Guild Wars 2

I maxed all 9 professions in hero points for their elite specialization and am finding myself back on Skyrim. I thought the xpac was supposed to give us more to do, but after unlocking specs I’m dead bored.

-Dungeons are completely dead, pretty much removed from the game with the rewards nerf.

-Fractals gave us double the work and grind + mastery grind for less rewards. There are also NO NEW FRACTALS. Just the same old boring rotation with number tweaks and existing mistlocks buffed. Fractals were not expanded upon at all with the exception of a bleh legendary backpiece.

-World Meta events take HUGE amounts of time (2 hr+ each meta), fail regularly, and the game spawns dead maps faster than then the U.S. Treasury prints money. Either I never have time to finish an event from 1 hour of map hopping to find an organized one, or spend 40mins before realizing there is no hope at all that the map is even going to make it to the end phase. Rewards like the bladed armor chest are RNG at the end, so you can go through it all and get nothing.

-General focus on world events creates this feeling that I don’t have control over my own progression, that I’m sitting here waiting on 200 people on a map to do their stuff right so that I can get anywhere. As player, I generally don’t feel important anymore. Getting anything in this game seems to be just sheer luck. Whether is getting a precursor drop or getting into a good map. There is no player control over their growth at all.

-Rewards in general suck and seem to become less and less with each update instead of more. Cost of ascended gear has skyrocketed to the point of making gear for new characters an impossibility. If you weren’t and early bird that got your crap early, your pretty much screwed. Don’t even think about trying to make celestial gear… if your a ele then your double screwed.

-EVERYTHING is expensive. Whenever I’m standing in front of the TP, I feel like I’m living in the Great Depression and standing in a breadline with a 20$ just to buy one loaf (a.k.a one single strength or scholar rune).

-The expansion is pretty small, I blew through the story in less than an hour and don’t really feel compelled to play through it again just to get slammed with bugs from the last boss. The quality of the storytelling was very low as well.

-From the master system to the above problem, to the length, the game DEMANDS MUCH but RETURNS LITTLE. I feel like my time playing is wasted.

I completely agree, to be honest. I’m just grinding my way with Dragon’s Stand to get the experience for masteries. And I got a side mission that consists of making Trailblazer gear for my necro, except that Trailblazer can’t be obtained. At all…

This expansion was more of a patch I’m beginning to think…

Derigar.7810:

This expansion was more of a patch I’m beginning to think…

The players asked for an expansion, there never was one. You were all sold the living story 3, packaged and sold as “an expansion.”

I’m surprised you haven’t found the new Elite Specs themselves interesting enough to keep playing. I started on my Guardian turned Dragonhunter, and learning to play HoT in comfort was a bit of a curve.

After finishing HoT masteries, I gave my Thief some time at Daredevil. Unlike Dragonhunter, Daredevil seemed very ‘meh’ until I unlocked all of the Elite Spec’s features. That’s when it happened, fun. Extreme fun. While Daredevil doesn’t offer the direct “get in there and get some” to the point of almost feeling invincible type of play that I was used to on my Dragonhunter, it was extremely enjoyable to play. You have to actively monitor and play the field instead of just smashing things in the face and telling them to get some. My build also allows for an insane amount of mobility to the point that people message me asking what profession I am.

I’m still working out the specifics of using the Staff most effectively, but seeing the light of Daredevil has me really interested to see what else is hidden behind the other 7 Elite Specs.

lordhelmos.7623:

The expansion is pretty small, I blew through the story in less than an hour.

I agree with most of your points, but this I just can’t believe.

" I blew through the story in less than an hour"

And i got my legendary backpiece in one day.

Reaper.1239:

" I blew through the story in less than an hour"

And i got my legendary backpiece in one day.

^

Got all my Masteries done and learned my new elite professions, backwards and forwards, same day.

(Or maybe not)

I’m getting bored too. I’ve seen the maps, done the meta, finished the story . Got the elite specs that I care about. The only thing left is helping my friends with the guild hall (around 5 or 6 people in it, so may take a while). But otherwise? I don’t like the new gear all that much (so no need to farm that).

The story was better then most of the previous stuff, but was still lacking some important stuff. Overall it felt rushed, I understand that they wanted to add some “emergency” to the story but it ended up being more like “let’s hurry up and kill mordy but first let’s find the egg, save my friends and oh mordy needed some killing”.
No follow up on the pale tree? Rythlock saying “I’ll explain latter cub, but did never do so”. My sylvari went into the machine that made scarlet crazy, but at the same time canach is more troubled with mordy then I am.
The egg is super important (so important that the expansion that supposed to be around mordy focusses more on the egg then on the actual subject of the expansion). At some point caithe states that the egg chose me as “it’s champion”, does that mean we are a dragon-champion (like how we mordy his champion showed up in season 2)? I mean does that mean we are ‘corrupted’ by the dragon? How (and when) did the ‘egg’ choose us as it’s champion?
Also rata novus tells us that each dragon has a weakness. We seriously had to learn that? Let’s use our plain old logic here: We killed zhaitan —> killing elder dragons is possible --> killing something means it’s not perfect in every way —> it’s not perfect so it has a weakness/flaw --> if one dragon has a weakness other dragons do to. But nooo we had to actually learn that dragons had A weakness and that’s it (no we don’t know what the weakness of each dragon is)… a.k.a. rata novus was even big waste of time…

