Guild Wars 2

Disclaimer: I called this a mini review because I’ve only been playing it for a few days, not because it’s short.

As someone who held out on buying Heart of Thorns until excited enough by Path of Fire to pick up both, I thought I’d say a few things about how Heart of Thorns feels after having avoided it.

I’ll start off by saying I’d give it a thumbs up. I’ll get to the rough spots, but overall it really felt like an evolution of the core elements of Guild Wars 2.

The first thing I did was start up the story in order to unlock the Mastery system. It’s been a long time since I did season two, but I still felt like I was walking in on the aftermath of that devastating finale.

Zones
Verdant Brink is really cool, and I think is the highlight of the expansion. I had a lot of fun exploring as much as I could even without gliding or any other mastery. It’s a great zone that really sells the idea of picking up the pieces of the failed attack, and it’s pretty intuitive to explore. I just finished exploring it and I had a lot of fun. The canopy gave me a little trouble thanks to how the meta effects it, but once I got a hang of it, it was the best part.

Auric Basin is pretty cool, but I have some more issues with it. The waypoints are more annoying in this zone. I traveled down the entire western side of the zone on one character, only to detour to help some players with an event before I got any waypoints, and then found myself stuck in that area because I didn’t have the Exalted mastery to get out, forcing me to travel all that way again.

Tangled Depths is an absolute nightmare. I’ve heard this is not exactly a rare opinion, but I find it a huge shame since Verdant Brink did the same multi-leveled concept so beautifully. I’ve seen a lot of discussion about the map not displaying the layers well, but I think that’s only a symptom. The zone itself is designed less intuitively than anything else in the game. Huge, epic paths that look like they’d go somewhere, just abruptly turn into dead-ends. The map has some really nice areas, but it’s just not fun to traverse.

I only showed up for the tail-end of the meta in Tangled Depths and we pulled it off, but the chat got extremely toxic. I was surprised, as I haven’t seen that level of anger elsewhere in the game, and not even in the other Heart of Thorns maps.

I haven’t done anything in Dragon Stand yet except step inside the zone. I’m not looking forward to it though honestly. It sounds like a really nerve-wracking meta. I like the big bosses, but I hate having so much riding on a fight.

Mastery
The Mastery system is a lot more intuitive than it sounded when I heard it described. It’s a neat little system that really does an interesting progression that doesn’t have the bad parts of an increased level cap while still giving you something to work for. Also, it doesn’t make me feel guilty about playing alts, which this game has always been better about than other MMOs, but occasionally has its moments.

The one concern I have about the Mastery system is going forward. Mastery being divided by area makes sense considering the context of the abilities you unlock through it, but it’s already kind of annoying that I only make progress on the next mastery I need for the Heart of Thorns story while I’m in those zones, and while I’m in the old zones I’m making progress on completely different things. It’s going to feel really weird playing Path of Fire and essentially having Heart of Thorns completely frozen while I’m diving into the new stuff.

Elite Specializations
So far I can’t say much about these. I’ve decided to wait for the Path of Fire one on my main, and I’m still getting a hang of them on the two characters I’ve picked the Heart of Thorns ones for. I’ve never been very good at making builds or decks, so it’s hard for me to really appreciate what new options I might have. Despite things I’ve heard about them really changing the class, they don’t feel that different so far. Berserker feels the most different so far, and only in the fact that it’s super flashy, not that it plays differently.

The one thing that bugs me, though, is how many skill points they need. For my main, who has World Completion, it was no problem at all. For my alts, especially my newest one, it felt like the game had raised its level cap. Suddenly these characters I had that were more or less on par with my main, suddenly had to scour the maps for hero challenges in order to try out the new stuff that I wanted them to be defined by going forward. It’s nice that the Heart of Thorns hero challenges give 10 skill points, but this only helps so much. On my newest character, I quickly ran out of challenges that he could easily get to or accomplish without significant assistance. I ended up just spending a whole evening grinding out old skill points one by one.

General
I like the expansion overall. I probably would have been underwhelmed if I had paid the launch price, since I feel the frustration gets too far once you enter Tangled Depths, but there is a lot of great evolution here, and I hope that the rough spots were learning experiences that are improved in Path of Fire.

When I first walked into Verdant Brink, it was magical. I really felt like I had stepped into something new. It might be funny for people who got Heart of Thorns when it was new to hear, but I was legitimately surprised. I’ve been logging in fairly regularly this whole year and doing stuff that’s been around forever and been content with it, but this really opened my eyes to what can be done in the future.

