New Player, Sad Player. Expansion ruined it.

New Player, Sad Player. Expansion ruined it.

in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

The base game makes a terrible job scaling the difficulty of the open world up until hot and since ppl wanted more challenge the hot maps ended up being harder. You said it your self “last night i gave zhaitan a beat down” thats not supposed to be the case its a god kitten elder dragon and it you litterally glitter it to death. I say hot does a nice job showing how dangerous should a jungle be and how devastating an elder dragon as well as his minions are.

I understand your frustration but its not the hot maps and story thats garbage its the core tyria that poorly balanced and overall facerol easy.

I don’t remember Zhaitan being easy when I did the final mission on my Mesmer. It just was more forgiving of mistakes than HoT is. That’s the main difference. HoT content punishes mistakes with swift, harsh retribution. The reason grouping makes it more bearable is because of how the revive system works; with enough players around, you can alleviate the punishment of mistakes with quick group revives. But it still doesn’t make the content any less punishing of mistakes.

Take HoT content and give it a revive system more like a classic MMO, where you can only battle rez every 5-10 minutes on a timer, or worse, you have to do a corpse run. No one other than niche die-hards would play it. The only saving grace for HoT content is the ease of rezzing downed or dead players and that only comes with being in a group.

People can argue about how objectively difficult HoT content is, but what can’t be refuted is that it’s inherently punishing of mistakes.

I agree with this. HoT is more punishing of mistakes. The problem is the game prior to this has not be punishing enough and people don’t know how to play the game. They don’t know their professions. If the game had been more punishing people would have learned. They haven’t.

So they think HoT is too hard. It’s not. It’s punishing of mistakes that shouldn’t necessarily be made, at least not often.

I don’t find myself dying or running back a lot in HoT on any profession, and I’m not exactly a pro player, or a min maxer. I make my own builds. I don’t have ascended on most of my characters, except jewelry which is relatively easy to get. Even then some people only have exotics.

But I learned to play the game, so I don’t make that many mistakes, and so I enjoy HoT.

What people are really saying is that the game has failed to teach them how to play.

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

I agree with this. HoT is more punishing of mistakes. The problem is the game prior to this has not be punishing enough and people don’t know how to play the game. They don’t know their professions. If the game had been more punishing people would have learned. They haven’t.

So they think HoT is too hard. It’s not. It’s punishing of mistakes that shouldn’t necessarily be made, at least not often.

I don’t find myself dying or running back a lot in HoT on any profession, and I’m not exactly a pro player, or a min maxer. I make my own builds. I don’t have ascended on most of my characters, except jewelry which is relatively easy to get. Even then some people only have exotics.

But I learned to play the game, so I don’t make that many mistakes, and so I enjoy HoT.

What people are really saying is that the game has failed to teach them how to play.

Yes and no. Punishing people generally doesn’t teach them how to play in the first place. It works for a dying generation of gamers who are into punishing design, but in the mainstream, it really doesn’t appeal. And I think you’d find that in the niche market where punishing design is desired, those are the same sort of players who take their punishingly-designed game experiences very seriously and will go seriously, super duper hardcore in figuring out how the game works to eke out every little advantage.

GW2 has always suffered from having a confusing combat system. The framework of it has some depth that would appeal to the super duper hardcore crowd, but the framework is also weighed down by a number of interlocking systems that don’t quite mesh.

Dodge, for instance, is a mechanic that basically allows you to trivialize any attack in the game if your timing is right (and provided it’s not on cooldown). It’s that simple. So on that level, the game seems insanely simple and if you’ve spent most of your gaming hours playing FPS titles, excelling with GW2’s dodge will probably be a breeze. It’s not really a thinking man’s mechanic though.

You go past dodge and it goes right into depth city. Gear stats, traits, abilities, etc… all the standard trimmings of a thinking man’s MMO.

Then you go to the revive system and with large groups, we’re back into twitch land and simple mechanics. Timing again (timing when to try to rez yourself) or timing of other players rezzing you in time. There’s a little thinking in it, in deciding whether to keep attacking to go for the rez-kill, or try to rez yourself, but it’s still very simple. While you’re downed, most of the thinking man’s complexity is nonexistent. And because, with large groups, it’s easy to get rezzed, even when dead, there’s little motivation to care much about dying.

So in a nutshell, GW2 is a thinking man’s game sandwiched in-between twitch mechanics that partially trivialize and undermine the thinking part of it. That’s why so many people know so little about their classes, their abilities, their gear, etc… because in most aspects of the game, there’s nothing even nudging them to bother. One might think that the obvious conclusion is that GW2 should have been harder and thus would have taught people better, but it may not have gotten the population it did if it was.

The fact is, the situation we ended up with is that there were a bunch of players who were happy with the style of the game (that style mostly being “you don’t need to bother”) and then HoT came in and said, “No, you definitely do need to bother. And if you don’t, your play experience will be miserable.”

Naturally, this miffed a lot of people.

To sum it all up, basically the game sends mixed messages: Think about everything, don’t think about anything. Maximize your output, no stat meters allowed (I’ve been away a while, I wonder if that’s still a thing?). Learn your class and gear, in large groups it doesn’t matter because of sheer volume of player pressure.

Or words to that effect.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

snip

snip

Then you go to the revive system and with large groups, we’re back into twitch land and simple mechanics. Timing again (timing when to try to rez yourself) or timing of other players rezzing you in time. There’s a little thinking in it, in deciding whether to keep attacking to go for the rez-kill, or try to rez yourself, but it’s still very simple. While you’re downed, most of the thinking man’s complexity is nonexistent. And because, with large groups, it’s easy to get rezzed, even when dead, there’s little motivation to care much about dying.

So in a nutshell, GW2 is a thinking man’s game sandwiched in-between twitch mechanics that partially trivialize and undermine the thinking part of it. That’s why so many people know so little about their classes, their abilities, their gear, etc… because in most aspects of the game, there’s nothing even nudging them to bother. One might think that the obvious conclusion is that GW2 should have been harder and thus would have taught people better, but it may not have gotten the population it did if it was.

The fact is, the situation we ended up with is that there were a bunch of players who were happy with the style of the game (that style mostly being “you don’t need to bother”) and then HoT came in and said, “No, you definitely do need to bother. And if you don’t, your play experience will be miserable.”

Naturally, this miffed a lot of people.

To sum it all up, basically the game sends mixed messages: Think about everything, don’t think about anything. Maximize your output, no stat meters allowed (I’ve been away a while, I wonder if that’s still a thing?). Learn your class and gear, in large groups it doesn’t matter because of sheer volume of player pressure.

The game has never said no stat meters allowed. I don’t know where people came up with that. Damage meters have been around for this game for a long long time. They’re neither supported by Anet nor against the TOS. At least many of them aren’t.

The game doesn’t send mixed messages at all. There’s a ton of content that people avoid. Back in the day you could get to 80 by doing nothing but the Queensdale champ train. You’d have never left a 1-15 zone. But you’d still be level 80.

If at that point you tried to run Arah, you’d be dead, pretty much all the time, because you didn’t play the game.

The game has always punished people for bad play, but to different degrees. If you died in Orr, with most of the waypoints contested, which is much of the time, then you have to run back. That’s punishing.

And there were plenty of ways too die in Orr. So many that Anet had to nerf both mob density and mob difficulty in Orr. Which means the game launched with harder content.

People who avoided dungeons and fractals simply didn’t learn the game. Then they expect an expansion to be launched with beginner content.

It’s like Eye of the North in Guild Wars 1. It didn’t pull any punches, because it was expansion content. It was made for people who beat the other games.

And you know, in Guild Wars 1, you could look up a couple of party builds, load up your heroes a certain way and play too. But that didn’t make you good at the game, and if you tried more challenging content, you’d often be flattened.

Living Story Season 1 upped the difficulty of the game considerably. Even stuff in Dry Top and Silverwastes was harder than the core game and the Living World Season 2 story, that was harder too.

Not everyone has done that content, but it was also considered punishing by some people.

HoT is continuing a trend. It’s not that hard, because I know so many mediocre plays who run it wthout problems.

That people think it’s that hard because they keep dying over and over? I don’t believe most of the player base is in that category. More people than are in Orr, perhaps, but I don’t think 60% of the playerbase can’t deal with the mobs in HoT, or find it particularly punishing.