For a game that costs 50 bucks, I expect the game to not crash every 30 minutes (by default, 64-bit version helps but still crashes on me although not as often). More maps/maps that don’t focus on the “better grind for the meta and masteries ‘cause it’s all there is”. The empty maps, full maps where everyone stands at a waypoint doing nothing(a.k.a. Dragon’s stand) show it doesn’t work. To have a story with some kind of ending… (answering some questions, following up on people, etc… (I know the story continues in living story 3 but I feel it still needed an ending of some sort)

lordhelmos.7623:

The expansion is pretty small, I blew through the story in less than an hour and don’t really feel compelled to play through it again just to get slammed with bugs from the last boss. The quality of the storytelling was very low as well.

without the mastery grind, it’s indeed not much more then 1 hour :/

lordhelmos.7623:

-World Meta events take HUGE amounts of time (2 hr+ each meta), fail regularly, and the game spawns dead maps faster than then the U.S. Treasury prints money. Either I never have time to finish an event from 1 hour of map hopping to find an organized one, or spend 40mins before realizing there is no hope at all that the map is even going to make it to the end phase.

-General focus on world events creates this feeling that I don’t have control over my own progression, that I’m sitting here waiting on 200 people on a map to do their stuff right so that I can get anywhere.

-Rewards in general suck and seem to become less and less with each update instead of more.

-The expansion is pretty small.

These are the points I most agree with. While the idea of a lot of story-ish events leading up to one big event is a cool idea on paper, in practice, it’s not been much fun for me.

I get into dead maps all the time and if I get into one with people doing the events, most of the time, the meta fails, anyway. Doing a few rounds of events, hoping for a successful meta is really wearing me down and making the content seem unenjoyable and tedious.

I wish there was more I could solo in the jungle maps, if for no other reason than to feel like I’m getting somewhere, completing maps, etc. I do feel like I spend too much of my playing time waiting for other people, either to help with something non-soloable or to actually do the events or actually even succeed at the events.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve used the LFG to get into a map that the person making the group claimed to be an “organized map” only to find that they just said this hoping for more people and no one is actually doing the events, or the events fail even on these maps that are populated and supposedly organized, so that strategy isn’t really working well for me, either, right now.

The reward nerfs in various areas of the game have been both disappointing and discouraging, yeah.

The expansion seems small to me if you take out the grindier aspects of HoT, like the mastery XP thing and stuff like precursor crafting.

HoT actually made me stop playing. I’ll be back, probably, but for now I’m taking a break.

I think I was so hyped up for HoT I expected it to reinvigorate the game. I don’t see it doing that. Judging by the forums and what people are saying in world, I think HoT has alienated a fair number of people. That’s exactly the opposite of what an expansion should do.

The reasons are legion and have been listed just about everywhere, but here are some of my reasons for taking a break:

• Maps are unfriendly.
• Content is heavily gated.
• XP was nerfed.
• Elite (poorly named) specs are gated behind a bit of a hero point grind, especially if you’re a fairly new player. I’m not. I have 4 chars done, but by gating skills so heavily behind these points, Anet blocked off some of the most enjoyable new content of HoT.
• Some hero points are guarded by champs. The golem one in AB is guarded by a champ and* you need ley line gliding to get to it easily. Yes, you can get to it by making a perfect jump from a tree, but you’ll probably be trying to do that for 30 minutes before you do. A prime example of how the anet developers have lost their way.
• Masteries are more grind on grind.
• The story is unsatisfying and a departure from lore (in my opinion).
• The new maps have killed WvW.
• Can’t get mastery credit in WvW or PvP.
• Dungeons have been killed.
• Anet confused annoying content with challenging content (Get the pocket raptors off the roads, please.).

I gave HoT a chance. I’ve done most of the content, but I just feel meh about it. I don’t get as much excitement from people running around these maps as I do just from doing Teq or SW. And that’s a sad statement about HoT.

I know others feel differently and that’s great for them, but it’s an expansion that kinda killed the game for me.

So I’m taking a break. I totally get why other people might be, too.

lordhelmos.7623:

I blew through the story in less than an hour.

Blatant exaggeration.

Rachiia.6045:

• The new maps have killed WvW.
• Can’t get mastery credit in WvW or PvP.
• Dungeons have been killed.

WvW being more or less dead in the borderlands is something I really didn’t see coming. Even groups in EB are small compared to what I was seeing pre-HoT. People have said that the numbers will return once people have finished all the HoT content (whatever that means), but the WvWers I’ve talked to mostly don’t think that’s the problem, so they don’t think time will fix it.

