Guild Wars 2

Been tooling about in the expansion off and on for a while, and I feel … a little frustrated.

Love the enemies, love the new specializations. What I am not loving, not even a little bit, is the 27 levels each map has, and the byzatine structure defined towards getting around. I have a glider, and some masteries, but not all. Right now it feels really hard just to get places, I spend a lot of time feeling lost and confused, and trying to access content seems to be hidden behind this Mario-esque view of GW2 becoming a platformer.

So I figure I must be missing something, this can’t be the design – what’s the secret to getting around the jungle? I’m really missing the plain ol’ maps of Kryta or wherever, where you could see an objective and just walk there. Now you see an objective and spend the next 20 minutes trying to get there, to find out you haven’t unlocked whichever BS mastery lets you use mud wallows or speed mushrooms or other bouncy crud, and you’ve got to grind content in a confusing map.

Any advice on how to navigate the map and get around?

Sadly, this was a very common topic and complaint while you were away. And, unfortunately, there’s no method to learn how to navigate better than time and experience. You can also read some of the guides presented on YouTube and sites like Dulfy.

But, again, yeah . . . welcome to our world.

Thanks for the reply. I’m off to spend some time on YouTube I guess. I’d rather be playing the game, but..

The feeling of being lost, not knowing where you’re going, is the point of the maps; it’s literally a jungle out there.

Just run around the old fashioned way and learn your way, it’s not that complicated, especially after getting a few masteries to navigate.

You have to learn how to navigate the maps by trying to navigate them. There’s really no way around it.

Start out in Verdant Brink. If you’re there just when the day cycle starts (check the event timer by typing /wiki et ingame in your chat box), then head south and you’ll find the start of one of the event chains, the pale reaver outpost chain. Follow that chain all the way through to the end to get a tour through a large part of the southeast of VB, including unlocking the shrouded ruins waypoint.

Next time you’re there at daybreak, head north as far as you can go, then slightly west to the village of Yakka Itzl, where another event chain starts that will take you around that part of the map. A third chain (that covers the center of VB) starts at daybreak near the pact encampment waypoint which you’ll get to by playing through the HoT storyline.

There are two more meta event chains in VB starting at daybreak, one around the nobles camp at Faren’s Flyer waypoint, and one towards the northwest that is probably the most difficult to catch the beginning of since it starts in a cave in the middle of nowhere and only gets to its waypoint towards the end of the chain.

As long as you’re not comfortable with navigating around VB, try to avoid the zone during the night cycle. Aside from the fact that it’s dark, there are also a lot more mordrem around and no long event chains that can lead you to places. Also, try not to beeline for pois, vistas, or hero points unless you see the way or have an idea of how to get there. Until you’ve got the feeling of how things flow (and how event chain status might effect the map accessibility) trying to force your way to an unknown point is a certain recipe for frustration.

Once you’re comfortable with (or tired of ) Verdant Brink, move on to the Auric Basin. The event chains here start after the battle of Tarir, also known as the Octovine event (check the event timer again if you want to know when the cycle starts). There is one chain each in the north, west, south, and east of Tarir. If I’m not mistaken, northwatch and southwatch chains start at their respective waypoints just outside the city gates. I’m not quite sure where the other two chains start, but they should be easy enough to find, since AB isn’t quite as twisted as the other two maps.

By the way, if you are in one of the new maps and unsure where to go, the current outpost event status including any active event will always be shown at the top right of your screen, so you always have at least some idea where the action will be closest to you.

Once you get through AB and want to go even further, Tangled Depths basically works like the other two maps. There are four outposts (ogre, nuhoch, rata novus, scar), in this case corresponding with the four lanes that feed into the ley line confluence, the central waypoint of this map in the very south. TD, however, isn’t quite as accessible at first as the other two maps, although once you’ve figured it out it becomes a favourite map for many people.

The easiest way to deal with this map is probably to follow the HoT story that leads you past the Teku Nuhoch and Rata Novus waypoints, as well as the ley line confluence and dragons passage points. Alternatively, you can get to the ley line confluence point by following the Nuhoch or Rata Novus lanes which are accessible from their respective outposts, either by nuhoch wallow or a short walk away.