I also don’t think everyone who dislikes HoT, dislikes it because of mob density. There’s a woman in my guild who loves running tier 4 Fractals but HOT is too hard for her. Not the mob density or difficulty. That’s not a problem for her.

Figuring out where to go, that is a problem for her.

I think there are a lot of people out there who never learned the game, and I feel like that’s Anet’s fault.

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

actually guild wars always required skills, just not in the open world. And your analysis that twitch and thinking are opposites is incorrect. You can negate some attacks, but they dont give you enough evasion to negate all attacks.

The instances in GW2 are not so much easier than HOT maps. Hot maps are actually more clear with their mechanics really. People just got carried, or someone simplifying their part in the plan. like tequatl, they came up with a system where a few people do all the work, and most people auto attack till they die. Fractals past a certain level also needed plans/skills on the level of HoT.

Also your theory about people not liking learning from punishing games is completely wrong. Have you hung out with any kids these days? have you looked at what they play on their phones/tablets? you know one of the most popular games is undertale? Teaching people by letting them fail is still going strong. its a game, a test of skill or ability or challenge, its not real life. dying in a game isnt the end of the world for most people who play games, 20 years ago, or today.

I’m not saying hot has no problems, but i think its hardness is over estimated. I think its mostly confirmation bias. People are told HoT is hard, you are going to fail because of HoT, not because of yourself, and when they fail they blame hot.

Id say a bigger problem with hot, than enemy difficulty, is how unapproachable the level design is when you have no masteries, combined with how difficult that makes it to get masteries by doing events, when you cant even figure out how to get to the events. Also hero points with enemies are designed for 2+ people so if you are soloing its a lot harder to do.

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Posted by: vesica tempestas.1563

vesica tempestas.1563

Exactly this ^^ kids these days are very game savvy, for example my 9 year old daughter builds working engines in mine craft and can quite happily produce a fully animated presentation on power point etc. Then there is the average game player today: in their mid 30s and have been playing games for over a decade. The average player that’s been playing for over a decade knows how to play games.

This is why it is wrong for someone to say everyone hates HOT because its too difficult, in reality it is a small minority of players that struggle to learn maps, and certainly not the average game player.


“Trying to please everyone would not only be challenging
but would also result in a product that might not satisfy anyone”- Roman Pichler, Strategize

(edited by vesica tempestas.1563)

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

actually guild wars always required skills, just not in the open world. And your analysis that twitch and thinking are opposites is incorrect. You can negate some attacks, but they dont give you enough evasion to negate all attacks.

The instances in GW2 are not so much easier than HOT maps. Hot maps are actually more clear with their mechanics really. People just got carried, or someone simplifying their part in the plan. like tequatl, they came up with a system where a few people do all the work, and most people auto attack till they die. Fractals past a certain level also needed plans/skills on the level of HoT.

Also your theory about people not liking learning from punishing games is completely wrong. Have you hung out with any kids these days? have you looked at what they play on their phones/tablets? you know one of the most popular games is undertale? Teaching people by letting them fail is still going strong. its a game, a test of skill or ability or challenge, its not real life. dying in a game isnt the end of the world for most people who play games, 20 years ago, or today.

I’m not saying hot has no problems, but i think its hardness is over estimated. I think its mostly confirmation bias. People are told HoT is hard, you are going to fail because of HoT, not because of yourself, and when they fail they blame hot.

Id say a bigger problem with hot, than enemy difficulty, is how unapproachable the level design is when you have no masteries, combined with how difficult that makes it to get masteries by doing events, when you cant even figure out how to get to the events. Also hero points with enemies are designed for 2+ people so if you are soloing its a lot harder to do.

I don’t think we’re on the same wavelength regarding punishment. What you’re describing sounds like “failing until you succeed.” I don’t have anything against that.

When I talk about punitive, or punishing, design, I’m talking about games that make it harder to get back up and try again when you fail; the message being, to put it in that quirky militaristic way, “Failure is not an option.” That’s the message punishing design sends.

Design that is not punishing, or at least much less so, sends a message more along the lines of, “If you failed, here, have another go at it. You made progress, now continue where you left off. Your effort was worth something.” Or at the very least, “You lost some of your progress, but you can start over simply by clicking this button, in exactly the state that you were in on your last attempt.”

To put it in a rough analogy to real life, punishing game design is sort of like if, in real life, you were trying to learn how to skateboard and every time you lose your balance and fall, you break an arm and have to wait for it to heal. It’s discouraging because you have to stop and let your arm heal before you can try again.

So the issue with punishing design, though in my mind it’s partly an ideological issue, it’s also just impractical design for a lot of people because every step you make in being punishing is another chance that the player will just say “kitten this” and give up. Because punishment structures only work on a large scale when there’s a power hierarchy and the threat of consequences. If the player has no obligation to keep playing because, after all, it’s just a game, punishing mechanics are, more often than not, going to drive them away.

Or words to that effect.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

actually guild wars always required skills, just not in the open world. And your analysis that twitch and thinking are opposites is incorrect. You can negate some attacks, but they dont give you enough evasion to negate all attacks.

The instances in GW2 are not so much easier than HOT maps. Hot maps are actually more clear with their mechanics really. People just got carried, or someone simplifying their part in the plan. like tequatl, they came up with a system where a few people do all the work, and most people auto attack till they die. Fractals past a certain level also needed plans/skills on the level of HoT.

Also your theory about people not liking learning from punishing games is completely wrong. Have you hung out with any kids these days? have you looked at what they play on their phones/tablets? you know one of the most popular games is undertale? Teaching people by letting them fail is still going strong. its a game, a test of skill or ability or challenge, its not real life. dying in a game isnt the end of the world for most people who play games, 20 years ago, or today.

I’m not saying hot has no problems, but i think its hardness is over estimated. I think its mostly confirmation bias. People are told HoT is hard, you are going to fail because of HoT, not because of yourself, and when they fail they blame hot.

Id say a bigger problem with hot, than enemy difficulty, is how unapproachable the level design is when you have no masteries, combined with how difficult that makes it to get masteries by doing events, when you cant even figure out how to get to the events. Also hero points with enemies are designed for 2+ people so if you are soloing its a lot harder to do.

I don’t think we’re on the same wavelength regarding punishment. What you’re describing sounds like “failing until you succeed.” I don’t have anything against that.

When I talk about punitive, or punishing, design, I’m talking about games that make it harder to get back up and try again when you fail; the message being, to put it in that quirky militaristic way, “Failure is not an option.” That’s the message punishing design sends.

Design that is not punishing, or at least much less so, sends a message more along the lines of, “If you failed, here, have another go at it. You made progress, now continue where you left off. Your effort was worth something.” Or at the very least, “You lost some of your progress, but you can start over simply by clicking this button, in exactly the state that you were in on your last attempt.”

To put it in a rough analogy to real life, punishing game design is sort of like if, in real life, you were trying to learn how to skateboard and every time you lose your balance and fall, you break an arm and have to wait for it to heal. It’s discouraging because you have to stop and let your arm heal before you can try again.

So the issue with punishing design, though in my mind it’s partly an ideological issue, it’s also just impractical design for a lot of people because every step you make in being punishing is another chance that the player will just say “kitten this” and give up. Because punishment structures only work on a large scale when there’s a power hierarchy and the threat of consequences. If the player has no obligation to keep playing because, after all, it’s just a game, punishing mechanics are, more often than not, going to drive them away.

Except that if you get hits on an event, and you can’t get back to it, most of the time you still get credit anyway. It’s just not as punishing as you say.

In fact, I often get credit for events I’ve barely touched in HOT, just as I’m passing by.

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Posted by: Feanor.2358

Feanor.2358

Its not reasonable to expect people who are paying to have fun to spend their “play” time not having fun. Customers telling you that they do not like aspects of your product is kind of important if you want to continue to sell to them in the future.

You seem to assume all the players have the same tastes and want the same things. This obviously isn’t the case. And frankly, you don’t even need to read threads like this to know this is an unreasonable assumption. You just need to have had contacts with people.

I’m just curious: how did you read the post you quoted and get “you seem to assume all the players have the same tastes and want the same things”?