I wish I could get mastery XP on my 80s playing in WvW the way I could get skill points doing it pre-HoT and before the skill points from leveling were removed. WvW would be so much more fun if I could play it and simultaneously work on my masteries.

The dungeon thing is sad. I was working on my Dungeon Master title when they killed the dungeons and that was really disappointing.

GW2 is the only MMO I’ve played where they don’t just add new stuff to do in the form of expansions and updates – they actually nerf what’s already there. In other games, the previous content is either left as is for new players or is made easier for them. It generally isn’t altered in such a way as to punish new players or to take away what they had before.

But, but, but… Raids! We have 1 last chance guys!

lordhelmos.7623:

-World Meta events take HUGE amounts of time (2 hr+ each meta), fail regularly, and the game spawns dead maps faster than then the U.S. Treasury prints money. Either I never have time to finish an event from 1 hour of map hopping to find an organized one, or spend 40mins before realizing there is no hope at all that the map is even going to make it to the end phase. Rewards like the bladed armor chest are RNG at the end, so you can go through it all and get nothing.

-General focus on world events creates this feeling that I don’t have control over my own progression, that I’m sitting here waiting on 200 people on a map to do their stuff right so that I can get anywhere. As player, I generally don’t feel important anymore. Getting anything in this game seems to be just sheer luck. Whether is getting a precursor drop or getting into a good map. There is no player control over their growth at all.

This. So this. And this is mostly what we have to do in HoT. Very long meta events in which we have to rely on lots of other strangers for progression and rewards.

I’m tired of fighting with the megaservers, tired of searching for “good” maps. I’m tired of spending 2 hours in Verdant Brink, in a map I joined advertising t4 push, where I worked really hard to do my part in advancing events and reclaiming and defending rally points, only to fail to reach T4 and yet again receive no bladed coat box. I don’t like my rewards being tied to others who can’t be bothered or aren’t capable of participating in the meta events.

Or when I try to join with gw2 community, spend literally THIRTY minutes trying to get in a map with them, spamming ‘join’.

I do like the meta events, but to realise this is pretty much what the game is offering right now is… deflating. When you look at all the new collections, masteries, it’s all tied up with grinding the same four maps, over, and over, and over, and over.. and over.. and over. Then add all the bother with megaservers and finding a decent map. Or crashes/DCs near the end of the events. (Seriously can we have districts already?!)

I do like this game. It’s gorgeous, I love the game play, I like the lore, but these event-only maps, they’re not what I want to do with the majority of my GW2 time. And with no new dungeon cluster (instanced group content has always been my bread and butter. I’m still doing fractals, but.. those are all old. :/ ), I’m often finding myself thinking “huh.. I’m not sure what to do”, I think because I don’t want to struggle with map finding, don’t find it so fun to play with a map full of strangers, or want to spend 2 hours straight keeping up with same events I’ve already done more than a few times now, all with a decent chance to fail and feel completely unrewarded for the effort I put in because maybe there wasn’t enough people on the map or enough people simply didn’t care.

HoT was just released. I don’t want to be feeling like this yet. :/

jessiejay.3625:

Derigar.7810:

This expansion was more of a patch I’m beginning to think…

The players asked for an expansion, there never was one. You were all sold the living story 3, packaged and sold as “an expansion.”

It should of been a red flag when Arena Net advertised Season 1 as ‘an expansion worth’ of content.

Vavume.8065:

lordhelmos.7623:

I blew through the story in less than an hour.

Blatant exaggeration.

Quite so. Especially with all the forced wait times to sit through all the unskippable scenes and dialogue after the first time around.

Lothirieth.3408:

I think because I don’t want to struggle with map finding, don’t find it so fun to play with a map full of strangers, or want to spend 2 hours straight keeping up with same events I’ve already done more than a few times now, all with a decent chance to fail and feel completely unrewarded for the effort I put in because maybe there wasn’t enough people on the map or enough people simply didn’t care.

HoT was just released. I don’t want to be feeling like this yet. :/

I was in Tangled Depths recently and was trying to do the meta. It was on a map I joined because the person advertising said it was an organized map. Just before the meta began, people that were still taxiing in others started saying the map was full. Great. The map’s full, so we should be able to get the meta done.

But it failed. The map was full, but there weren’t enough people doing the meta for it to succeed. So, what happens? People in map chat start blaming and insulting the people that weren’t helping with the meta specifically but that were playing in the map.

I mean, I was doing the meta; I joined this specific map to get it done, but I still don’t think it’s fair some of the things I’m seeing.

People telling others to “get out of the map and go do something else if you’re not going to help with the meta” or telling everyone that’s in the map doing something else, like Hero Challenges or their map completions, that they need to drop everything they’re doing and “come help with this meta event.”

That’s why I’m such a lover of instanced content: you have control over who you play with. Want to be casual? Great! Want to be far more serious? Also great. But these event maps.. they just lump everyone together, people who have differing skills, different goals, etc and there is no way to control getting in maps with like minded people (people who want to explore, do hero points, etc or those who want to just focus on the meta.) It can cause hostility and frustration from all sides. It’s a glaring problem right now due to it being nearly all Hot is offering us.

