Guild Wars 2

Well. About questions like ‘why do people want hard content?’ I don’t want hardest content where you have to be a group to do stuff. I really like HoT for the fact that I have to be focused when I play it and not just 1111111 all the way through. 2 days ago I did a few vanilla map completions whit a pretty new character and it is so easy so it all just feel repetitive. I didn’t have to use more than two skills all the time and running naked doesn’t really help either it just makes the fights longer not harder.

I hope the HoT nerf that will come won’t make it booking.

Einlanzer.1627:

Batelle.1680:

If you’re a capable player (or a player who doesn’t want to wipe every five minutes), you definitely start to adjust to HoT’s difficulty level. It doesn’t make it fun, in my opinion. It just becomes like every other map, only more tedious to traverse. It sucks to settle into doing events or helping people with hero point challenges when you have to run through a gauntlet of hyper-aggressive mobs no matter what direction you go in- slowing you down if you’re on foot and rendering waypointing impossible.

This is my experience is well. IMO, the open world is not where we should see dramatic spikes in difficulty. It goes back to Arena’s bad paradigm of trying to make the open world work for everything when instances are usually a much better wrapper for any kind of non-casual content.

One of the main reasons there’s argument over the difficulty of HoT revolves around the exceptionally poor class balance in the game. Some classes are just way, way easier to solo content with than others. I run Thief and Warrior mainly, and the warrior is far more faceroll-capable than the Thief is. I am flabbergasted at how frequently my Thief is destroyed by the same content that my warrior can just rip through like paper.

I don’t think the HoT maps are bad, per se. They were well designed for what they were trying to accomplish. They just need to be recalibrated a bit.

Alright, going to try posting on these forums again…

Hi! Been playing this game a few months now. I started with HoT, so aside from leveling a few characters up I lack the pre-HoT perspective.

I do observe a lot of differences between the gameplay of my three level 80 characters (thief, necro, rev). But I’m not sure I agree that any of them feel at a particular disadvantage. It feels to me like each has a distinctive playstyle that may lend itself well to one area or another, but invariably has some shortcomings not shared by the others.

The best comparison to illustrate the point is thief/necro. On paper the necro appears superior in just about every way. Double the health pool, death shroud, and capable of strong area effect damage at any range. And there are definitely things my necro can stick around for that my thief has little choice but to bail out on.

However, the thief is mobile on a level my necro can never hope to match. The thief can disengage and escape at will. He almost never dies outside of 1-shots in boss encounters (and the necro still dies during those due to lack of mobility anyway!).

The thief is also very limited to melee range area effect damage. But his burst damage combined with mobility means he can feasibly get in, take enemies out quickly, and escape to range if cornered.

Having said that, initially I had a lot of trouble upon entering HoT. I died A LOT just getting around. But it was my first level 80 and I quickly adapted my build. Now thief is arguably my most survivable character in open world and also by far the fastest at getting around. From my perspective, it’s hard to look at thief and see it as a disadvantaged class compared to necro or rev in open world.

In fact, I leveled up my rev specifically because necro felt so slow compared to thief. Survivable? Sure! But rev has a lot more of the mobility I liked about thief. And both of them are survivable, too! Personal preference I suppose.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Well. About questions like ‘why do people want hard content?’ I don’t want hardest content where you have to be a group to do stuff. I really like HoT for the fact that I have to be focused when I play it and not just 1111111 all the way through. 2 days ago I did a few vanilla map completions whit a pretty new character and it is so easy so it all just feel repetitive. I didn’t have to use more than two skills all the time and running naked doesn’t really help either it just makes the fights longer not harder.

I hope the HoT nerf that will come won’t make it booking.

I think they should be able to reach a good compromise.

I’m with you in that I enjoy the challenge of HoT. It stopped me short at first as a new player, but this game’s combat system really does give you all the tools you need to succeed in the jungle. I just don’t think the core maps were challenging enough to force the kinds of build choices HoT does. Your traits/weapons really matter in HoT, where in core maps you can sort of do whatever you like without significant consequence.

On the other hand, I don’t think I would be particularly upset if they somewhat reduced the sheer number of enemies in HoT outside of events. I think my preference for highly mobile classes has a lot to do with that. My less mobile classes sometimes have to clear trash that my thief can simply zoom past and it can be pretty tedious when all you’re trying to do is get from point A to point B.

I also wouldn’t mind if HP challenges were more solo-able. It’s not as if I wasn’t able to unlock my elite spec in a day or two of playing anyway, but I don’t feel it added much to my experience requiring a second player to take down the guano HP mini-boss, for instance.

I consider it far more important that they maintain the overall difficulty. I don’t want to see HoT lose the difficulty that forces those build choices that the core maps never did. If there were somewhat fewer mobs, particularly in the more obnoxious sections of the jungle (AB canyons filled with huge packs of pocket raptors and veteran smokescales? I’m looking at you!). And if personal objectives like HPs were geared more toward solo play, I don’t think I would mind.