Read my next comment, it has it explained.

I guess you must be responding to me, though you don’t quote my post. But no, I’m not going to read a different post to understand this post. I want to know how you go to your conclusion from the post you actually quoted.

Sorry, not going to explain the same thing over and over again because someone can’t be bothered to read a discussion.

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

Except that if you get hits on an event, and you can’t get back to it, most of the time you still get credit anyway. It’s just not as punishing as you say.

In fact, I often get credit for events I’ve barely touched in HOT, just as I’m passing by.

Event credit isn’t really the issue. Though ironically, you’re describing tagging events and getting credit, but some of them in HoT are structured with such gaps in things happening that it’s easy to have participating credit lapse even though you’re actively trying to contribute.

But that’s not what I was referring to anyway. I’m more referring to the fact that if you are roaming solo, mobs are merciless and there’s no way around it but to group or be very reactive and prepared. I feel like I remember reading that they nerfed them a little bit at some point and they were even worse than they are now, at release.

One of the things I remember enjoying about this game in the past was exploring maps and completing them on my own, at my own pace. It was kind of relaxing and gently fulfilling in an entertaining way. HoT maps, you can barely stand still without aggroing a group of mobs that will quickly kill you (if you aren’t sufficiently reactive/prepared). There’s just no room on those maps for relaxed exploration. When I paid for HoT, on some level, I thought I would be getting more of the thing I liked and I didn’t. And that was upsetting.

And it doesn’t help that with how the maps are laid out, I have to pull my map out a lot to figure out where I am and where I need to go, which means I now have to “pause” and stand still. I did some maneuvering around a map tonight in Tangled Depths and was spending half my time checking for a “safe space” or taking a 1-2 second peep at the map, like I was in a warzone and expecting to be shot at any moment. It was tense and frustrating, and I felt relived when I logged out.

I am not what I’d call a “casual gamer” either. I used to be very hardcore in one game and my first instinct is to look for the depth in game systems. But I never played this particular game for that. I played it for the more relaxed, flowing experience. And HoT did not provide that.

Or words to that effect.

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Posted by: LouWolfskin.3492

LouWolfskin.3492

The more i read here the more i get anxiety how easy the next expansion could be… yes, sure, let’s have another set of maps with NPE-Level of mobs that barely do anything and no innovation brought to the table.
Oh and please, more powercreep please, even stronger elite-specs so that we can’t die.
Hell, let’s have FF 13 style corridors at maps so that exploration is more stream lined.

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Posted by: SepiaBrownie.7504

SepiaBrownie.7504

So I just finished the main story a few days ago and tried to jump right into Heart of Thorns. What threw me off wasn’t the mob mechanics or the difficulty. It was the way they went about story telling.

I actually liked the simple way they did the story telling in the base game. I liked having a personal story where I went into the instances. Now it just rolls out the dialogue while I’m awkwardly wondering when it’s done and if other players are hearing it. I know to some it’s not a big deal but it just kind of breaks the immersion factor for me.

Idk, I wish they kind of just expanded on things instead of trying to just reinvent them entirely. Like instead of the weird language thing they did for HOT. Maybe something where you can get to know characters and the more you talk with them they give you certain items or information or maybe even unique skills and or emotes.

Edit: Just, more options in general to make the story feel more personal to the player. To clarify the point I’m getting at.

(edited by SepiaBrownie.7504)

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Posted by: flog.3485

flog.3485

Except that if you get hits on an event, and you can’t get back to it, most of the time you still get credit anyway. It’s just not as punishing as you say.

In fact, I often get credit for events I’ve barely touched in HOT, just as I’m passing by.

Event credit isn’t really the issue. Though ironically, you’re describing tagging events and getting credit, but some of them in HoT are structured with such gaps in things happening that it’s easy to have participating credit lapse even though you’re actively trying to contribute.

But that’s not what I was referring to anyway. I’m more referring to the fact that if you are roaming solo, mobs are merciless and there’s no way around it but to group or be very reactive and prepared. I feel like I remember reading that they nerfed them a little bit at some point and they were even worse than they are now, at release.

One of the things I remember enjoying about this game in the past was exploring maps and completing them on my own, at my own pace. It was kind of relaxing and gently fulfilling in an entertaining way. HoT maps, you can barely stand still without aggroing a group of mobs that will quickly kill you (if you aren’t sufficiently reactive/prepared). There’s just no room on those maps for relaxed exploration. When I paid for HoT, on some level, I thought I would be getting more of the thing I liked and I didn’t. And that was upsetting.

And it doesn’t help that with how the maps are laid out, I have to pull my map out a lot to figure out where I am and where I need to go, which means I now have to “pause” and stand still. I did some maneuvering around a map tonight in Tangled Depths and was spending half my time checking for a “safe space” or taking a 1-2 second peep at the map, like I was in a warzone and expecting to be shot at any moment. It was tense and frustrating, and I felt relived when I logged out.

I am not what I’d call a “casual gamer” either. I used to be very hardcore in one game and my first instinct is to look for the depth in game systems. But I never played this particular game for that. I played it for the more relaxed, flowing experience. And HoT did not provide that.

I understand your reasons, but I disagree so much with your perception of what the game should be. First of all, HoT was never supposed to be the core experience that you describe. They marketed the expansion as being challenging, they provided beta weekends for it and they always said that HoT was supposed to be end game content that the game didn’t have before. And quite frankly, do you really believe that they would create only 4 for maps that you can breeze through as easily as core tyria maps? Maybe you like that perspective, but to me it would have felt like a rip-off. Imo the easy nature of core maps only work because there is plenty of those. Second of all they have always pushed for more difficult mobs and content. You don’t breeze through karkas and silverwaste mobs the same way you breeze through core levelling maps. The thing is, even in core levelling maps there is content that require players to know more about skills, traits and weapons. These are called current events such as the anomaly, the bandits and the bloodstone crazed creatures. Even defending the colony of ascalon in gendarran fields is quite hard with no people around you (and to be honest I have already failed twice at it though I need it for a collection). Let’s not forget that Orr maps was harder at release also. And seriously, to conclude, what is the point of having this fantastic combat system if we can just breeze through easy content without having to take notice of what we need to do ?

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

I understand your reasons, but I disagree so much with your perception of what the game should be. First of all, HoT was never supposed to be the core experience that you describe. They marketed the expansion as being challenging, they provided beta weekends for it and they always said that HoT was supposed to be end game content that the game didn’t have before. And quite frankly, do you really believe that they would create only 4 for maps that you can breeze through as easily as core tyria maps? Maybe you like that perspective, but to me it would have felt like a rip-off. Imo the easy nature of core maps only work because there is plenty of those. Second of all they have always pushed for more difficult mobs and content. You don’t breeze through karkas and silverwaste mobs the same way you breeze through core levelling maps. The thing is, even in core levelling maps there is content that require players to know more about skills, traits and weapons. These are called current events such as the anomaly, the bandits and the bloodstone crazed creatures. Even defending the colony of ascalon in gendarran fields is quite hard with no people around you (and to be honest I have already failed twice at it though I need it for a collection). Let’s not forget that Orr maps was harder at release also. And seriously, to conclude, what is the point of having this fantastic combat system if we can just breeze through easy content without having to take notice of what we need to do ?

Again though, it’s not just about breezing through or not breezing through. It’s about how the maps are designed. You can have a map that has difficult content in it, without arranging it in a way that makes it an exercise in frustration for casual exploration.

Part of this has to do with waypoints and them being contested or not contested. It ends up with the meta taking priority over getting around. Frankly, you should be able to waypoint into a contested waypoint if you want, just with the risk of dying and that’s your choice to take that risk. Even if it’s on a cooldown, so you can’t just zerg an event. It should at least be an option, for those who just want to get around the map and don’t want to wait for meta progress, or take the long route.

And again, there’s a difference between punishing design and challenging design. Punishing design can be challenging, but challenging doesn’t have to be punishing.

I think back to some of the old maps and what I remember is dangerous areas, but also a lot of open space where you aren’t going to get immediately attacked by anything. Maps can be challenging, without being too crowded by mobs. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Some of the old maps did it fine; you would have areas that were dangerous, some of which you’d have to go into to complete certain parts of exploration. And you’d have large spaces that were not dangerous at all and which you could just stand in with ease, while you planned your next move.