Lothirieth.3408:

I was in Tangled Depths recently and was trying to do the meta. It was on a map I joined because the person advertising said it was an organized map. Just before the meta began, people that were still taxiing in others started saying the map was full. Great. The map’s full, so we should be able to get the meta done.

But it failed. The map was full, but there weren’t enough people doing the meta for it to succeed. So, what happens? People in map chat start blaming and insulting the people that weren’t helping with the meta specifically but that were playing in the map.

I mean, I was doing the meta; I joined this specific map to get it done, but I still don’t think it’s fair some of the things I’m seeing.

People telling others to “get out of the map and go do something else if you’re not going to help with the meta” or telling everyone that’s in the map doing something else, like Hero Challenges or their map completions, that they need to drop everything they’re doing and “come help with this meta event.”

Yes, I’ve seen this many times, especially where people ask in map chat for help doing a difficult HP. “Only do HP at (night / day)” “If you can’t help with the meta, get off the map!”

It’s generally bad.

Sadly, I think this is what you get when trying to make the “Defence of Lion’s Arch” permanent. As a temporary map/zone wide meta, it was excellent! But when trying to make is an ordinary persistent PvE zone and make a zone wide meta, there’s bound to be conflict of interest.

It’s a bit sad, really.

Zamfir.8462:

Yes, I’ve seen this many times, especially where people ask in map chat for help doing a difficult HP. “Only do HP at (night / day)” “If you can’t help with the meta, get off the map!”

I think what made it work well in SW was the fact that the whole map was one event. I guess you could argue the JP in SW was something else to do, but it didn’t take significant numbers away from the main effort. If players need to be on the same map to get things like hero points and mastery points that are required to progress their character, then it’s setting the main event up for failure.

The problem is the TD meta takes so much effort from everyone. I was in one TD organized map that just barely failed because lack of dps on one of the lanes. The other two finished. I also think it’s a bit rude to tell people to leave, and I personally just keep doing whatever I’m doing until it’s time to start. I’m not sitting around for an hour doing nothing in TD waiting for it to happen (but I still read the comm chats and know what to do when the time comes).

Celtic Lady.3729:

I was in Tangled Depths recently and was trying to do the meta. It was on a map I joined because the person advertising said it was an organized map. Just before the meta began, people that were still taxiing in others started saying the map was full. Great. The map’s full, so we should be able to get the meta done.

But it failed. The map was full, but there weren’t enough people doing the meta for it to succeed. So, what happens? People in map chat start blaming and insulting the people that weren’t helping with the meta specifically but that were playing in the map.

I mean, I was doing the meta; I joined this specific map to get it done, but I still don’t think it’s fair some of the things I’m seeing.

People telling others to “get out of the map and go do something else if you’re not going to help with the meta” or telling everyone that’s in the map doing something else, like Hero Challenges or their map completions, that they need to drop everything they’re doing and “come help with this meta event.”

I was on an organised map about 30 mins ago, or at least we tried, where on the GW2 comm TS and everything, we where taxing in, when people started to say the map was full, we had about 50 people for the meta, the megaserver is breaking this event, combined with its ultra high fail rate, people just ignore it and go to other events they know will succeed.

I spent my evening doing low level fractals and Orr events. There is nothing for me in HoT areas. Meta events are way too long.
I tried to do Leaf of Kudzu today and just to finish tier 1 and craft the first bow, I needed 450 gold. Seriously, you can order the pre for 717 gold, or buy it now for 799. I won’t lose my time with this bs and I’ll buy it directly from tp.
I don’t even want to start thinking about the next gen of legendaries. It’s going to be atrocious.

But the worse is WvW. This was my favorite mode, I was spending several hours/night roaming with guildies and we had a blast. BWE were amazing, new spec + old maps, it was perfect. And now, it’s all gone. Desert BL is a no man’s land.
Anet destroyed our favorite game mode, like they destroyed dungeons.

All they seem to care about is esport.

Sort of torn on this.

I have been having fun in HoT, but after completing the story on my second character, I realized there is little reason for me to play at the moment.
At the moment, HoT does not have enough to offer to justify its price tag. Id say it was worth about $20-$30 in its current state.

Sure, they added a ton of features and a lot of new areas, but if you actually look at the THINGS to do, there isn’t that much (even for a casual player like myself).

My biggest complaint is still the mastery grind. To me, it seems as if there wasn’t enough content to keep people busy enough until the next update, so they adjusted the grind on masteries to slow everyone down. The problem is, for a casual player like myself, just like legendaries, I dont see any need to grind and unlock more masteries, just so I can grind and unlock more.

I really hope this isn’t he fate of MMOs. I hope there are some game developers that realize the majority of people play for FUN, and not just OCD trying to complete everything.

Suggestion If we are going to be waiting for content, which means we’ll be repeating content, dont make it so obvious, and give us something fun to do.