I actually wasn’t that excited about Path of Fire when I bought it, looking at it more from the perspective of “well Nightfall was my favorite campaign and this looks interesting enough for its price”, but now I’m a lot more interested to see where this game can go, not just where it is.

As an experienced HoT player i will say that you should appreciate Tangled Depth’s complexity. When other maps are done (and there’s a looot to do in’em) it’s TD that will keep you busy with it’s complexity, yet at the same time amazing beauty and unexpected paths. This one is truly great once you give it time and take on the challenge of truly discovering it.

Also nothing funny about the impressions you got when first time visiting VB. What you said is very spot on. Feeling of epicness and completely new possibilities is exactly how i felt first time I entered and wasn’t dissapointed.

This is also exactly why i’m so underwhelemed by Crystal Oasis. VB is how it’s done, Crystal Oasis would be a good starter zone for let’s say 6th race in core game, not an expansion map.

I’ll comment on your Dragons Stand impression: When HoT launched, DS failed a lot, and could easily be a waste of your 2 hours (plus you had like 10 minutes to frantically loot all the pods you could find when there was a success).

Now if you follow the instructions posted frequently in forums and guides on how to join an active DS run (short form: get there early, join a taxi squad, go through reset in that squad, make sure you’re in the commander’s map, then split off to join your preferred lane squad) and then follow the commander’s lead and instructions, you’re pretty much guaranteed success and you get to experience a truly epic meta chain.

I advise trying the North lane your first time, it’s pretty much the simplest one to lead or follow. Attack marked targets, and until you have the Itzel Poison Mastery don’t do the events that involve going into poison fields such as saving mushrooms.

As to the Hero Points, once you have updrafts and bouncing mushrooms (and ideally have gotten as far as Advanced Gliding), it’s not very hard to find 25 HoT HPs you can get to solo or else check in Map and spot others doing the fighting ones. There are a lot of shortcuts to get around the maps, too (Exalted Markings and Nuhoch Wallows will also be helpful for your mobility). I started at almost no HP on my new Ranger I made to be my Soulbeast in PoF, found an HP run led by a commander mesmer who made sure to go a route that everyone could follow or get ported through, and a few hours later I had a ton of wps open and 411 HP. That may be what you call “significant assistance,” to be sure, but it also is routine enough that you needn’t feel you’re imposing on anyone.

Go forth and enjoy!

TD inst really complex. is jut first area player start is a “confusion zone”, the greens circles i painted here. But the concept is simple, all lanes goes to Ley Line Confluence Waypoint, from here, u can goes into any are of the map, once u see this concept, is becomes very simple.

I totally agree on VB. It’s a fantastic map to explore and the way they integrated it into the storyline was just perfect. I was and still am very impressed with the work they did on this map.

On TD. I know you said you’ve only been playing a short while, so your thoughts on this map are not surprising. However, I would advise you to be patient with it. The design is actually quite clever. It quickly became my favorite map, in fact!

Pay particular attention to the Nuhoch Wallows marked on the map. Just to give you an idea of how this works:

Notice the wallow south of Order of Whispers Waypoint? It leads to the Undergrowth Connector, and a nearby wallow there will take you straight to Teku Nuhoch Waypoint. This waypoint is also a wallow hub, with wallows leading to the end of Nuhoch and Rata Novus lanes.

Take the wallow to confluence passage (Rata Novus lane) and you end up right next to another wallow that takes you straight to Rata Novus waypoint.

There are also wallows connecting SCAR and Ogre camp waypoints to their respective lanes.

Once you know enough to not get completely lost and you understand how to use the wallows to get where you want to go, the map is actually very convenient for getting around.

The issue most people have with it is that the map is essentially useless when you’re just starting out as most of the objectives are not located in areas marked with roads and are not reached by traveling in a straight line. The layers make it even more confusing to try and follow the map. Be patient and explore. It will make sense in time. And use those wallows!

You’ll probably hate Dragon’s Stand as well soon enough, as while it isn’t as frustrating/confusing as the hell that is Tangled Depths, a portion of map completion, as well as anything of value from there, is gated behind running the meta, requiring at least three commanders and their squads on the same map.

Auric Basin does have some troublesome WPs, but I would say that, despite my criticisms in general about HoT, that map is prettiest. I even like the music in the HoT maps (haven’t played the post-HoT Living Story chapters to have an opinion about their music). Heck, Verdant Brink even has a piece of music that makes me have strong nostalgia for Crash Bandicoot!

My only complaint about HoT is how many things are locked behind Masteries, most (but not all) of the Mastery Point challenges are not solo-able (especially for “casual” players such as myself), and the story and characters make me cringe.