I get that HoT maps are supposed to create a sense of danger because you are going straight into mordy’s domain, but at a certain point, prioritizing story immersion can damage the gameplay experience, if done the wrong way. It’s like the example of a repeated dialogue phrase from a companion in a single-player game; you have to be careful about choosing something that isn’t going to drive the player crazy.

Similarly, designing maps in such a way that they can quickly exhaust people seems wrong-footed to me.

Or words to that effect.

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Posted by: vesica tempestas.1563

vesica tempestas.1563

god this gets old…and yet people easily navigate HOT, people do solo zerg events (i do it myself with an ele) Orr was the exact same to start, then people learned, and got better gear etc etc. People need to start taking responsibility for their own game play and avoid parts of the map that doesn’t suit them if they are unwilling to adapt rather than expecting the world to adapt to them. That’s the difference between a single player game and a mmorpg.


“Trying to please everyone would not only be challenging
but would also result in a product that might not satisfy anyone”- Roman Pichler, Strategize

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Posted by: AliamRationem.5172

AliamRationem.5172

I understand your reasons, but I disagree so much with your perception of what the game should be. First of all, HoT was never supposed to be the core experience that you describe. They marketed the expansion as being challenging, they provided beta weekends for it and they always said that HoT was supposed to be end game content that the game didn’t have before. And quite frankly, do you really believe that they would create only 4 for maps that you can breeze through as easily as core tyria maps? Maybe you like that perspective, but to me it would have felt like a rip-off. Imo the easy nature of core maps only work because there is plenty of those. Second of all they have always pushed for more difficult mobs and content. You don’t breeze through karkas and silverwaste mobs the same way you breeze through core levelling maps. The thing is, even in core levelling maps there is content that require players to know more about skills, traits and weapons. These are called current events such as the anomaly, the bandits and the bloodstone crazed creatures. Even defending the colony of ascalon in gendarran fields is quite hard with no people around you (and to be honest I have already failed twice at it though I need it for a collection). Let’s not forget that Orr maps was harder at release also. And seriously, to conclude, what is the point of having this fantastic combat system if we can just breeze through easy content without having to take notice of what we need to do ?

Again though, it’s not just about breezing through or not breezing through. It’s about how the maps are designed. You can have a map that has difficult content in it, without arranging it in a way that makes it an exercise in frustration for casual exploration.

Part of this has to do with waypoints and them being contested or not contested. It ends up with the meta taking priority over getting around. Frankly, you should be able to waypoint into a contested waypoint if you want, just with the risk of dying and that’s your choice to take that risk. Even if it’s on a cooldown, so you can’t just zerg an event. It should at least be an option, for those who just want to get around the map and don’t want to wait for meta progress, or take the long route.

And again, there’s a difference between punishing design and challenging design. Punishing design can be challenging, but challenging doesn’t have to be punishing.

I think back to some of the old maps and what I remember is dangerous areas, but also a lot of open space where you aren’t going to get immediately attacked by anything. Maps can be challenging, without being too crowded by mobs. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Some of the old maps did it fine; you would have areas that were dangerous, some of which you’d have to go into to complete certain parts of exploration. And you’d have large spaces that were not dangerous at all and which you could just stand in with ease, while you planned your next move.

I get that HoT maps are supposed to create a sense of danger because you are going straight into mordy’s domain, but at a certain point, prioritizing story immersion can damage the gameplay experience, if done the wrong way. It’s like the example of a repeated dialogue phrase from a companion in a single-player game; you have to be careful about choosing something that isn’t going to drive the player crazy.

Similarly, designing maps in such a way that they can quickly exhaust people seems wrong-footed to me.

HoT doesn’t seem any more mob-dense than core maps to me. If anything, it’s easier to find a safe place to collect your thoughts because you can glide and enemies can’t. But I suppose if you find those enemies truly threatening, then it might seem that they are everywhere and you can’t catch a break from them.

I also don’t see how the layouts hinder “casual exploration”. I could tell right away that I wasn’t going to figure out these maps in a day. So instead of worrying about it, I just played until it started to make sense. I did this for every HoT map, including Tangled Depths (which became my favorite map!).

The waypoints don’t strike me as much of an issue either, as masteries usually give us alternative means of getting where we need to be. I hear a lot of complaints about contested waypoints in TD, for instance. Yet I know from experience that a player can walk into that map with no waypoints unlocked and have every single waypoint available in under 10 minutes (did it in 7 minutes on my thief, in fact). That’s almost certainly faster than navigating a core Tyria map. So is it really contested waypoints that are the problem, or the fact that the people complaining about them never learned their way around in the first place?

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Posted by: flog.3485

flog.3485

I understand your reasons, but I disagree so much with your perception of what the game should be. First of all, HoT was never supposed to be the core experience that you describe. They marketed the expansion as being challenging, they provided beta weekends for it and they always said that HoT was supposed to be end game content that the game didn’t have before. And quite frankly, do you really believe that they would create only 4 for maps that you can breeze through as easily as core tyria maps? Maybe you like that perspective, but to me it would have felt like a rip-off. Imo the easy nature of core maps only work because there is plenty of those. Second of all they have always pushed for more difficult mobs and content. You don’t breeze through karkas and silverwaste mobs the same way you breeze through core levelling maps. The thing is, even in core levelling maps there is content that require players to know more about skills, traits and weapons. These are called current events such as the anomaly, the bandits and the bloodstone crazed creatures. Even defending the colony of ascalon in gendarran fields is quite hard with no people around you (and to be honest I have already failed twice at it though I need it for a collection). Let’s not forget that Orr maps was harder at release also. And seriously, to conclude, what is the point of having this fantastic combat system if we can just breeze through easy content without having to take notice of what we need to do ?

Again though, it’s not just about breezing through or not breezing through. It’s about how the maps are designed. You can have a map that has difficult content in it, without arranging it in a way that makes it an exercise in frustration for casual exploration.

Part of this has to do with waypoints and them being contested or not contested. It ends up with the meta taking priority over getting around. Frankly, you should be able to waypoint into a contested waypoint if you want, just with the risk of dying and that’s your choice to take that risk. Even if it’s on a cooldown, so you can’t just zerg an event. It should at least be an option, for those who just want to get around the map and don’t want to wait for meta progress, or take the long route.

And again, there’s a difference between punishing design and challenging design. Punishing design can be challenging, but challenging doesn’t have to be punishing.

I think back to some of the old maps and what I remember is dangerous areas, but also a lot of open space where you aren’t going to get immediately attacked by anything. Maps can be challenging, without being too crowded by mobs. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Some of the old maps did it fine; you would have areas that were dangerous, some of which you’d have to go into to complete certain parts of exploration. And you’d have large spaces that were not dangerous at all and which you could just stand in with ease, while you planned your next move.

I get that HoT maps are supposed to create a sense of danger because you are going straight into mordy’s domain, but at a certain point, prioritizing story immersion can damage the gameplay experience, if done the wrong way. It’s like the example of a repeated dialogue phrase from a companion in a single-player game; you have to be careful about choosing something that isn’t going to drive the player crazy.

Similarly, designing maps in such a way that they can quickly exhaust people seems wrong-footed to me.

I don’t really time to write a long elaborated response because I am running out of time so I am gonna sum up my thoughts on your reponse into one question: how hard is it to follow a chain of events that spawn in the beginning of the map and the story that guides through the map ? That’s how I learned how to navigate these maps in the first place personally. I will also agree with what AliamRationem wrote in response.