-Open world PvP in certain areas with the results of those battles having affects on those areas (ex: Meta events change based on PvP standing in that area)
-HOT zones, with certain things to do – ex: Hunt XXX mob for certain materials, or help NPC faction in their war.
-Epic lore quests. Not just obvious grinds, but instead, combine knowledge, skill, luck, and grind and put a worthwhile reward at the end.
-ANYTHING….

Inventory management is my new end-game: we now have bags that contain more bags, which all contain 15 DIFFERENT kinds of worthless crap. Great system. Much fun.

One of the reasons for constant failures on VB and other maps is that the waypoints are often contested and people can’t easily get to the area without running through the 3d fustercluck/rat maze. Also some of the events are a PITA and take forever to complete, and involve a lot of running around. So you have dozens of people clustered around the Pact Encampment events as the wp is always accessible and the events are straightforward, and few people doing the Ordinance Corps events as the wp is usually contested, the events are scattered all over and the Airplane Salvage mission takes forever (not to mention landing in the middle of a group of elite and veteran frogs and getting ganked, even when there are only two people doing the event).

The contested waypoint thing has always been one of the stupidest things Anet has ever done, and they have persisted in this stupidity despite people complaining about it from day one. There may be a few spots where it is needed so that people can’t bypass parts of the events, but for the most part it serves no purpose other than to limit mobility and frustrate people.

I’m not even half way through the expansion. Wanna know why? It’s because I don’t spend all day grinding through the story, getting hero points, and trying to finish hings as fast as possible. My revenant is still level 8… Because I haven’t used times of knowledge so I can actually get attached to the character and have fun levelling. I’m not in a rush to finish things, I’m a casual player, and when they added hard core content apparently “it’s too easy.” No that kitten is hard. Because I don’t have a legandary, or 100% map completion. I’ve been playing since launch and only have 3 level 80s. Because I don’t rush things. Take your time, sometimes you just have to appreciate the game as it is. If they never made an expansion you would still be doing the same old crap.

Yeash what started out as an exciting experience has now just turned into a boring grind to get masteries, the higher you get the more of a grind (Bore) it becomes.

And this……………

xev.9476:

Inventory management is my new end-game: we now have bags that contain more bags, which all contain 15 DIFFERENT kinds of worthless crap. Great system. Much fun.

We are just being bombarded with more and more rubbish stuff, Iv’e never seen so much rubbish, oh wait extra bag spaces on sale in the gem store, maybe there’s a plan here.

Since the beginning of the development of HoT, I tried here over and over again to tell people that Anet had virtually nothing when they changed their business model except for the next few epiodes of the ls and so had to hastily assemble something together in what is not much time for game development and HoT came out stuttering and scratching. I sure hope that this is now blatantly obvious to most of you.

I can also quite understand people that want to do a meta event on a map. It´s not hard to relogg and join a map that does not have a meta going, it should not be asked too much if you don´t want to do the event itself.

I like HoT in general. But:
I play casually because of work restrains lately, and even I managed to get some stuff going in HoT while dividing time between Core Tyria and HoT. Yes, the novelty was there, but it gets grindy really fast, inventory fills up quickly and is pretty annoying too at some places. How someone could hide an unreachable mastery point in the first map for a beginner is completely beyond me, or why there are places where you die when you can´t glide anymore. I don´t know how often I failed the gliding minigame and got squat, this is as annoying as the best Super Mario hard mode game ever. This thing is simply horrendous for someone who is afraid of heights, and to get diddly squat for your effort then is the icing on the cake.
I am also a little bit sad for the lack of new fractals, the development is surely a grindy one here.

I’m taking a very long break until the expansion goes on sale for $10 and dungeon rewards are completely restored.

I will be an older guy by then.

I don’t feel like this is the kind of expansion content that can withstand the test of time to reach the next large update.

There’s nothing wrong with taking a break to see how things pan out. Alot of changes need to be made to restore the appeal of the game.

Wow … still haven’t finished any stories – PS, LS2 or HoT. I am just having fun in the world and playing around —- every day. Never have rushed a game and I doubt I will start now just to say “I finished it all in one day!!”

It took me and the youngest son 4 years to get to the end of the story for Daggerfall … too much stuff to worry about getting to the end I guess.

I took a break in January. A break I thought would last for way longer because I grew tired of Anet being Anet and my friends also started quitting.

But then one night I was bored and out of complete impulse I bought HoT. The mastery system and all the tiny changes that happened (which when you add them all up make big changes for me) made me want to quit right away. But since I paid so much money for this expansion I forced myself to play it.
And honestly it’s not something I regret. It’s fun.
But I do agree with pretty much your general complaints (except that I got lucky with bugs). However I have a lot of free time so I don’t mind too much the hour long meta events and if you can’t find a map, it’s really easy to get a meta event going (at least in VB and AB) : put a tag up, watch people flock to you, advertise in party search. So far, I’ve been lucky with that because it always works (of course, I don’t do it when there’s only 30 mins left and the map is in T1 still).