Leave Teku Nuhoch to the southwest and head straight south, or leave Rata Novus through a tunnel to the southwest, and you’ll eventually get to the corresponding lane. Now that I come to think of it, the exits from Ogre camp and SCAR camp to their lanes are southwest of each camp, too, so while in TD, heading southwest out of either of the four camps/outposts should set you well on the way down to the central lanes.

All of TD is accessible without the nuhoch wallows mastery (nuhoch line tier 2), but the map has a good number of those that make navigating much easier. There is, among others, a nuhoch wallow connecting each of the four lanes to its corresponding outpost and waypoint, which makes moving around much easier, so you might consider leveling the nuhoch line until you have the wallows unlocked before you dive deep into TD.

Just like Nuhoch Wallows for TD, Exalted Markings (exalted line tier 1) are recommended to make traveling through AB easier, and gliding, updrafts (gliding t2) and bouncing mushrooms are good to have on all these maps. If you have those masteries unlocked you’ll be able to get to most parts of the new maps. A very few areas are locked out if you don’t have poison lore (Itzel t4) or leyline gliding (gliding t6), but you can easily come back to those later on.

Good luck in the jungle! It is confusing at first, but once you learn your way around the maps you’ll have a hard time going back to the plain old core Tyria maps. The jungle maps are just so much more fun to be once you’ve learned them .

I’m dyslexic and (separately) I have trouble with spatial relations — 2d versions of 3d objects look to me like… 2d objects. So I well understand the frustration with this sort of map (it probably is 8-12 times worse for me, depending on the circumstances).

So it’s fair to assume that in any given video game, I’ll be lost most of the time.

For HoT, I’ve dealt with it in 3 ways:

• Rely on the kindness of others to take me to where I need to go. Hero trains are good for this.
• The Dirk Gently method: follow someone who looks like they know where they are going (you rarely end up where you intended, but you often end up some place you needed to be).
• Repetition: try to get from A to B repeatedly, e.g. 1-2x/day for a few days.

At this point, I can mostly get around in VB, even during the day. I can manage AB and even parts of TD.

If I can do it, with my inability to make sense of the mini map, anyone can if, like me, they are willing to live for a time in uncertainty and put in extra effort to learn the area.

Dirk Gently, on explaining how he deals with getting lost

A few turnings later and I was thoroughly lost.

There is a school of thought which says that you should consult a map on these occasions, but to such people I merely say, ‘Ha!
What if you have no map to consult? What if you have a map but it’s of the Dordogne?’

My own strategy is to find a car, or the nearest equivalent, which looks as if it knows where it is going and follow it. I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere that I needed to be.

Douglas Adams, describing his holistic detective’s propensity for getting lost

He had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his method of “Zen” navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both.

I really love the way the new maos are set up. It makes them jnique and interesting to learn. The base game maps are all so kitten ed flat and boring, you literally just zigzag down, up, or across the map, completr it, and move on.

The HoT maps seem much more significant to me, and much more engaging.

I do understand that they are rough though for some, it would be cool if tbey found a balance so that we can more easily navigate them, but not go back to the rectangles of redundancy.

I seem to be in the minority in that I enjoy the maps. I think it helps that when I’m playing open-world PvE I view my destination as more of a guideline than anything. It’s a point to aim for and if I get there and do whatever I need to do then that’s good, but if something more interesting comes along and I end up 1/2 way across the map doing something I didn’t even know was there then that’s even better.

But that approach definitely works well in the jungle.

At first I’d strongly recommend not worrying so much about getting to a specific point as watching where you’re going. Which is not quite the same thing. Pick a path and follow it, see where it goes and what other paths branch off from it. Follow them if you want to. If you’ve got travel related masteries like gliding or bouncing mushrooms unlocked use those too. Just take your time to explore the map, focusing on how you get around rather than getting to specific places.

As you do that you’ll quite likely get more familiar with how the terrain works, and once you know that you’ll be able to work out how to get to the places you want to be.

You are and you aren’t (missing something). The HoT maps are a true exploration challenge. As others have said, the only way you’re going to learn your way around is by exploring. The maps are of limited use initially, and only become usable after you become at least somewhat familiar with the zone.

As for masteries, you really don’t need many of them for exploration. Jump mushrooms, gliding, updrafts, exalted markings, and Nuhoch wallows are all you really need to explore almost everything. And all of those cost 2 MPs or less.