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Posted by: Dashingsteel.3410

Dashingsteel.3410

In gw2, after exploring a map…. the map stays revealed and it is easy to see where you need to go….. However in HoT the minimap doesn’t support the multitiered maps… the minimap gives confusing directions on multitiered maps. Since the minimaps don’t work you have to memorize the maps.

the core game had these exact problems in the grove and the black citadel…… it is very frustrating

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

actually story only touches on a few locations, and chain of events only work if you are the type that followed chains(or story ). neither btw, from what i remember usually show you the best ways to get around, in fact they are usually roundabout.

these are actually pretty good exploration places in the long term, but really frustrating early.

basically a lot of people dont want to explore, in that they wander around trying to figure the secrets of the map to get tasks done.

which i do understand, but i will say there is a lot more depth, and joy of traversing the map in the long term once you know them.
tangled depths was my most hated map initially, but when i had to repeat for currencies, was the most entertaining map later. auric basin was kinda boring, and dragon stand, bleh.

so i see why people hate them, but i also see why in some ways they are better designed for repeated play.

tyria regular is really boring once you get used to hot maps

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Posted by: Nole.3017

Nole.3017

I have to agree with this. In HoT maps i literally cant leave my character anywhere except on a tree or he gets attacked by something within seconds. Its to the point that i start screaming ANOYING! I prefer more open areas with less mob density.

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Posted by: Feanor.2358

Feanor.2358

In gw2, after exploring a map…. the map stays revealed and it is easy to see where you need to go….. However in HoT the minimap doesn’t support the multitiered maps… the minimap gives confusing directions on multitiered maps. Since the minimaps don’t work you have to memorize the maps

This is only true for a while. Then you learn the specifics of the map and the events and it’s no longer confusing.

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Posted by: Doam.8305

Doam.8305

In gw2, after exploring a map…. the map stays revealed and it is easy to see where you need to go….. However in HoT the minimap doesn’t support the multitiered maps… the minimap gives confusing directions on multitiered maps. Since the minimaps don’t work you have to memorize the maps

This is only true for a while. Then you learn the specifics of the map and the events and it’s no longer confusing.

You’ve just said the exact same thing he posted…

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Posted by: Doam.8305

Doam.8305

Pvp players quit because of the split between core and elites and WvW players quit because DBL was just god awful both of them also left due to horrid matchmaking.

Out of principle some quit when they started to prune our skill animations. Those who had their builds guted and tossed out also quit during the class mechanic pruning.

Dungeons runners quit because their rewards were nerfed while those who liked to craft quit because their recipes were nerfed. In addition to Anet breaking the golden rule about tampering with the economy which we can plainly see the results of with the current state of leather.

Some people quit because preorders were early and the promises too and they spoke proudly of features at every show and then after everyone went and told their friends and family and did all that free word of mouth advertising the yelling of the hype train turned into quiet posts on their site trying to real things in.

In the end hands down HoT was the worst expansion I’ve ever purchased and I agree that HoT ruined Gw2. When I ask people why they stay I get two main reply’s the combat system and the lack of F2p items cluttering the cash shop. Which is really bad actually as I can say Gw2 isn’t dead but its in the position to collapse rapidly. All it would take is a game akin to the old WoW clones that has a similar battle system to GW2. GW2 went of its manifesto and not like fractals which were contained but rather HoT effected every aspect of the game.

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Posted by: voltaicbore.8012

voltaicbore.8012

Dungeons runners quit because their rewards were nerfed

Well I disagree with your assessment of HoT, but at least your position is clear.

About dungeon nerfs: I wasn’t around to see how dungeons used to be rewarded, but I hear that they simply redirected some of the direct gold rewards into the frequenter reward. Regardless, between raw salvage, mob kills, mystic forge gambling, and salvaging dungeon exotics for inscriptions, dungeon running seems plenty rewarding to me. It might not be the fastest way up, but it’s definitely steady and can help an exclusive pve/dungeon runner pile up a respectable amount for some important purchases.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

Dungeons runners quit because their rewards were nerfed

Well I disagree with your assessment of HoT, but at least your position is clear.

About dungeon nerfs: I wasn’t around to see how dungeons used to be rewarded, but I hear that they simply redirected some of the direct gold rewards into the frequenter reward. Regardless, between raw salvage, mob kills, mystic forge gambling, and salvaging dungeon exotics for inscriptions, dungeon running seems plenty rewarding to me. It might not be the fastest way up, but it’s definitely steady and can help an exclusive pve/dungeon runner pile up a respectable amount for some important purchases.

Because you weren’t here you missed part of the picture. The rewards you’re talking about were added after HOT launched due to the reaction Anet had from removing the gold reward completely.

You at one point got a gold for doing most dungeons, plus tokens and drops. Then you got just tokens and drops. No gold at all.

That’s changed now, but at the time the decision was made, some people who loved dungeons and ran them daily did walk from the game.

Anet believed they could replace dungeons with fractals but even the fractal rewards weren’t that good at the time. If you were interested in five man instanced content when HoT launched you had to choose between unrewarding dungeons and unrewarding fractals.

Both rewards have since been improved.

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Posted by: Djinn.9245

Djinn.9245

HoT doesn’t seem any more mob-dense than core maps to me. If anything, it’s easier to find a safe place to collect your thoughts because you can glide and enemies can’t. But I suppose if you find those enemies truly threatening, then it might seem that they are everywhere and you can’t catch a break from them.

Some people find it easy to go from 2 dimensions to 3 dimensions. Others don’t.

I also don’t see how the layouts hinder “casual exploration”. I could tell right away that I wasn’t going to figure out these maps in a day.

You just answered your own question.

So instead of worrying about it, I just played until it started to make sense. I did this for every HoT map, including Tangled Depths (which became my favorite map!).

I have been playing the HoT maps since they came out and I still can’t find my way around them. I was doing the Wyvern event in Verdant Brink and got knocked off the cliff. Because there were so many other things going on and mobs to worry about in addition to the terrain, I never found my way back up there.

The waypoints don’t strike me as much of an issue either, as masteries usually give us alternative means of getting where we need to be. I hear a lot of complaints about contested waypoints in TD, for instance. Yet I know from experience that a player can walk into that map with no waypoints unlocked and have every single waypoint available in under 10 minutes (did it in 7 minutes on my thief, in fact). That’s almost certainly faster than navigating a core Tyria map. So is it really contested waypoints that are the problem, or the fact that the people complaining about them never learned their way around in the first place?

What does unlocking Waypoints have to do with them being contested?

it’s this luck based mystic toilet that we’re all so sick of flushing our money down. -Salamol

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Posted by: Djinn.9245

Djinn.9245

In gw2, after exploring a map…. the map stays revealed and it is easy to see where you need to go….. However in HoT the minimap doesn’t support the multitiered maps… the minimap gives confusing directions on multitiered maps. Since the minimaps don’t work you have to memorize the maps

This is only true for a while. Then you learn the specifics of the map and the events and it’s no longer confusing.

I disagree with your generalized statement. Perhaps you should replace “you” with “I” because it certainly isn’t true for everyone.

it’s this luck based mystic toilet that we’re all so sick of flushing our money down. -Salamol

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Posted by: Feanor.2358

Feanor.2358

It certainly isn’t only true for me.

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Posted by: AliamRationem.5172

AliamRationem.5172

I also don’t see how the layouts hinder “casual exploration”. I could tell right away that I wasn’t going to figure out these maps in a day.

You just answered your own question.

What does unlocking Waypoints have to do with them being contested?

So casual means the map has to be easy enough to figure out in a day?

If I can unlock every waypoint on the map in 7 minutes, it indicates that it doesn’t take very long to get to any particular point on the map even if you don’t have access to the waypoints.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

In gw2, after exploring a map…. the map stays revealed and it is easy to see where you need to go….. However in HoT the minimap doesn’t support the multitiered maps… the minimap gives confusing directions on multitiered maps. Since the minimaps don’t work you have to memorize the maps

This is only true for a while. Then you learn the specifics of the map and the events and it’s no longer confusing.

I disagree with your generalized statement. Perhaps you should replace “you” with “I” because it certainly isn’t true for everyone.

Actually I think it’s true for everyone. Once you learn the maps and events it wouldn’t be confusing because you’ve learned them. It’s like saying once you’ve learned to read, you can read. It’s just simple logic.

Some people may well be incapable of learning the events and maps, but I suspect that’s quite rare. What’s more likely isn’t that people can’t learn, it’s that they believe they can’t.

I mean sure, some people have a really bad sense of direction…but those people can still ask directions.

But I think most people probably don’t have that much trouble learning how to get around at least to the basic areas they need to get to.

