maguuma. You need 4.8 million XP to reach level 80!!!

9/10.
Enjoyed every second and everything it pretty much perfect.
Some minor tweaks here and there but some of the player base needs to be more grateful in general rather than spiteful children.

Fun factor? About a 3. There’s just more frustrating gameplay getting thrown around with everyone else and grinding for what I don’t have any idea. No reason to log in anymore, just to look at my chars; they are quite pretty.

5/10

Maps are awesome looking and all the mobs in the zones but hate the tier level system like an endless maze going round and round… also the poi’s and hero pts are a pain to get, I spent many hours searching for this one mastery point only to find I needed poison mastery to get it.

I didn’t have any trouble with my elite spec, I mean not all of it is unlocked but I have enough for my core build unlike some people who need the last traits on the end.

Grinding millions of xp to even unlock a portion of the collections needed in a series of steps to obtain a precursor weapon NOT the legendary itself is extremely irritating and the endless bugs in the last boss fight have made me stop trying until they fix it :/

Overall content is amazing but some of the features need a lot more work.

MoonRaiden.7423:

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.

Auric Basin, far eastern side with the Champion Vinetooth in the room with the exploding mordrem. You can solo it, it’s health pool is capable of being dealt with one person in full DPS gear in about half the time limit.

You need to be in melee range of it always, and dodge through it or strafe along its side when it begins its melee chain. It stays locked in place attacking nothing for a bit before returning to face you. Easy to damage.

The hardest part is the bombs, but that gets trivialized when you realize you can bring the mob to the entrance of the tunnel from where the room is, the bombs MAY spawn there, but rarely (had 1 on my kill). Furthermore, the challenge actually gets harder with more people, even with its low health pool, as A) Bombs could aggro to other players, and Vinetooth’s have AI that likes to do AoE moves on alternative targets attacking it while its focusing one person.

Can I record? No, I don’t have the Software. Will this info let you kill a hero point solo? Absolutely.

4/10, its ok so far asides from a few things like grinding and gating content, but i cant really enjoy the game due to the massive servers lag wich is constant .

Anets change in direction from no grind to excessive grind has been a big disappointment. I just cant get my head round this big change in philosophy.
.

I will give it 2 ratings, if I pretend elite specs don’t exist and just play the rest of the content then HoT is a solid 8/10. Masteries are great, events are fun, content is actually a little challenging and the story is actually worth paying attention too, this is the first time I haven’t just skipped all the scenes. Haven’t done fractals yet but I am looking forward to playing them along with unlocking the guild hall.

Since elite specs where hyped so much and were a major selling point for the xpac the disappointment that followed discovering the unlock requirements really sours the rest of the game. 3.5/10 is the final rating, this is a kitten up that is hard to ignore.

I wouldn’t mind grinding out the first elite if it opened up a special merchant that allowed me to just purchase the rest but I feel the best solution would be to lower the requirement so that you get your elite by the time you leave Verdant Brink. That way you can play the rest of the new content with your new spec.

1/10 for solo players, story is 4/10 could be higher if they didnt fire their testing team halfway through it

IF you move to a HoT map and select the Elite Spec for one of your three traits, you will be able to equip your elite weapon and play it.

You’ll get the five weapon 1 to 5 keys and any trait bonuses you can activate. Not the FULL spec of course but it’s a reasonable starter if you have Core Map coverage.

Took me three days to work this out as on Friday I tried to equip the newly received elite weapon on a Core Map and found I couldn’t. Didn’t realise the equipping is map dependent. Doesn’t work in WvW.

I should say I completed chapter three of the Personal Story – reward was an elite weapon – maybe that was the difference!?

Frankly it’s as clear as mud as to when you can use your elite abilities…

They may have been changing this or there was a bug, but currently I believe once you have the first trait ability ‘Proficiency’ you can equip your elite weapon in any HoT map.

I give it a good 8/10. The Champion hero points are a bit much and they should give more experience for events. Everything else is great.