A little advice:

Verdant Brink – Discover the routes into the canopy. Reaching objectives on the lower levels of the map is fairly straightforward, but the canopy objectives must be reached by one of a handful of paths (or during the boss meta via the choppers) and there is rarely a direct path. You will need updrafts and jump mushrooms to utilize these routes. Once you know these routes, the map becomes fairly simple to navigate.

AB – This one isn’t quite so complex as the others. The pathways around the map tend to be pretty straightforward. But you can’t use updrafts to get around as easily as you can in VB and there are gated areas and lots of tough enemies and group challenges.

TD – This map is a nightmare for many players as it’s by far the most complex. Updrafts are required to reach many objectives, but tend to be of fairly limited value in terms of getting around quickly. Wallows help the most on this map as they allow you to bypass the maze-like tunnels beneath and cut straight to where you want to go.

The map is almost completely useless in TD until you know your way around fairly well. Pay close attention to the up/down indicators as they will at least show you where you can transition from one level to another (ramps, stairs, caves, etc. are marked on the map). But try to have patience. Once you understand this map, you’ll realize that the maze hides a rather elegant design that is actually quite convenient to navigate (once you know how to get from one point to another!).

DS – This is another “group” map similar to AB. It isn’t terribly complex like TD, but there are powerful enemies everywhere and much of the map is gated behind large scale events. You can explore some of the map on your own if you’re decent at fighting, but it’s best to just join on for the event cycle on this map.

Hope it helps! If you’d like a hand with navigation, reaching HPs, etc. feel free to contact me in game. I’d be happy to run around the jungle with you and show you some tricks to getting around.

TactualRain.7109:

Been tooling about in the expansion off and on for a while, and I feel … a little frustrated.

Love the enemies, love the new specializations. What I am not loving, not even a little bit, is the 27 levels each map has, and the byzatine structure defined towards getting around. I have a glider, and some masteries, but not all. Right now it feels really hard just to get places, I spend a lot of time feeling lost and confused, and trying to access content seems to be hidden behind this Mario-esque view of GW2 becoming a platformer.

So I figure I must be missing something, this can’t be the design – what’s the secret to getting around the jungle? I’m really missing the plain ol’ maps of Kryta or wherever, where you could see an objective and just walk there. Now you see an objective and spend the next 20 minutes trying to get there, to find out you haven’t unlocked whichever BS mastery lets you use mud wallows or speed mushrooms or other bouncy crud, and you’ve got to grind content in a confusing map.

Any advice on how to navigate the map and get around?

The trick is to learn the maps and zones (And areas around each map’s meta areas). I absolutely love the economic use of the map’s real-estate to make the world feel ‘big’ when you’re trying to explore and play in it without being tedious to cross once you have a basic understanding of it thanks to the overlapping.

ekimsfree.9406:

The feeling of being lost, not knowing where you’re going, is the point of the maps; it’s literally a jungle out there.

Just run around the old fashioned way and learn your way, it’s not that complicated, especially after getting a few masteries to navigate.

Yep, I’d say that the best Mastery unlock order for getting around is:

Gliding:
Glider Basics - 1 Mastery point
Updraft Use – 2 Mastery points

Itzel:
Bouncing Mushrooms – 1 Mastery point

Nuhoch:
Nuhoch Hunting - 1 Mastery point
Nuhoch Wallows – 2 Mastery points

Exalted:
Exalted Markings – 1 Mastery point

Once you have those you can go just about anywhere. After that I’d go with gliding to the end.

The best way of getting enough mastery points and XP for those is playing the story and getting mastery points out in the maps. Whenever you max out your XP but don’t have enough mastery points make sure you start training another mastery so you don’t waste XP. XP boosts are great for this BTW.

After that I’d say just run around and familiarise yourself with the maps, I familiarised myself with Verdant Brink and Auric Basin quite easily, Dragon Stand is basically a flat plane. Tangled Depths is a bit tricky but I love it now I know my way around. Nuhoch Wallows and Bouncing Mushrooms are basically required there.

Pifil.5193:

Yep, I’d say that the best Mastery unlock order for getting around is:

Gliding:
Glider Basics - 1 Mastery point
Updraft Use – 2 Mastery points

Itzel:
Bouncing Mushrooms – 1 Mastery point

Nuhoch:
Nuhoch Hunting - 1 Mastery point
Nuhoch Wallows – 2 Mastery points

Exalted:
Exalted Markings – 1 Mastery point

Once you have those you can go just about anywhere. After that I’d go with gliding to the end.