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

In response to the point about learning maps:

1) If the go-to defense for the maps being complicated is “you eventually learn them,” that’s not a defense that would fly in any design meeting I could respectfully be a part of. There’s a reason that complex features often have tutorials to go along with them; to use the reading analogy that Vayne brought up, you don’t just hand a child a book and tell them to learn how to read. Reading is also a poor analogy as a defense because reading can take years to learn and that’s with heavy guidance and instruction. So if learning the maps is like learning to read, it’s way too difficult.

2) Some people have a poor sense of direction. Even with a map, they can get turned around easily. I am one of those people. No amount of playing the maps changes this fact. Instead of instinctively navigating spaces, I more or less have to memorize parts of them. This takes time.

3) The difference between navigating the HoT maps with most-to-all gliding mastery (and some non-gliding, like nunoch wallows) unlocked versus navigating it with no gliding mastery unlocked is night and day. And once again, this takes time to do. Meanwhile, you’re trying to unlock the masteries in the very maps that would be less confusing and difficult to navigate if you had the masteries. It’s a bit like having you play in the NBA, so that you can qualify for college basketball.

You might be inclined to skim over these points and go, “Well see, it all comes back to if you spend enough time, you’ll learn.” If so, you’re missing how poor of a design philosophy that is. You have to assume that people are going to misunderstand things, get confused, get frustrated, and that many will silently leave if they can’t figure out what to do. Because that’s what a lot of people naturally do when faced with an optional piece of recreation for which there is no obligation to stick with it.

As a contrary example, some will keep going as a matter of pride, or because they want the challenge. But many won’t and I guarantee you the many that won’t make up the majority of the gaming population. The gaming population isn’t a small, devoted crowd anymore. It’s a monstrous behemoth of a spectrum, with wildly varying skill levels.

But more important than that is the fact that… good design makes the player feel smart for doing virtually nothing; good design teaches the player how to be smart and instills confidence in them; good design is like an invisible mentor that stays with you, no matter how good you get. The point being, if you’re going to get defensive about how something is designed, you better have an argument that’s stronger than “people will get over it.” Because if your hope is that people will get over it, you’re about saying, “Yes, the car is on fire, but it will burn itself out eventually and then I can drive home.”

By the time the problem has resolved itself, it’s too late to fix the issue.

That being said, arguments over design choices I welcome and I’m not right about everything when it comes to games. But this stuff about “you eventually learn” is not a good argument. If I’m a filmmaker and release a movie, I don’t want it to “eventually” become a box office hit; it needs to be one now and it’s got a small window in which it can pull that off.

MMOs do have a learning curve a lot of the time. I get that kind of defense. But it isn’t a carte blanche excuse for complexity or confusing design. It’s possible to make something too complicated or too confusing.

Or words to that effect.

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Posted by: Djinn.9245

Djinn.9245

In response to the point about learning maps:

Well said.

it’s this luck based mystic toilet that we’re all so sick of flushing our money down. -Salamol

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Posted by: AliamRationem.5172

AliamRationem.5172

The game provides numerous examples of niche gameplay. What you find too complicated or confusing, others consider a great feature of the game. There are 4 maps in HoT, and only one of them really pushes the envelope on this. You say it’s poor design, but as TD is my favorite map and I’m dying to see at least one more like it in the next expansion, I have to disagree. They didn’t make all of the maps so confusing.

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Posted by: slashlizardy.9167

slashlizardy.9167

In response to the point about learning maps:

1) If the go-to defense for the maps being complicated is “you eventually learn them,” that’s not a defense that would fly in any design meeting I could respectfully be a part of. There’s a reason that complex features often have tutorials to go along with them; to use the reading analogy that Vayne brought up, you don’t just hand a child a book and tell them to learn how to read. Reading is also a poor analogy as a defense because reading can take years to learn and that’s with heavy guidance and instruction. So if learning the maps is like learning to read, it’s way too difficult.

2) Some people have a poor sense of direction. Even with a map, they can get turned around easily. I am one of those people. No amount of playing the maps changes this fact. Instead of instinctively navigating spaces, I more or less have to memorize parts of them. This takes time.

3) The difference between navigating the HoT maps with most-to-all gliding mastery (and some non-gliding, like nunoch wallows) unlocked versus navigating it with no gliding mastery unlocked is night and day. And once again, this takes time to do. Meanwhile, you’re trying to unlock the masteries in the very maps that would be less confusing and difficult to navigate if you had the masteries. It’s a bit like having you play in the NBA, so that you can qualify for college basketball.

You might be inclined to skim over these points and go, “Well see, it all comes back to if you spend enough time, you’ll learn.” If so, you’re missing how poor of a design philosophy that is. You have to assume that people are going to misunderstand things, get confused, get frustrated, and that many will silently leave if they can’t figure out what to do. Because that’s what a lot of people naturally do when faced with an optional piece of recreation for which there is no obligation to stick with it.

As a contrary example, some will keep going as a matter of pride, or because they want the challenge. But many won’t and I guarantee you the many that won’t make up the majority of the gaming population. The gaming population isn’t a small, devoted crowd anymore. It’s a monstrous behemoth of a spectrum, with wildly varying skill levels.

But more important than that is the fact that… good design makes the player feel smart for doing virtually nothing; good design teaches the player how to be smart and instills confidence in them; good design is like an invisible mentor that stays with you, no matter how good you get. The point being, if you’re going to get defensive about how something is designed, you better have an argument that’s stronger than “people will get over it.” Because if your hope is that people will get over it, you’re about saying, “Yes, the car is on fire, but it will burn itself out eventually and then I can drive home.”

By the time the problem has resolved itself, it’s too late to fix the issue.

That being said, arguments over design choices I welcome and I’m not right about everything when it comes to games. But this stuff about “you eventually learn” is not a good argument. If I’m a filmmaker and release a movie, I don’t want it to “eventually” become a box office hit; it needs to be one now and it’s got a small window in which it can pull that off.

MMOs do have a learning curve a lot of the time. I get that kind of defense. But it isn’t a carte blanche excuse for complexity or confusing design. It’s possible to make something too complicated or too confusing.

Awesome post!

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Posted by: Feanor.2358

Feanor.2358

MMOs do have a learning curve a lot of the time. I get that kind of defense. But it isn’t a carte blanche excuse for complexity or confusing design. It’s possible to make something too complicated or too confusing.

So basically, never make any cool/exciting map design because you’ll confuse players at first? That’s a cowardly stance which I’m glad ANet didn’t take.

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

The game provides numerous examples of niche gameplay. What you find too complicated or confusing, others consider a great feature of the game. There are 4 maps in HoT, and only one of them really pushes the envelope on this. You say it’s poor design, but as TD is my favorite map and I’m dying to see at least one more like it in the next expansion, I have to disagree. They didn’t make all of the maps so confusing.

I can’t really disagree with this, as it’s factually true that some will like what others don’t. For every criticism that an artistic project gets, if you involve enough people, odds are there will be some people who like it, if not love it.

Doesn’t stop me from giving constructive criticism though.

Or words to that effect.

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

MMOs do have a learning curve a lot of the time. I get that kind of defense. But it isn’t a carte blanche excuse for complexity or confusing design. It’s possible to make something too complicated or too confusing.

So basically, never make any cool/exciting map design because you’ll confuse players at first? That’s a cowardly stance which I’m glad ANet didn’t take.

No, it all comes back to how you do it. I’m confident that some of the most complicated systems created by human beings were almost never perceived as complicated because of how they were done.

As an example in film because it’s the quickest example that comes to mind, critics have lauded Mad Max: Fury Road for the cinematography. The makers of the film took what had great potential to be an insanely confusing visual experience with all of the intersecting action going on and used camera tricks to make scenes flow together better visually, producing a more naturally seamless experience for the eye.

Or words to that effect.

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Posted by: SepiaBrownie.7504

SepiaBrownie.7504

As I’m diving more into HOT I’m realizing more of why people are complaining about difficulty. Don’t get me wrong, I like mobs having interesting mechanics and I like challenging maps. (although, I will admit HOT content is gett’in my sheeze but I think that’s because my gear isn’t that great) What I don’t like is being forced to learn certain things in a certain order in order to travel through the maps when before I didn’t have to. (aka the mastery system) I had choices on how I could do things in the other maps in the base game. While in these maps I don’t + if I want to learn certain mastery’s I HAVE to do them in HOT maps.