No you can actually select an Espec on Core maps. I did some Orr farm last Sunday on my necro. At first I was playing condi but then I decided to give reaper a try. I must say, even without all skills and trait (I got enough points from core game to only unlock the first minor and the heal skill) I had a lot of fun playing this class in a different way. I also like that you don’t have all the trait because it made me thinks about the interplay between greatsword and other core spec. I guess the more I’ll play and unlock skills and trait the more I’ll play with the spec. But for now I’m still trying to remember what each skill does to be sure I use them at the right moment.
The same goes with my engineer who is more advanced in the Espec track. I still try the different combos, among traits, skills and weapons to fell how this new options can be inserted in the way I play the character.
I must say that discovering the new zones, the new ways of moving along with a new gameplay is a lot! And for now I don’t even think about trying the new stat combo, like an hybrid Viper build.

9/10 Here. I had my elite spec the first day, i don’t see how it is grindy. New maps are gorgeous and fun to explore and a challenge

Beautiful map: +10 points.
Over-the-top gating: -10 points.
Paintful exp grinding: -100.

So I give it a F -

Ranlares.2513:

9/10 Here. I had my elite spec the first day, i don’t see how it is grindy. New maps are gorgeous and fun to explore and a challenge

Go and train your mastery, my friend, you will see. Mom always says: “don’t speak too soon”.

I love the new content, Nothing has been overly difficult with the exception of soloing the camp defense missions in VB(I havent left yet). Champs are soloable as long as you focus down their allies first, and watch their telegraphs. Sure, they take a while to kill, but it isnt any tougher than most PvP with the difference being higher health and spikes.

quaniesan.8497:

Ranlares.2513:

9/10 Here. I had my elite spec the first day, i don’t see how it is grindy. New maps are gorgeous and fun to explore and a challenge

Go and train your mastery, my friend, you will see. Mom always says: “don’t speak too soon”.

Every time I play the VB events, looking for hero point … so in other not doing anything with Mastery in mind, I find myself completing them without noticing. A rough evaluation is that I gained something like 5 million Exp in 20 hours. I didn’t pay attention to my exp boosters which went off really often. Even like this the total HoT mastery would be like 200 hours of gameplay. Normally I play something around 20 hours per week on average, so in 2 months and a half in the Jungle, I’ll have this finished….next expac will maybe be in 3 years…..

I’m primarily typically a WvW player. Since they’ve destroyed the ability to roam in WvW, I’m also now primarily a PvP player. I’m not upset with them about it, I do miss roaming in WvW a bit but over all, PvP is pretty non-stop action, which is very fun.

I do not like PvE generally and I find the new maps pretty fun and beautifully designed. I’m actually not even upset about the PvE it is taking me to get the specializations completed, but I do wish that it took less hero points..

I’d give it an 8/10 fun factor.

2/10 since you cant get a refund if you pre ordered more then a month ahead. I’m pretty angry i got blatenly ripped off here. This mastery xp bs was a huge money scam to sell massive boosters plain and simple. Then after the boosters slow down they will change things and the white knights will let them get away with it. Worst expansion i have ever seen. 3 maps a lot of people hate and gimics. no real content unless you like dry top zones that wind and twist and mobs that 1 shot you. You can’t get elite spec unless you buy boosters and then you are still grinding for days in confined maps till you get enough xp to get the mushrooms,gliding and poison unlocked. It’s all a slap in the face to be honest.

So far a solid 7/10.
Would give it a 8/9 if the elite spec did not take as long to unlock like many others already said.
I understand the intention but I feel it doesn’t work with the way specs are designed IG.
It would be fun to unlock skills and traits overtime that you could use while doing so.
But the way traits work you have to give up an entire traitline to use one that’s barely unlocked.
That’s quite annoying.
I actually like the mastery system, did resent a bit the fact the story instances are gated behind them but don’t mind as much anymore, especially since it’s account wide and I’m really enjoying the maps
Maps seem a bit empty at times though which is a shame. But it’s pretty random really.
That’s all I can say for now.
So far I’m really satisfied overall though !

P.S. Gliding is too much fun… and the art team did a tremendous job on the maps and the cinematic in the instance "City of Hope", the cell-like splitting then the creeping vine cloud ... just wow that looked so beautiful, creepy and trippy ... I was in awe

what I dont understand abut people complaining about the elite spec cost is thatwhen you getthe spec, you are not onlypaying fir the traits, but also for the skills themselves. basically you are paying 200 pts for 1 trait line, 200 pts 1 utility line, and 60 pts for a weapon.

That seems pretty reasonable to me

Alright, after organizing some expeditions for tough Hero Points and delving into the world past Verdant Brink and Auric Basin, I’m upping my rating to 9/10. This place is awesome.