I was SOOO excited for hot…. before it came out… I’m super bored of it, I hate that raids weren’t already in the game, I don’t like not having our 3 new legendaries, I HATE then when we do get access to our legendaries it will all be a gold grind or bust out the credit card situation. I know they do that so we buy gems which just makes me angry and resentful. Think it’s time for me to go back to wow, they are bringing everything I loved about gw2 to wow anyway and don’t want me to use my credit card to get gear. I get to actually ya know, play the game. Been a gw2 player since the first beta weekend and the magic is gone.

And then on the other side is me.

I took my time on the new maps and I am still unlocking the first areas. Did a few of the story missions and as many events as I can find on the map. Sitting at about 30 mastery points even though I see over 100 sitting above many others.

My point is that if you want to rush everything to get it “done” it is your own fault if it is over far to quickly. I prefer the journey, but if your only shooting for the destination then don’t be to disappointed when it arrives far to soon.

Once I got my elite specs I seldom return to HoT. It’s really perfect for organized guilds, group content that works best for large organized guilds or guilds that do organized runs on content.

As a solo player, when it’s night, you pretty much have to group to get things done. Plus I run into being on the wrong level of the map, or running into a dead end on the map while fighting my way through mobs, or not having enough people to do some timed content.

I don’t enjoy all the frustration so I seldom go there. I pretty much like the old maps and do them nearly everyday.

There needs to be more incremental rewards for the long meta events especially.

They are on the right track with the chests you get as the meta progresses, but those chests need to be more consequential.

Playing the meta all the way through should net half of the hard to get long term currency (crystalline ore or whatever) that winning the meta does. So winning matters, but people that contribute to trying still progress…so people keep trying.

Also, the 200% participation is an understandable step, but it is too punishing. If I want to PvE for an evening, essentially I am stranded on one map because who wants to grind the 200% again? Guildie needs help in some other zone? Forget it. Need help at our EB keep driving off the hordes; love to but I have 200%. Also, if the megaserver asks me to move maps, I need to keep my established participation, losing it is absurd. Lastly, heaven forbid you crash, which never happens anymore, right?

Sadly I’m getting on the bored train too.

-The new zones were ok, but like it has been said are made for huge organized guilds. As a solo player I can play through it but its just not worth finding the right map for an event that will most likely fail.
-WvW new maps are really cool looking, but completely empty considering how huge they are (and they require a group to get anywhere).
-The new specs where fun, but they can only go so far.
-Dungeon nerf to rewards makes them pointless unless grinding the new mastery system.
-Fractals have no new content at all. They simple stretched it out, (even the instabilities are the same). Really how much work did this take? 5 minutes?

I’ll probably do some more dailies to see what next step to the new fractal back piece is, but after that will probably drop the game for a while. Which is understandable after a point…. but it should not be to this point already… I mean it basically just came out!

It not about RUSHING…

It’s about focus and balance.

I’m not complaining because I’m rushing and I want top tier carp naow.

I have 10 mastery points assigned. I’ve completed the story through the end of Auric Basic (as I like the stories). I’ve done 100% map completion on VB, but am about 50% on AB and have peeked across into TD as the next phase of the story is in there. I never ran daily dungeons in Tyria, as a matter of fact, there are a number of dungeons I’ve never been in as I couldn’t find any one who wanted to go who’d let me watch the cut scenes and experience the dungeon properly. (I can follow directions, and have done several as guild runs where I stood where I was supposed to and CC’d or DPS’d on command, but it wasn’t that much fun, tbh.)

My frustration is I don’t feel like I’m “in the world” the same way as I did in Tyria. The original Tyrian content was well balanced and I felt I could participate as much or as little as I wanted.

Now, with map wide timed events, there’s no room for idle enjoyment. The events that happen are chained from the start and there is an urgency to follow them. If one doesn’t, one can explore a little, but I always feel like I’m slinking around in the shadows and missing the main point of the map. I never felt that way in Tyria.

Frankly, I wish there was more to do, and didn’t mind the original mastery requirements and I don’t need to be at the end game naow…

I just want to enjoy this great world that Arena Net have created, and one that used to feel well balanced, and now just feels relentless.

Keep all the zones as they are as the combat zones, and roll out parallel zones for proper PvE.

Tommyknocker.6089:

And then on the other side is me.

I took my time on the new maps and I am still unlocking the first areas. Did a few of the story missions and as many events as I can find on the map. Sitting at about 30 mastery points even though I see over 100 sitting above many others.

My point is that if you want to rush everything to get it “done” it is your own fault if it is over far to quickly. I prefer the journey, but if your only shooting for the destination then don’t be to disappointed when it arrives far to soon.

I think that once you actually get map completion on VB, you’ll realize just how small the expansion maps really are. I understand that they probably seem huge and overwhelming to you right now but, believe me, that will change. Once you get the “big picture” of how the expansion maps are structured, you’ll realize that they are not in fact big – they are tiny.

Finally got into what looked like a good DS map. On our way to the boss, crashed, lost all participation of course and then got dumped into an empty map. Can’t join on party mates because the map is full.