So far I feel like HOT stripped away a lot of the freedoms that the base game gave. So the difficulty and challenge isn’t really in the players hands anymore but game’s. Like before, if I wanted to do a dungeon, or a jumping puzzle (which I love). Those where challenges that are there and I can chose if I want to do them or not. If I didn’t want to, well, I wasn’t missing anything in terms of personal progression or story. Now, if I don’t do HOT maps. I’m missing not only personal story but also mastery points & features attached to those mastery points.

Idk, I think if they made it to where there wasn’t mastery points that you HAD the learn in HOT. I don’t think there would be as many complaints. ’cause than people can learn in other maps and than apply those skills in the HOT maps. Which would possibly make them easier to process for the player.

(edited by SepiaBrownie.7504)

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Posted by: Dashingsteel.3410

Dashingsteel.3410

What’s the point of having the map revealed if you still have to memorize it?

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Posted by: vesica tempestas.1563

vesica tempestas.1563

What’s the point of having the map revealed if you still have to memorize it?

Are you being serious?

Human beings have a brain and cant help learning so eventually…you…can….focus….on…..what….you…are…doing…..without….looking … down….at….the….mini…map.

The map is there to help, not take away your capacity to think.


“Trying to please everyone would not only be challenging
but would also result in a product that might not satisfy anyone”- Roman Pichler, Strategize

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

In response to the point about learning maps:

1) If the go-to defense for the maps being complicated is “you eventually learn them,” that’s not a defense that would fly in any design meeting I could respectfully be a part of. There’s a reason that complex features often have tutorials to go along with them; to use the reading analogy that Vayne brought up, you don’t just hand a child a book and tell them to learn how to read. Reading is also a poor analogy as a defense because reading can take years to learn and that’s with heavy guidance and instruction. So if learning the maps is like learning to read, it’s way too difficult.

2) Some people have a poor sense of direction. Even with a map, they can get turned around easily. I am one of those people. No amount of playing the maps changes this fact. Instead of instinctively navigating spaces, I more or less have to memorize parts of them. This takes time.

3) The difference between navigating the HoT maps with most-to-all gliding mastery (and some non-gliding, like nunoch wallows) unlocked versus navigating it with no gliding mastery unlocked is night and day. And once again, this takes time to do. Meanwhile, you’re trying to unlock the masteries in the very maps that would be less confusing and difficult to navigate if you had the masteries. It’s a bit like having you play in the NBA, so that you can qualify for college basketball.

You might be inclined to skim over these points and go, “Well see, it all comes back to if you spend enough time, you’ll learn.” If so, you’re missing how poor of a design philosophy that is. You have to assume that people are going to misunderstand things, get confused, get frustrated, and that many will silently leave if they can’t figure out what to do. Because that’s what a lot of people naturally do when faced with an optional piece of recreation for which there is no obligation to stick with it.

As a contrary example, some will keep going as a matter of pride, or because they want the challenge. But many won’t and I guarantee you the many that won’t make up the majority of the gaming population. The gaming population isn’t a small, devoted crowd anymore. It’s a monstrous behemoth of a spectrum, with wildly varying skill levels.

But more important than that is the fact that… good design makes the player feel smart for doing virtually nothing; good design teaches the player how to be smart and instills confidence in them; good design is like an invisible mentor that stays with you, no matter how good you get. The point being, if you’re going to get defensive about how something is designed, you better have an argument that’s stronger than “people will get over it.” Because if your hope is that people will get over it, you’re about saying, “Yes, the car is on fire, but it will burn itself out eventually and then I can drive home.”

By the time the problem has resolved itself, it’s too late to fix the issue.

That being said, arguments over design choices I welcome and I’m not right about everything when it comes to games. But this stuff about “you eventually learn” is not a good argument. If I’m a filmmaker and release a movie, I don’t want it to “eventually” become a box office hit; it needs to be one now and it’s got a small window in which it can pull that off.

MMOs do have a learning curve a lot of the time. I get that kind of defense. But it isn’t a carte blanche excuse for complexity or confusing design. It’s possible to make something too complicated or too confusing.

3 is the major flaw, these maps are really good/funnest when are experienced with them. you can move around fairly quickly, but its not very boring, and a lot of variation within each map.

however the curve is steep and its very hard to achieve anything or participate in the map early on, which is when you most need to particpate (for mastery exp)

still overall id say they are very worthwhile maps, the problem is they are like high end explorer maps, within the context of the total maps in game, its great to have em, but within the context of 4/4 expansion, you will lose a lot of people before they are invested.

that said, i think the game overall really needed more depth and replayability, and i got much more enjoyment when having to go back to these maps, than most other maps in the game.

it also enhanced say, orr for when you wanted something less cerebral and more pick up and play.

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

As I’m diving more into HOT I’m realizing more of why people are complaining about difficulty. Don’t get me wrong, I like mobs having interesting mechanics and I like challenging maps. (although, I will admit HOT content is gett’in my sheeze but I think that’s because my gear isn’t that great) What I don’t like is being forced to learn certain things in a certain order in order to travel through the maps when before I didn’t have to. (aka the mastery system) I had choices on how I could do things in the other maps in the base game. While in these maps I don’t + if I want to learn certain mastery’s I HAVE to do them in HOT maps.

So far I feel like HOT stripped away a lot of the freedoms that the base game gave. So the difficulty and challenge isn’t really in the players hands anymore but game’s. Like before, if I wanted to do a dungeon, or a jumping puzzle (which I love). Those where challenges that are there and I can chose if I want to do them or not. If I didn’t want to, well, I wasn’t missing anything in terms of personal progression or story. Now, if I don’t do HOT maps. I’m missing not only personal story but also mastery points & features attached to those mastery points.

Idk, I think if they made it to where there wasn’t mastery points that you HAD the learn in HOT. I don’t think there would be as many complaints. ’cause than people can learn in other maps and than apply those skills in the HOT maps. Which would possibly make them easier to process for the player.

the mastery system is at its worst early on, and makes you feel like you need X to progress.
however it actually turns out you can get most places without them, but its more involved. but when you re stuck and you see a nuhock wallow, the assumption is you need x or cant move forward.

which i agree is pretty frustrating

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Posted by: Dashingsteel.3410

Dashingsteel.3410

@vesica tempestas……. A map is for directions. A revealed map means your character has already traversed all the areas. The fact is that Anet’s minimap just can’t handle multi tiered maps. There should not be map tools giving you misleading information.

I am not interested in playing navigation or maze games. I want maps that show me where to go.

I find that most people who take on a condescending tone are trying to compensate for something.

(edited by Dashingsteel.3410)

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Posted by: Caladir.6351

Caladir.6351

@OP

At the risk of sounding like some elitist, I think you should learn how to play your class(es) first.

The vanilla game missions don’t teach you how to play very well, imo. Gear up to exotics, learn how to kite/sustain groups, then throw yourself into the HoT maps. The HoT mobs are generally stronger than vanilla mobs, so you need to learn how to handle them, too. I’ve done all the missions — from vanilla to all the Living World missions — solo, so I know it’s possible. glhf

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Posted by: vesica tempestas.1563

vesica tempestas.1563

@vesica tempestas……. A map is for directions. A revealed map means your character has already traversed all the areas. The fact is that Anet’s minimap just can’t handle multi tiered maps. There should not be map tools giving you misleading information.

I am not interested in playing navigation or maze games. I want maps that show me where to go.

I find that most people who take on a condescending tone are trying to compensate for something.

lol ok, well compensation aside, maybe its a generation thing, older games didn’t have maps, so you learned to learn.


“Trying to please everyone would not only be challenging
but would also result in a product that might not satisfy anyone”- Roman Pichler, Strategize

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Posted by: IndigoSundown.5419

IndigoSundown.5419

The game provides numerous examples of niche gameplay. What you find too complicated or confusing, others consider a great feature of the game. There are 4 maps in HoT, and only one of them really pushes the envelope on this. You say it’s poor design, but as TD is my favorite map and I’m dying to see at least one more like it in the next expansion, I have to disagree. They didn’t make all of the maps so confusing.

