Guild Wars 2

I felt the urge to make this topic after reading all the hate topics.

Context: returned after 3Y (left at LS1). Bought HoT and finish it along with LS3 ep 1&2 with my Guard in exotic gear. I play mostly PvE and love the GW lore. In my opinion a big pro of this game as a MMO and RPG it’s the number, variety and synergy between game mechanics.

I discovered HoT maps as the story progressed. I never had an issues with mastery points and XP (found bloodstone fen for xp farm), required for the story. I appreciated the new approach they took (new as in last 2Y): they make the players play all their PvE content (or replay) as much as possible (see masteries and current events). I think the game design was:

• play story
• find a new map
• you need to play on it more in order to advance to the next episode (unlock masteries)
• this way you are forced to play the current (or previous HoT maps)

I hate Tangle Depths since the first time I saw it. Fortunate enough the story was fast and easy in this map, it didn’t required for me to even explore it all (I got the mastery points from other maps).

Mastery points – I got over 20+ of them just by Commune . The bad thing: you need to watch youtube videos to find them (the game doesn’t help you much). I love exploring, I would explore all the maps, and find the masteries by myself but … the enemies are very tough and you do not have access to all the areas all the time (because of the meta events).

They learned from previous mistakes and experimented new things! I love the variety of new maps (HoT and LS3), one it’s small but with lots of floors, some are vast and you can explore, some are heavy on gliding some are not, some are in jungle some are with lava. Dragon stands (the new Orr) it’s just epic. Every MMO should have this!

The content it’s more difficult! Yes, It’s ok, it’s expected, it’s fine, it’s an evolution. Tyria it’s boring after few hundreds of hours, the game needed this. You can play WWW,PVP,Tyria,T1 fractals all you want, you don’t need HoT content, it’s an option.

There are also bad things on how the game evolves, the biggest problem I see is that, while the game population decreased (because the product it’s old), the devs keep adds new maps, so the density will be lower per map. The problem is that the new content requires lots of active players, at a specific time and place, in order to complete specific events/tasks, so you can cannot get loot, achievements etc. whenever you want/need.

Consider that hot has 30 odd maps including HOT, now award each map a score of 1-10 with 10 representing the most difficult map you can imagine. Add em up, work out the average score. Hot maps are balanced within the context of the full GW2 map.

The problem is people looking at HOT in isolation and wanting every map to be equal to their perfect difficulty score. Hot are amazing maps when you fancy something a bit more difficult.

Agree on every point, i play HoT since its launch(near 1 year). I am close to completing all achievements.

The only thing i dont i like ist that mini-games, but i calcaluted the essencial masteries and got them avoiding mini-games.

I like open field battles, and how could it be otherwise? I love Dragon Stand. The Pact forward to deliver the final blow on Mordremoth, music and scenery. The pressure to complete a difficult map event.

I loved HoT! I enjoy the upped difficulty even though the pocket raptors drove me insane at first. Guild Wars 2 is a better game with this expansion and I have played since beta. I know there are a lot of negative opinions in the forums about it but I simply can’t relate. I’m all in when they roll the next expansion!

“Great! More like this!”

I love TD, dislike DS. VB is great, AB is okay. BF is good, EB not as much. I guess I’m weird like that? But I still appreciate all of these maps. DS is unique. You just don’t see that anywhere else. AB is just a beautiful map and is still enjoyable to play, even while I prefer TD or VB.

The exploration, the events, the combat. It’s all top notch! These maps all have a unique feel to them, where I sort of felt like core Tyria maps start to blend together a bit. There’s just so much more going on in HoT!

So, yeah, count me as another that is all in on the next expansion, too. I’m optimistic that we’ll see an evolution over HoT that will appeal to a broader range of players, but still bring us the opportunity to challenge ourselves the way HoT did.

I love the increased difficulty of combat in HoT. Mob density, capabilities, variety, the distinct challenge each represents, and so on. I really enjoy having to pay attention to where I am going, watching patrol patterns to ensure that I wont face adds during a fight, having my interrupts, and how I use them, matter. I wouldnt call the challenge level perfect, a bit more intensity would have been even better, but HoT combat encounters are some of the most fun Ive ever had in GW2…or would be if the maps themselves didnt ruin the experience.

Yep, HoT truly revitilized the game for me. I go into the old zones if I need something from them, but most of my time is spent in the new zones.

I liked it. Granted, entrance barrier is a bit high with amount of masteries needed to get around, and I did overgrind it at some point. But I like it still.

I don’t know why people complain about it. It’s not really bad, and I enjoy playing the meta over there, and the activities and in return, you get good loot for the most part, and make a lot of gold.

Gandalf.1537:

I don’t know why people complain about it. It’s not really bad, and I enjoy playing the meta over there, and the activities and in return, you get good loot for the most part, and make a lot of gold.

I expect that they complain about it because they are not you, and do not enjoy it.

Most of them, I think, don’t like it because they would have designed it differently had they made the expansion. Unfortunately many of them are not willing to do what is necessary to be hired as a dev to be in a position to work on the game. Negative feedback is vital to the game but only if it is constructive. I feel that many of the negative posts are just people that want their way but are unwilling to truly help achieve their demands. Besides, I still hold that HoT isn’t broken because I am still having tons of fun with it.