The jungle could also stand to be more accessible as far as WPs are concerned. Maybe add some better wallows that take you to more convenient places on the map? I may have missed them, but having wallows that connect to Faren’s Flyer and Mellagan’s WP areas would be nice, for instance.

Rivindor.7258:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Frankly, I don’t believe “dedication” has anything to do with it. “Casual” is not an antonym for “dedicated.”

Eh based off the definitions I am using, it appears to be so

Casual: without definite or serious intention; careless or offhand; passing:
a casual remark.

Dedication: to devote wholly and earnestly, as to some person or purpose

Sure, on the surface it may seem so, except for the tiny fact that both adjectives are refering to different things. “Casual” refers to the playing style, while “dedicated” refers to the game.
Thus, something like a “dedicated casual” is definitely possible.
Notice also, that the opposite – a “undedicated hardcore” is also possible. Most of the content locust fall into that category.

Astralporing.1957:

Rivindor.7258:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Frankly, I don’t believe “dedication” has anything to do with it. “Casual” is not an antonym for “dedicated.”

Eh based off the definitions I am using, it appears to be so

Casual: without definite or serious intention; careless or offhand; passing:
a casual remark.

Dedication: to devote wholly and earnestly, as to some person or purpose

Sure, on the surface it may seem so, except for the tiny fact that both adjectives are refering to different things. “Casual” refers to the playing style, while “dedicated” refers to the game.
Thus, something like a “dedicated casual” is definitely possible.
Notice also, that the opposite – a “undedicated hardcore” is also possible. Most of the content locust fall into that category.

One can have a casual appoach to the game and one can have a dedicated approach to the game. The adjectives can be refering to the same thing. His definition works. Not that it is universally applicable, of course.

What I don’t like about the HoT is the following:
1) Mini-adventures – have no business in an MMO. The code wasted on them should have been put into more bug fixes and real MMO content. And why are nearly half the masteries tied to these stupid games. Masteries should be related to the MMO content itself not mario like games.
2) Meta-event locking of resources – no one hardly does Octovine anymore, why is this event gating the gathering of Auric sand. Stupid design.
3) Adaptive scaling so HoT event chains can be sole-able or can be done with the present design zerg-fest.
4) All stories cinematics should be skippable. Re-running stories for achievements due to bugs is annoying especially when they are way too long with the cinematic pauses. In my case I’ve re-run Burning Insight three times to get the New Horizon achievement and have done it correctly twice but never get the credit.

And, not really HoT, but an Anet failure never the less.
Mega-server shortcoming – why can’t Anet have the mega-servers maintain a DC queue for up to 5 minutes, so players who get DC’d can log back into the same map. Don’t you love doing dragon stand for nearly an hour then get DC’d on the final fight and lose your chest. Wonderful design Anet.

curtegg.5216:

1) Mini-adventures – have no business in an MMO. Masteries should be related to the MMO content itself not mario like games.

They were meant to be fun. Many people did/do find them fun. Can’t blame the devs for trying to add a bit of fun. Sorry you don’t find them fun.

curtegg.5216:

2) Meta-event locking of resources – no one hardly does Octovine anymore, why is this event gating the gathering of Auric sand. Stupid design.

Have you tried using the LFG tool and checking when the meta is running using a timer site? Have you tried joining a guild to see when they are running it? I see it run a lot which doesn’t tie in with what you’re saying.
- there is a team in LFG taxi’ing people into a brand new DS right now, you posted about 3/4 of an hour ago so you should be able to see this and join it. -

curtegg.5216:

3) Adaptive scaling so HoT event chains can be sole-able or can be done with the present design zerg-fest.

I don’t see how you can have it be soloable without instanced versions which we don’t have. Also don’t know why you’d want to solo a massive meta event.. how would just you cover all sides of octovine or all lanes in TD..

curtegg.5216:

Don’t you love doing dragon stand for nearly an hour then get DC’d on the final fight and lose your chest.

Have you tried the 64bit client, people are reporting that it fixes this issue for them.

Ashen.2907:

Astralporing.1957:

Rivindor.7258:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Frankly, I don’t believe “dedication” has anything to do with it. “Casual” is not an antonym for “dedicated.”

Eh based off the definitions I am using, it appears to be so

Casual: without definite or serious intention; careless or offhand; passing:
a casual remark.

Dedication: to devote wholly and earnestly, as to some person or purpose

Sure, on the surface it may seem so, except for the tiny fact that both adjectives are refering to different things. “Casual” refers to the playing style, while “dedicated” refers to the game.
Thus, something like a “dedicated casual” is definitely possible.
Notice also, that the opposite – a “undedicated hardcore” is also possible. Most of the content locust fall into that category.

One can have a casual appoach to the game and one can have a dedicated approach to the game. The adjectives can be refering to the same thing. His definition works. Not that it is universally applicable, of course.

Using the terms that way just seemed misleading. So I clarified. One can also be a dedicated casual player and, as Astral pointed out, one can be an undedicated hardcore. It seemed like the original post I responded to was implying a person was always one or the other.