There is truth to this statement. The problem is this:

  1. HoT is GW2’s first expansion
  2. It came after 3+ years of core being the game
  3. There were numerous changes to core over those three years. Many of those changes made core even easier that it was already perceived by veterans. The New Player Experience is the most visible of those changes, but was by no means the only one. So, ANet took an (perceived to be) easy game and made it easier. By easier, I mean not only was combat easier, figuring out what to do in the game was easier. For instance, early zone hearts were changed so that players earned heart credit via one click, where before they’d had to do two or three.
  4. The rationale ANet offered for the NPE was to attract players who found GW2 too difficult to get into.
  5. If people are going to buy a game expansion, it seems like it ought to offer them what they want.
  6. Due to ANet’s business model, HoT is presented as being the game going forward.
  7. That means that anyone who wants to be active in the game ought to buy HoT. For instance, to get access to Living World updates, people need to buy HoT.
  8. People who wanted challenge, difficult exploration, raids and whatever else HoT offers got what they wanted (at least to some extent).
  9. Meanwhile, those who wanted more of the same play they apparently liked in core did not get what they wanted.

So, people who wanted challenging combat and exploration were given something that the game had so far lacked. However, there was a portion of the player base that ANet had made multiple attempts to cater to who got XPac zones they found difficult to navigate, with mobs they did not enjoy fighting. This was, to my mind, a questionable business decision. Had GW2 left core difficulty as it was in Beta Weekend Event 1, HoT mob difficulty would not have been an issue. It’s as if Anet wanted to appeal to various points on the player continuum, including both ends, but keep fumbling in their attempts to do so.

I can see both sides of the argument. Had HoT been just more core, they might have lost the players who wanted more engagement. As it is, they may have lost players who didn’t want that much engagement. in hindsight, ANet also lost some people to the whole “HoT is not worth the price/vets shafted/no character slot/etc.” mess. So, in hindsight, a first XPAc that offered a more balanced mix of content (in terms of who it was aimed at) might have better served ANet’s business interests.

Labjax is certainly correct in saying that entertainment products have a (sometimes very) short window in which to hook people. The thing is, people whose goal was “interesting fights in an area that requires me to struggle to learn it” were hooked by HoT from the beginning. However, the same experience did not hook those who just wanted to show up and blow off some steam after a frustrating day at work.

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Posted by: Halandir.3609

Halandir.3609

lol ok, well compensation aside, maybe its a generation thing, older games didn’t have maps, so you learned to learn.

Please just stop :.( Learning NEQ Capacity to think NEQ memorizing NEQ Learning!
Same pool – Different swimmers!

Sure, causation is one well proven way of learning things. Its sadly not a great motivator/way of learning things that your life does not depend on.

Bottom line: Dashingsteel posted a valid concern about unnecessarily complicated map layout and that the “map/minimap” does not, in a meaningful way support player exploration.
No matter how you try to derail that valid concern/complaint the issue sticks!

(And before I get the “generation” lecture: I’m a 50+ mathematician/programmer and I not only accept: I love that new generations do not put up with some of the … we accepted way back when)

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

lol ok, well compensation aside, maybe its a generation thing, older games didn’t have maps, so you learned to learn.

Please just stop :.( Learning NEQ Capacity to think NEQ memorizing NEQ Learning!
Same pool – Different swimmers!

Sure, causation is one well proven way of learning things. Its sadly not a great motivator/way of learning things that your life does not depend on.

Bottom line: Dashingsteel posted a valid concern about unnecessarily complicated map layout and that the “map/minimap” does not, in a meaningful way support player exploration.
No matter how you try to derail that valid concern/complaint the issue sticks!

(And before I get the “generation” lecture: I’m a 50+ mathematician/programmer and I not only accept: I love that new generations do not put up with some of the … we accepted way back when)

the problem is, while i agree the map is not performing at peak effeciency in HOT, by far, that alone would not deter people raised with a different set of rules. Also, for many of things the map performs poorly at, its actually supposed to be a secret. Like theres a hero point here, somewhere, but your supposed to figure out where its hidden.

Part of the design of tangled depths, is to be a tangle depth, you learn tangled depths more from experience and exploration than from a map, and i dont think thats compeltely unintentional.

at a basic level, dashing steel doesnt like that, he wants to know where to go, he is not wrong, but he is opposed to the concept of a place that a map doesnt work that well in a video game.

Dont get me wrong, i know how he felt, but overall, the map would not have enhanced the area much for me, just like having crappy amusement park map wouldnt guarantee i had kittenty time at an amusement park.

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Posted by: Vayne.8563

Vayne.8563

In response to the point about learning maps:

snip

As a contrary example, some will keep going as a matter of pride, or because they want the challenge. But many won’t and I guarantee you the many that won’t make up the majority of the gaming population. The gaming population isn’t a small, devoted crowd anymore. It’s a monstrous behemoth of a spectrum, with wildly varying skill levels.

But more important than that is the fact that… good design makes the player feel smart for doing virtually nothing; good design teaches the player how to be smart and instills confidence in them; good design is like an invisible mentor that stays with you, no matter how good you get. The point being, if you’re going to get defensive about how something is designed, you better have an argument that’s stronger than “people will get over it.” Because if your hope is that people will get over it, you’re about saying, “Yes, the car is on fire, but it will burn itself out eventually and then I can drive home.”

By the time the problem has resolved itself, it’s too late to fix the issue.

That being said, arguments over design choices I welcome and I’m not right about everything when it comes to games. But this stuff about “you eventually learn” is not a good argument. If I’m a filmmaker and release a movie, I don’t want it to “eventually” become a box office hit; it needs to be one now and it’s got a small window in which it can pull that off.

MMOs do have a learning curve a lot of the time. I get that kind of defense. But it isn’t a carte blanche excuse for complexity or confusing design. It’s possible to make something too complicated or too confusing.

Actually there are plenty of decisions Anet makes that are exactly they same and they said so. They expect people to have to learn certain fights and not master them right away. They said it about the marionette fight. They talked about, at that time, raising the bar higher and setting a situation where the community would have to come together and teach each other to get through the content. So yeah, they have had design meetings, and that’s exactly what they came up with at that time. Therefore, it’s probably not accurate to say that no design meeting ever went this way.

There have always been players that want everything spelled out for them, and players who are annoyed when everything is spelled out for them. However, getting around and learning a zone IS the game very often, as learning to get to a hard vista or get through a hard jumping puzzle was the game originally.

I know a lot of people couldn’t easily get to the vista at the end of the breached wall blitz jumping puzzle in the core game. It’s a vista and a hero point if I’m not mistaken. Want to complete the zone, do the JP, the entrance of which is no where near where those things are.

You either figure it out, or you look it up in the wiki or on Dulfy, or ask a guildie. There’s no tutorial for it. That’s how it was designed.

Anet figured, now that many people have been playing the game and have the basics down, they can do more for the people who play a bit better, or the people who don’t want to have their hand held through every single section.

I personally get annoyed when I’m doing a story and a giant red arrow on the minimap tells me where I need to go…sometimes even when there’s only one way TO go.

Saying that no company designs content you have to work your way through is simply untrue.

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Posted by: Dashingsteel.3410

Dashingsteel.3410

I would think that misleading map indicators causing more confusion than help is very different than achieving a vista that you have already located.

The problem with HoT is the minimap which I assume is to help you navigate often ends up misleading you as to the location of a particular area.

You used the example of the breached wall blitz vista. This is a platforming activity. The problem I have with HoT is one of navigation. The minimaps just don’t perform well with the multitiered maps.

I don’t enjoy my time being wasted. I wish the minimap instead of giving you up and down arrows would simply have a 1, 2 or 3 so you knew which tier of the map the area was in.

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Posted by: phys.7689

phys.7689

I would think that misleading map indicators causing more confusion than help is very different than achieving a vista that you have already located.

The problem with HoT is the minimap which I assume is to help you navigate often ends up misleading you as to the location of a particular area.

You used the example of the breached wall blitz vista. This is a platforming activity. The problem I have with HoT is one of navigation. The minimaps just don’t perform well with the multitiered maps.

I don’t enjoy my time being wasted. I wish the minimap instead of giving you up and down arrows would simply have a 1, 2 or 3 so you knew which tier of the map the area was in.

its not quite so simple, some are in the middle, some are same level but hidden, some are on top of the highest level. some need you to do an event to open doors.