Guild Wars 2

I’m playing through the xpac and it’kittenting that masochistic difficulty that only souls has been able to scratch. As an avid souls player, this pleases me to no end, despite repeated anvil trips.

Gorgeous, sprawling landscapes in the way of “If you see it, you can probably get to it”, winding paths everywhere linking it all together, mobs everywhere that will ruin your day if you’re not paying attention or falling back into the dungeon mindset. As much flak as I’ll get for saying this, it’s very much a “get gud” kind of xpac. Each failure tells you something different and the attempts just focus your abilities more, at least that’s how it feels to me.

I dont drop the saying lightly, as I have my fair share of frustrating moments and failures, especially in zerker gear it is less than forgiving which is fine. I just dont think people weree xpecting the spike in difficulty, or let’s be honest, the fundamental change in feel from core to HoT. Not a bad thing in the slightest, just it’s a change.

Sure I have my issues, but overall though after 3 days it seems solid, my biggest complaint if I had to say it though, would be the small amounts of XP for event completion in the jungle maps. Perfect example, kill a legendary wyvern and get gold medal will net you 5k bonus xp.

All in all though, Music is beyond what i expected, very melancholy and theme centric throughout the maps, story is definitely an upgrade, lighting engine tweaks and the “under the hood” work elevate it above what the core was.

As a whole I think it’s a good piece of work and you can see the amount of effort that went into it from the teams. Yeah there are problems, some big some small, tweaks are needed and bugs need to be fixed. Personally I’ve only got my elite 63% done just because I run into empty zones most of the time over the last few days, but with the masteries, despite my complaint listed above, i actually feel like I’m achieving a thing instead of just going to a point and pressing a button.

To me it feels like serious thought went into the player this time around, killing a trio of champions for HP points with passers by actually feels like a good fight, the kind that makes your heart beat faster when you come out on top. fights that makes you actually feel heroic and gets you one step closer to a goal to me are far better than rubbing yourself with green paint from an ogre. Some stuff you can’t do alone sure, as a mostly single player myself there is a definitive struggle, but look at it this way: This fight isnt about you vs. Mordy. It’s about the pact and all of tyria vs. Mordy, so everyone else in the jungle with you has to pull together and get the job done.

Once the maps start filling out events will go more smoothly and the fuss over “too hard” will dies down a bit methinks. Reminds me of how Orr used to be, and I’m really geuinely ok with that.

Just my 2 cents, take what you will from it

I really enjoyed reading this, your post is a breath of fresh air at the moment regarding the kittenstorm thats going on in the forums. I haven’t upgraded my account yet because I don’t have the money for it yet but after reading this I’m more excited to play now! I’ve never been a fan of zerker gear to be honest, I always experimented with the different stat builds and oriented my core builds around those stats.

And like you, I’m crazy for the souls series. Its a game that exceeded my expectations when I first played it, and after reading what you had to say I’m really hyped :p

This Addon is, based on the wishes the community had!! , a 8-9/10. It seemed kinda obvious to me, that this was not an Addon Anet made “with their own ideas to improve the game”. Nah, this Addon was everything the game lacked in the last 3 years, everything the community bragged about, put into one piece of Awesomeness (Yes, Colin … i said it).
Community wants more challanging Content? → Raids
Community wants a better story → ON POINT achieved!
Community wanted an Orr like Endgame that actually felt dangerous to play → absolute nailed
Community wanted Guild Halls in “Guild Wars” → Got it
Precourser Crafting → Here take it
Killing the Zerk Meta → Future will tell with Raids, but in the new maps, taking Zerker will make you an easy target for the enemies for sure!

The List goes on, alot for PvP and WvW but since I’m not active there, i wont speak for them. But it seems obvious for me, that this addon is an “We collected all issues with the game over the last 3 years and are selling solution for them to you for just 50 Bucks!”

Not that im not happy with that. I am!

Add my voice to the posts above. My only major issue with the expansion is that for the next two days I’ll remain away from my pc so I can’t play it (being an adult is not all it’s cut out to be).

Just for the record, I’ve never played Dark Souls, though I am familiar with it and may try it if I ever get bored of GW2 (no time for both).

I like the Souls series, too! I just love this expansion, it’s kittening awesome! Easily a 9/10.

I agree 100%, I really do hope Anet do not cave in with the difficulty. I like hard challenging content that if I do not play my best will punish me.
The fact that I can afk/alt tab half the time in the most dangerous parts of Tyria and be fine wasn’t exciting.
The fact that tequatl a legendary dragon, a big boss of the game has been reduced to a daily farm chest.
One of the main reasons I have stuck to sPVP for quite a while now is just to find myself in situations where I have to keep my instincts up.
Just wish I could enjoy this content on a class I have been looking forward to playing, might be too late but if they really wanted to gate this in some way or another. Gold gating it or making an early personal story which unlocks your elite would have been awesome

+1