I don’t know exactly how GW2 can balance the 2 kinds, but it would be nice if they did going forward. In the original game, they had casual-style maps but they also had content that could be challenging like dungeons, certain JPs, etc, etc. They’ve since added a lot more of this content, so the game is sitting better than ever for challenging content, especially now that there are raids and higher level fractals.

I hope the next expansion features some more relaxing maps like the originals and some easier story instances to help continue balancing out the more challenging content. We’ll have to wait and see.

curtegg.5216:

What I don’t like about the HoT is the following:
1) Mini-adventures – have no business in an MMO. The code wasted on them should have been put into more bug fixes and real MMO content. And why are nearly half the masteries tied to these stupid games. Masteries should be related to the MMO content itself not mario like games.
2) Meta-event locking of resources – no one hardly does Octovine anymore, why is this event gating the gathering of Auric sand. Stupid design.
3) Adaptive scaling so HoT event chains can be sole-able or can be done with the present design zerg-fest.
4) All stories cinematics should be skippable. Re-running stories for achievements due to bugs is annoying especially when they are way too long with the cinematic pauses. In my case I’ve re-run Burning Insight three times to get the New Horizon achievement and have done it correctly twice but never get the credit.

And, not really HoT, but an Anet failure never the less.
Mega-server shortcoming – why can’t Anet have the mega-servers maintain a DC queue for up to 5 minutes, so players who get DC’d can log back into the same map. Don’t you love doing dragon stand for nearly an hour then get DC’d on the final fight and lose your chest. Wonderful design Anet.

1) So no ancillary content should be included in MMO’s or any game for that matter? I guess polymock in GW1 was a waste of dev time when they could have spent it developing other content such as another copy/paste dungeon.

I haven’t seen anything that states what should or should not be included in an MMO. If Anet wants to include various activities then that’s up to them. If Anet added polymock with HoT, would you be claiming that it doesn’t belong. There’s a difference between something not belonging and simply not liking it.

2) Octovine is done all the time. You should try using the LFG if you don’t get onto a map that has players doing it. The ones with players that are tend to fill up as a large percentage of players only go to that map when the meta is about to happen.

3) Aside from events with champs, everything else can be done solo. I don’t remember people complaining about some events in Orr being unable to be done solo. Actually, there are more events in Orr that cannot be done solo than there are in HoT.

General Health.9678:

curtegg.5216:

1) Mini-adventures – have no business in an MMO. Masteries should be related to the MMO content itself not mario like games.

They were meant to be fun. Many people did/do find them fun. Can’t blame the devs for trying to add a bit of fun. Sorry you don’t find them fun.

I’m fine with fun. However, mini-games are only going to appeal to a segment of the total population. Tying progression to them is like saying, “Hey, if you want to get to max level, you have to do mini-games.” GW2 leveling progression is wide-open. Actually doing pretty much anything the game offers grants XP. But not the alternative progression of “masteries.” This is poor design. Intrinsic rewards should be enough for those who find Adventures fun. An extrinsic reward of a progression system should be wide open, like XP is.

IndigoSundown.5419:

General Health.9678:

curtegg.5216:

1) Mini-adventures – have no business in an MMO. Masteries should be related to the MMO content itself not mario like games.

They were meant to be fun. Many people did/do find them fun. Can’t blame the devs for trying to add a bit of fun. Sorry you don’t find them fun.

I’m fine with fun. However, mini-games are only going to appeal to a segment of the total population. Tying progression to them is like saying, “Hey, if you want to get to max level, you have to do mini-games.” GW2 leveling progression is wide-open. Actually doing pretty much anything the game offers grants XP. But not the alternative progression of “masteries.” This is poor design. Intrinsic rewards should be enough for those who find Adventures fun. An extrinsic reward of a progression system should be wide open, like XP is.

I think it would have been better to have something as basic as Mastery Points completely divorced from the Adventures, too. Adventures are naturally going to exclude players for a variety of reasons given their nature and, given that some people simply are never going to be able to complete them no matter what they do, the rewards for them should not, imo, have included the mastery system since everyone needs mastery points.

I’m of the belief that really basic systems should be accessible to anyone and shouldn’t be locked out for people that just aren’t ever going to be able to do something. Or perhaps a better plan would have been to make enough mastery points beyond those included in Adventures so that people that never do Adventures can get enough to max out their masteries without them. For instance, if they had required us to get silver or gold on a majority of the masteries in order to play the elite specs, I’d have never been able to enjoy that content.

General Health.9678:

curtegg.5216:

1) Mini-adventures – have no business in an MMO. Masteries should be related to the MMO content itself not mario like games.

They were meant to be fun. Many people did/do find them fun. Can’t blame the devs for trying to add a bit of fun. Sorry you don’t find them fun.

You missed the point entirely, the masteries should not be behind the mini games. Play the games for fun,sure, but not to get what is required for game progression. So if you chose to play them for fun, great. To be forced to do so is another issue altogether.

+1 I am another one of those people that feel the maps are not difficult so much as they are BEYOND tedious.