But I still am happy to hear when people are enjoying their GW2 experience!

Well, I’ve completed the Heart of Thorns story now as well as all of Season Three, so I’m going to follow up on my review.

First, I want to thank all of the responses and advice here. I actually haven’t come back to this thread until now, but I appreciate it all nonetheless.

Onto the review, I think my new overall impression would be: What Heart of Thorns does well, it does really well, and where Heart of Thorns hurts, it really hurts.

The Really Well
(This section is a lot shorter, but that’s because it’s harder to describe. Heart of Thorns was still fun overall, but like I said, where it hurts, it really hurts, so it’s easier to say more about that).

Verdant Brink is still my favorite zone, and I have a new reason to add on for that. When you first start, the zone is dangerous and a bit confusing, but perfectly navigable. As you gain more Mastery, it becomes easier and easier to traverse until you earn the ability to explore it completely freely. It’s a liberating experience that you really feel like you earned.

Gliding is just amazing. It’s already weird to imagine that I couldn’t glide just a week ago. It feels amazingly natural and fits right in. Heavy gliding areas, like Verdant Brink, Bloodstone Fen, and Dwayna’s Reliquary are some of my favorite places in the game now, but it has applications everywhere without breaking the game.

Some Adventures are really fun minigames that are a breath of fresh air and are a nice way to get some extra Mastery Points. I want to keep seeing these.

The Hurt
Some Adventures are just not fun at all, weirdly difficult to even get Bronze, or are simply broken. The Adventures are almost symbolic of the overall nature of the expansion hitting the extremes.

When things got hard, they got really frustrating. There’s a lot in the expansion that isn’t so much challenging, as “I hope the train is nearby, or else I am a very specific profession and build”. My Mesmer was able to solo certain Champion Hero Challenges in plenty of time that my other characters couldn’t even hope to, but even my Mesmer ran into many situations where I was dead in the water unless there was a train nearby.

This isn’t to say I shouldn’t have to play with other people. In fact, the spontaneous cooperation is one of my favorite parts of the game and something I think it does really well, but I think Heart of Thorns… expects it too much?

I was having enough trouble right now when there is a huge influx of new players to those areas, but I’m very concerned how this stuff will end up when Path of Fire is the new content, and even more when there’s stuff after it.

I think this is one of the things that still bothers me about Tangled Depths. In Tangled Depths, I feel there’s less chance than anywhere else in the game of someone happening to be wandering by and deciding to stop and help you with the Hero Challenges and other difficult stuff there (I ran into more people helping with what we could in an empty Dragon’s Stand). That spontaneous cooperation, like I said, is awesome, but it’s unlikely here because of the nature of the zone (not just it being confusing, but the places it funnels people into). It’s even worse in that it seems to have some of the most difficult opponents when you’re already less likely to get casual help. It’s like the opposite of Verdant Brink, where it’s hard for someone to not be nearby, and a simple matter to join up.

The meta events are related to this. I haven’t had really bad experiences with the meta events, and I like the idea in theory (I loved Silverwastes when it came out), but I think there’s a critical mass. I’ve yet to see a group take the Verdant Brink meta seriously, I’ve only ever lost the Auric Basin one once (which is a weird story), and the only time I’ve seen people do the Tangled Depths one, it was super toxic. Their nature makes them disappointingly unreliable for something that’s otherwise cool and pretty much defines the open world of Heart of Thorns.

I got a group together quick for a Challenge in Tangled Depths, and I’ve seen Hero Challenge trains, but I just think it’s contrary to the game’s greatest strengths to require that as much as Heart of Thorns does.

Side Note
I haven’t really mentioned the story, and one reason is because it can kinda be its own whole topic. I enjoyed the story overall and was actually relieved that it went by pretty fast for my own reasons, but I’ll admit that it stood out as being quite concise. I don’t think I can say it was done really well or done really poorly, it had its own ups and downs.

It’s hard to take you seriously when you write a review saying you’ve only beat AB once, considering how many times a day it’s beaten and how easy that event is. I’m assuming you’re not paying any attention at all to timer sites or the looking for group tool because that thing is beaten dozens and dozens of times a day. It’s not only the easiest meta, but it’s one that is done by so many casuals, it’s hard to believe you found it so onerous unless you just didn’t know how and when to do it or how to find servers doing it.

Dragon Stand is completed pretty much all the time. I’ve done it dozens of times and I’ve failed it maybe three times. But again timer sites and LFG are important.

TD is a harder meta, you have to get to the zone earlier and yes, some groups do take it seriously, but it often success as well.