This a sweet, well conceived user experience for sure.

Well … I have to agree on some points.

With Hot a lot changed atleast for me.First of all i was pretty hyped for those specs.( missing tempest and daredevil so far,but im getting them soon.)I enjoyed playing with them.They are fun and DH hit like a truck its insane and Revenant is freaking op,once you know how to play that class,but all in all.

Revenant feels also very limited,because i can pick up only two stances and switching between them around.They are fun and each got their own skills , but still i have the feeling on revenant , that … If i play “condi” so malyx.I dont feel really like i play condi ? Or if i play shiro i dont feel like i play for “dps” more like.Ohh nice new animations.Sweet… I hope you know what i mean.For me it feels a bit weird.

Also those maps.Seriously hands down.Nice design!I enjoy dragon stand , but sadly i cant stay there for discovering it,because its timelimited.So im searching for a decent map to do the event.Everything went fine,but… it feels somehow so repetive you get the camp,then protecting the caravan ,while they go from point A to point B.Then they have some “weirds” idea … atleast the wyvern idea is weird and feels so … useless.You know ? collecting meats to lure the wyverns , but they barely hit the modrems and barely affect anything.They are just visual effect for me.Nice burning , but thats all.
Then later ,when we reach the last phase ,before endboss.Its the part ,which can be sooo annoying and boring.First its some kind of nice and fun.The idea behind it.I like it,that it requires some coordination,but if just ONE commander sleep with those pods and they spawn again.You have to redo it all again.Atleast for your “tree” or you need to restart completly.Also that you are running around like a mindless zerg and killing preserver over and over … and over … and over ….. and over.I feel me like my character need some fitness or atleast i hope i gain more endurance or so and IF i do not keep up with the zerg.Enemies kitten me up and im dead.Also the scaling is ugh.

Everything hit like a truck so if i dont pay attention im dead,because of the scaling and as engi you do without any purpose massive dmg and getting overruned by everything.So waypoint→Run again to the tree→try to keep up with the zerg→fail→dead→wp→ retry→Do it over and over and over again→close to win→suddenly bot failed to keep on preserver dead fast enough→need to run again in circle→ Over time its pretty boring and frustrating.

Then i get my reward and asking myself sometimes … is it that effort worth ? Running around in circle and fixxing problems just for a chance to get a leystone armor and some other stuff.

Then the boss come.Modremoth “Phsysical body”.First of all.Im a bit … dissapointed.Why ? Because when i saw the trailer i was hopeing for a more … jungle like dragon.Not like a dragon stolen from china and covered with some vines.Also you have run to the bombs or killing those pods.Nice idea i enjoy it , but i kinda dont get it why always.There must be a elite stalker spawn and a blocker modrem or a punisher or demolisher.Always a Stalker elite.Doesnt matter how many ppls are on the island.Its kinda weird and like “Ohh please ignore me stalker.Or …psssh ! be quiet ! i got it you attacking me or you are everywhere !”

Then after you suceed.You feel a bit proud , but when you see the movie scene.You get kinda the feeling like "Okay … Anet lacked some budget for phase two ? Or they had mercy with us and said okay let it die.Peoples “suffered” enough.Let us make it die like zhaitan died."

Pod runs are yeah …nice?But those enemies there those rolling devils and smokescales,Stoneheads and brickle bla bla bla.Make it so annoying , that im like UGH ! … Why !?.My solution is that i always feel me more or less “forced” to go on scrapper and enjoy my sneak gyro until it getting nerfed soon.So i can pick up with almost no issues my pods and rewards.

Tangled Depth:
IM sick of those mushrooms … so annoying and those chaks with their sounds are so annoying over time.Also i end up totally lost on that map and have to use the map to see where i am.I really enjoy the map design , but ugh … Seriously those chaks are so annoying and mushrooms.

Auric Basin: I really enjoy the map style but also that event is so sensitive and some “challenges” are more harder than other and mostly peoples goes for the “easy ones” So … you have to wait until some volunteers go to the “hard” ones.Or having some kind of complaining in map chat about “NO I DONT WANT TO BE EAST ,because ( insert random reason here) Or NO i dont like North !”but yeah you got that on other maps too.

Verdant brink: I really enjoy gliding on this map.Its the only map ,that make me feels some “benefits” from gliding.Sure you need leyline gliding on other maps , but in verdant brink you can glide and enjoy the map from upwards.Compared to other maps….Okay auric basin aswell just abit.But also here those events are getting tired over time and yeah.Mindless zombie zerg.Go ! Move

I kinda feel me tired and have to say that the rewards feels sometimes so … “low” for that amount of effort you need to put it and hoping that other ppls do it right otherwise :“Good bye New map !”Its ugh …

Also I barely dont like to attack anything in this expansion,because it feels so “overfilled” with too many monsters.If im done with one another one spawn right next to me or from somewhere else it goes my way and attack me.Almost no time to relax and enjoy the place.Or maybe im just unlucky….