This is advice I give to new HoT players as well. Once you’re reasonably mobile, you can explore just about everything. After gliding, scoop up Poison Mastery to get to those few areas that are still blocked off.

This is the jungle. I’m loving the fact the map are so vertical an want MOAR! You learn maps by exploring them, often failing, often falling – for nice and tame flat maps you got core Tyria. Here is the jungle son and here you adopt or you die!

Rasimir.6239:

Start out in Verdant Brink. If you’re there just when the day cycle starts (check the event timer by typing /wiki et ingame in your chat box), then head south and you’ll find the start of one of the event chains, the pale reaver outpost chain. Follow that chain all the way through to the end to get a tour through a large part of the southeast of VB, including unlocking the shrouded ruins waypoint.

This post was amazing, thank you so much. I’ve started doing this – still no real clue what I’m doing, but I’m now getting XP from doing events, meeting people, and kind of getting involved. It doesn’t feel so much like I’m missing out, although I still feel the gap in some of the traversal skills – but now they don’t feel so far away.

Pifil.5193:

Yep, I’d say that the best Mastery unlock order for getting around is:

This was also awesome. This is just the kind of thing that’s not laid out, and it feels like it will really help me get places a little faster.

Thank you both

A few years back I spent some time in another game, with a location known as The Mines of Moria. This was another multi layered location but with an even worse map than HoT. People would rather pay than go in there. Many vowed never to return once they got out the other side. I learned how the area worked (it wasn’t the same as the map showed) and eventually could go anywhere with relative ease.

The HoT areas, to me, are fine. The map, although better than it was, is still inadequate.

I have made Nevermore, which required me to map out all of the zones in HoT. A lot of this was achieved simply by not trying to get anywhere specific but just going in random directions that looked promising. The rest was looking for external maps and guidance on how to get there, one or two places are quite difficult.

The first two areas, and Dragon Stand, are mostly fairly easy once you get the idea. If you want to map them fully it can be a pain getting the last few locations. Tangled Depths is the one where they put in that extra effort, and it shows. Really, if you want to map for a precursor, look for a group or guild that does it.

Then there were people in GW1 who could barely navigate a map there on a good day, I just wonder how badly they suffered in the HoT jungle.

Starting with Dry Top, Anet decided that they needed to make the game MUCH more complicated than it was. Not really sure why – but I’m thinking that someone Higher-up at Anet loves Jumping Puzzles so much that they wanted the ENTIRE GAME to be one big JP. This was a sad day for those of us who don’t really appreciate Jumping Puzzles.

I’m with the OP and I’m glad that the “old” content is still there. After being frustrated by HoT, I go back to one of my lower level alts and enjoy the comparatively relaxing fun of the rest of Tyria. So much better.

It was supposed to go or at least seems like:

Find where you need to be, if required grind events and kills til you get the right mastery, do the story quest then rinse and repeat.

People enjoyed the Silverwastes and Dry Top maps so I think they took what was tested on them and then took it to a whole new level, if that is your cup of tea or not is up to you though.

Djinn.9245:

Starting with Dry Top, Anet decided that they needed to make the game MUCH more complicated than it was. Not really sure why – but I’m thinking that someone Higher-up at Anet loves Jumping Puzzles so much that they wanted the ENTIRE GAME to be one big JP. This was a sad day for those of us who don’t really appreciate Jumping Puzzles.

I’m with the OP and I’m glad that the “old” content is still there. After being frustrated by HoT, I go back to one of my lower level alts and enjoy the comparatively relaxing fun of the rest of Tyria. So much better.

It was a great day for those of us who didn’t appreciate your average flat generic mmo maps though. Luckily even the base ones were already taking a departure from that old trope.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Djinn.9245:

Starting with Dry Top, Anet decided that they needed to make the game MUCH more complicated than it was. Not really sure why – but I’m thinking that someone Higher-up at Anet loves Jumping Puzzles so much that they wanted the ENTIRE GAME to be one big JP. This was a sad day for those of us who don’t really appreciate Jumping Puzzles.

I’m with the OP and I’m glad that the “old” content is still there. After being frustrated by HoT, I go back to one of my lower level alts and enjoy the comparatively relaxing fun of the rest of Tyria. So much better.

It was a great day for those of us who didn’t appreciate your average flat generic mmo maps though. Luckily even the base ones were already taking a departure from that old trope.