It is harder to find a group to do the VB meta, however, you get most of the reward for just beating a single boss in VB anyway…all you really miss out on is a bladed coat box.

I said I only lost Auric Basin once (and all of the octovines were at a sliver with a couple minutes to spare, everyone was pretty baffled about what happened at the final lane). I understand the confusion though cause I threw it in with the list of less positive experiences. Part of my point though was that you can have a great experience in one zone and the complete opposite right next door.

I also realized that most of that post ended up being pretty generic things that have been mentioned many times. I feel dumb because I know I had all these little things I wanted to give feedback on that I just can’t remember.

Another one did come to my head though, and it’s related to the biggest frustrations I had. For the most part, I made progress on the things I was aiming for, and I didn’t have much to complain about. When something did get me though, it tended to get me in a really annoying way.

Usually this involved me trying to get to a Hero Challenge or Point of Interest on the map, and either running into a frustration with a path that wasn’t really a path and having to go all the way back around, or some really bad luck once I had gotten there. One time I had to deal with the turrets in Rata Novus because I was trying to do something and the event didn’t come up for a little bit (although it did before I could finish), one time it was with the key card in Draconis Mons, and another time it was with the centaur Point of Interest in Lake Doric.

Each of these situations involved me being practically an inch from my goal, only for damage to come in a lot faster than it had previously, catching me off guard and downing me the moment I hit a defensive ability that would have saved me.

Those were really frustrating, though it’s hard to say they were much more than bad luck or sub-optimal planning. There is one thing they had in common that I’ve wanted to bring up though.

The Downed State

I like the idea of the Downed State, but I feel like it hasn’t really kept up, and sometimes I feel like the game is afraid of it. For instance, it seems almost a given that any boss nowadays will drop a red circle on anyone who is downed that not only hastens their defeat, but makes sure no one can help get them up. It’s to the point where I wonder why those abilities don’t just instantly defeat you to begin with, since the chances of you ever escaping are microscopic (especially if you’re not one of the classes that can control some movement while downed, and I don’t count Mesmer because the number 2 always teleports me further into danger).

In Heart of Thorns, this seemed to apply to most enemies in general, and might contribute to the impression of it being anti-solo. A good chunk of the enemies are tough enough in Heart of Thorns that, if you get downed, your pitiful downed state damage is never going to finish the guy off unless he was almost dead. Even the weaker enemies, like Pocket Raptors, tend to swarm in such a fashion that even if you rally, you’re down again before you can heal, so it didn’t really matter.

It seemed like if I got downed in Heart of Thorns and I wasn’t near other players, I was defeated. It was a pretty frustrating experience, because it turns the downed state from a potential for a second chance into a time-wasting tease.

While writing this, I also remembered another thing I was going to say about the specifics of Hero Challenges.

Hero Challenges
Some of the Hero Challenges just seem oddly placed. To elaborate on what I mean, I’ll use a specific example. There is a challenge in Auric Basin where you fight this Champion Quetzal and his two guards. Any one of these guys is a pretty nasty opponent on their own, but getting it down to the Champion isn’t that bad. The really nasty part, is that this challenge takes place right in the middle of a Quetzal camp filled with veterans. Essentially this guy gets adds, and pretty dangerous ones, constantly throughout the fight, because with only two or three players fighting this guy, it can take the duration of two or more local respawns to take him down.

This just seems like an odd level of difficulty. If the intention was for him to have respawning adds, I don’t know why the challenge couldn’t just be like that one in Tangled Depths near the portal to Dragon’s Stand.

The challenge is certainly doable and isn’t too far out of the way (I’ve done it on all my characters that have passed it without incident), but it comes across as way more dangerous than it was intended, and requires a much higher level of play with small player numbers than comparable challenges.

There are skills that rez downed people even if they’re in a red circle. Warriors have a banner. Rangers have a skill called search and rescue, that pulls the downed person to the ranger. Necros have a skill as well. There are plenty of ways to rez downed players..but not everyone takes those skills. Hell there’s even a new downed skill that’s been added to the game which came with the living world season 3.

I actually found TD less confusing than VB and AB after spending a little bit of time there, and have grown to like that map the most of the expansion zones.

That said, I’m really looking forward to having less complex zones in PoF. I don’t have any problem with some zones being like the HoT zones, but having 4 of them back to back to back was a bad idea, and HoT would probably have been regarded much more positively if it had had a few simple maps mixed in with a couple of complex ones. The game now feels a lot more balanced with the LS3 zones being much less complex.

At some point, though, they’re going to have to go in and change a lot of those champs to veterans.