Solid 6/10
-PVE wise, i’m actually having fun.
-Not traditional grinding witch is good. No need for farming creatures or what ever.
-I like the mastery system that replaces characters level. Never thought i was gonna admit it, but the mastery number that hangs over a player just motivates me to beat there mastery levels. & IT FEELS GOOD!

Cons, not yet listed.
Only 1 atm- The bugs on the story journal that keeps you from progressing.

quaniesan.8497:

Ranlares.2513:

9/10 Here. I had my elite spec the first day, i don’t see how it is grindy. New maps are gorgeous and fun to explore and a challenge

Go and train your mastery, my friend, you will see. Mom always says: “don’t speak too soon”.

I’m mastery 75 bud =p

I’d say about a 3. It is fun when you can play and actually accomplish something but not so much when your map has almost no one in it and you cannot do much of the content because the game forces you to rely on others.

Aaron.4807:

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.

I feel MMOs have a unique place in the market, their core essence is to keep people playing. It’s not like a standard single-player game in which you go through the content and essentially “complete it”. Some do have tacked on Multiplayer to keep you around for a little longer, usually something “arena based” (jump in jump out repetition).

MMOs are in the business of keeping you in game for as long as possible, keeping the player playing over hours, days, months, years. They often fall into traps of simply making things longer for the sake of making them longer, especially if they don’t have a lot of content in the first place.

MMOs are huge, they almost have to be! You either have to put together enough content to satisfy the extremes of what players can and will do, in terms of scale or you are very open and honest about what the restraints are on your company and game as a whole. i.e. We cannot push such and such a scale, we can only do x,y,z.

Outlining to the player exactly what your plans are at all points during the development (and continued development of the game) are essential to keeping the customers not only happy but engaged with the ideas and keep peoples feet on the ground. I feel this may be where a lot of the tension has been with regards to this particular expansion.

1/10

I bought the ultimate edition that came with the gems; I should have learned my lesson preordering with Diablo 3, but alas, a mistake again. So for my money, I got a Tyrian mastery system to grind out. I mean running fast in cities and autoloot has got to be worth $99, right?

I’m staying out of the jungle for now. I’ll take a wait and see approach. After all, Diablo 3 started out a stinkbomb too and after three years, it’s improved a lot. Maybe HoT will too.

I’d say it’s still too soon to give a rating since a lot of the content is still locked away for me!

Positives so far:
Revenant – , just got mine to 80 and can’t wait to see what he can do in PVE and WVW
Gliders – Very fun, can’t wait to master this
Storyline – Very compelling and gritty (from what I can play so far)
Maps – Generally well designed and beautiful

Negatives:
Elite grinding – Many thought these would be “optional” specs with a sensible requirement for unlocking it. Since it actually requires what amounts to map completion, I sadly will never be able to experience the elite spec on the vast majority of my toons

Mastery grinding – Probably the most tedious part of HoT due to the lack of exploration / solo content. I would love to accumulate levels doing story, but that is also sadly locked away in gates. Where are the hearts? Where are the small dynamic events? It seems to me like every event requires a huge zerg to complete, and some of them you can’t even participate if you don’t have the proper mastery! Talk about your catch-22s!

The death of roaming in WvW – Many of us found relaxation in protecting camps and doing upgrades. Roamers have been put out of work by automation and a huge map.

0/10 its all about “progression” which suits some gamers 100% and dosent care about anyone else. I just saw a player with 100 mastery points standing next to someone with 1, wasnt too sure who to feel sorry for the most. Personaly I think HoT is a move away from GW core values, people should feel like they can progress not like they have to.

3/10. There are some good spots to this expac, but they are covered by way too much grind that leaches all the fun out of it.

Ascii Red.4029:

Personaly I think HoT is a move away from GW core values.

Which ones? When Factions was released we had to grind/farm/gain Luxon points. When Nightfall went out, I need to gather Lightbringer and Sunspear, to advance the story and get the related skills stronger. Things were event stronger in Eye of the North.
When expansion were released, if I wanted to get the new skills of my profession and all secondary profession (like Espec in HoT) I was put in front of a huge paywall : every single skill for 1k gold, plus the elite. For those last I had to actually run the same map several time to collect them all.
I don’t think GW cores have changed so much, but rather the players’ expectations.

HoT is also a move away from ANet profits…