Not to mention calling Drytop or even HoT a jumping puzzle is simply wrong. I’ve done jumping puzzles and they’re really nothing like either Drytop or HoT.

I mean there is a minimal amount of jumping that has to be done in Drytop and once you get the waypoints, it’s even less.

A ground targeted skill that moves you to a location you target, not really jumping imo.

Vayne.8563:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Djinn.9245:

Starting with Dry Top, Anet decided that they needed to make the game MUCH more complicated than it was. Not really sure why – but I’m thinking that someone Higher-up at Anet loves Jumping Puzzles so much that they wanted the ENTIRE GAME to be one big JP. This was a sad day for those of us who don’t really appreciate Jumping Puzzles.

I’m with the OP and I’m glad that the “old” content is still there. After being frustrated by HoT, I go back to one of my lower level alts and enjoy the comparatively relaxing fun of the rest of Tyria. So much better.

It was a great day for those of us who didn’t appreciate your average flat generic mmo maps though. Luckily even the base ones were already taking a departure from that old trope.

Not to mention calling Drytop or even HoT a jumping puzzle is simply wrong. I’ve done jumping puzzles and they’re really nothing like either Drytop or HoT.

I mean there is a minimal amount of jumping that has to be done in Drytop and once you get the waypoints, it’s even less.

A ground targeted skill that moves you to a location you target, not really jumping imo.

Saying that maybe one of the people at Anet really loves JP and would like the rest of the world to be more like JP is not the same as saying they are JP.

As for “a minimal amount of jumping”, there are many more things in Drytop and HoT that require regular jumping than your average Tyria map. (Not counting JP which I generally don’t do.) In regular Tyria, the only content that requires jumping is normally Vistas. In Drytop / HoT (and maybe Silverwastes but I don’t spend a lot of time there), you have to jump to get to other content like the Inquest Leader, find Coins, Masks, etc. And no I’m not talking about crystal skills.

Djinn.9245:

Vayne.8563:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Djinn.9245:

Starting with Dry Top, Anet decided that they needed to make the game MUCH more complicated than it was. Not really sure why – but I’m thinking that someone Higher-up at Anet loves Jumping Puzzles so much that they wanted the ENTIRE GAME to be one big JP. This was a sad day for those of us who don’t really appreciate Jumping Puzzles.

I’m with the OP and I’m glad that the “old” content is still there. After being frustrated by HoT, I go back to one of my lower level alts and enjoy the comparatively relaxing fun of the rest of Tyria. So much better.

It was a great day for those of us who didn’t appreciate your average flat generic mmo maps though. Luckily even the base ones were already taking a departure from that old trope.

Not to mention calling Drytop or even HoT a jumping puzzle is simply wrong. I’ve done jumping puzzles and they’re really nothing like either Drytop or HoT.

I mean there is a minimal amount of jumping that has to be done in Drytop and once you get the waypoints, it’s even less.

A ground targeted skill that moves you to a location you target, not really jumping imo.

Saying that maybe one of the people at Anet really loves JP and would like the rest of the world to be more like JP is not the same as saying they are JP.

As for “a minimal amount of jumping”, there are many more things in Drytop and HoT that require regular jumping than your average Tyria map. (Not counting JP which I generally don’t do.) In regular Tyria, the only content that requires jumping is normally Vistas. In Drytop / HoT (and maybe Silverwastes but I don’t spend a lot of time there), you have to jump to get to other content like the Inquest Leader, find Coins, Masks, etc. And no I’m not talking about crystal skills.

Vistas are not really optional content. Finding coins is absolutely optional content. If you can ignore jumping puzzles, you can ignore finding coins.

The tiny bit of jumping you need to get to two of the events, are two optional events that aren’t needed for anything. The rest of it is all crystals.

I mean, if you want to get to the potato farm in Metrica province you have to jump. But you don’t really need to go to the potato farm. I’m guessing 90% plus events in Drytop require nothing but crystals or nothign at all to reach, once you have the waypoints that first time.

Want to do the kite event? Prosperity waypoint. Want to do the Colocal Queen, same waypoint. Want to do the devourer queen? One jumping crystal. Want to defend against the skritt thieves? One waypoint.

It’s silly to even compare it to a jumping puzzle, because it’s really not. There’s less jumping skill involved, and just the use of crystals.

It’s just a bad comparison.