Story:Seriously … it could be sooo nice,but it feels so rushy.I was really interested in how modremoth turn them into minions and more stuff.I played the story as sylvari just to “hear” modremoth,but it was so rarely and i barely felt any affect.Sometimes my character says.“Yeah i can hear him.His voice is strong.”and i was like “really ?check chat nope … nothing there.”I was abit dissapointed and also it felt so much rushed.
I wanted to know more about faolain and the nightmare court,about Modremoths minions “fabric” and a “better” modremoth.Not like i didnt enjoyed the fight against him.

Also what i didnt really got was.“Every dragon has a weakness.”Okay and what about zhaitan?We just spammed key 1 until his healthpool was 0.Also … we fighting against modremoth mind to defeat him.It was really bugged to be honest.My friend and i needed to “improvise” ,because sometimes he didnt got stunned or the gliding and the bubble from braham didnt worked(Also Braham became a dragonhunter ? but not using his bow?I was so sad).Then i died and got warped up and needed to stay in a … cage or so ? and waiting until my friend killed him.It would be fun,if modremoth would affected me like he did at the beginning of the combat,when i died or so.

Seriously ? I really loved to see my sylvari being under his influence.It was sick and sadly short.

So yeah some parts are meeh and some parts are good.

I enjoy those specs , but i dont feel like i barely feel in mood to go to maguuma jungle,because enemies and sensitive events and frustraition once you fail.Or need to run and run , because you having a enemy zerg behind you and feel like “Omg! Please … let me have a break !?”( sure it has to be a jungle and in this case well made.Fighting to survive , but still ugh for me atleast.)
Mostly i end up playing my spec in tyria or spending time there more than in hot or maybe go to verdant brink and be there and sometimes going for ds in hope for a sucess , but yeah so annoying and kinda like “Please guys ! Let us do it! Please …”

Also im kind of dissapointed about the masteries.The Tyria ones seems to be better than the Hot ones.Atleast more usefull like more movespeed in cities or reviving faster or crafting faster , than using only hot content stuff like mushroom or surviving in poison fields or finding treasure mushroom ( pretty neat to see enemies in stealth , but sometimes its bug around.)And then if i see sometimes what i have to do to unlock those traits or how long i have to grind its kinda meeh.It kills the motivation for me.Im at mastery 44 and almost have all “usefull” masteries like poison,Nuhoch stealth,traveling and mushroom speed and bouncing.For the other stuff i barely see sense in it unless i go for the asc weapon for my specs,which looking cool , but sadly closed behind a mastery gate.(dam exhaulted gathering <.< + Stealth gliding and hopeing for good rgn for reclaimed rares).

All in all hot give me sometimes more frustraition than fun and the only thing im looking forward are those two more coming specs for our classes.I want to play them.Other stuff im also maybe interested is raid ,but just slightly and Guild hall is fun , but also a long way to go and for 50 € i wanted a better story and more well … “awesome” stuff.

It’s not bad for their first expansion. Hopefully they will learn that there were a lot of people not complaining about the old content not being hard enough because they were out enjoying the old maps and didn’t have a reason to complain. People with 69 or more alts says something about this game. I’m not against hard content but GW2 always gave us a choice. I could have a viable character with just doing dynamic events or questing which I still enjoy doing.

I’m kind of surprised anyone is surprised by this.

one question, is it allowed to farm his maguuma masteries with spider veteran farm at the first map?
didn’t want to create a new thread.

I’m so glad i didn’t buy HoT… after reading so many reviews / forum posts , confirming many of the things i was expecting to come… there is a good chance that I will not be coming back the the game any time soon. last time i logged in was at the end of July, and i still have no desire to play this game again.

lordhelmos.7623:

I maxed all 9 professions in hero points for their elite specialization and am finding myself back on Skyrim. I thought the xpac was supposed to give us more to do, but after unlocking specs I’m dead bored.

-Dungeons are completely dead, pretty much removed from the game with the rewards nerf.

-Fractals gave us double the work and grind + mastery grind for less rewards. There are also NO NEW FRACTALS. Just the same old boring rotation with number tweaks and existing mistlocks buffed. Fractals were not expanded upon at all with the exception of a bleh legendary backpiece.

-World Meta events take HUGE amounts of time (2 hr+ each meta), fail regularly, and the game spawns dead maps faster than then the U.S. Treasury prints money. Either I never have time to finish an event from 1 hour of map hopping to find an organized one, or spend 40mins before realizing there is no hope at all that the map is even going to make it to the end phase. Rewards like the bladed armor chest are RNG at the end, so you can go through it all and get nothing.

-General focus on world events creates this feeling that I don’t have control over my own progression, that I’m sitting here waiting on 200 people on a map to do their stuff right so that I can get anywhere. As player, I generally don’t feel important anymore. Getting anything in this game seems to be just sheer luck. Whether is getting a precursor drop or getting into a good map. There is no player control over their growth at all.

-Rewards in general suck and seem to become less and less with each update instead of more. Cost of ascended gear has skyrocketed to the point of making gear for new characters an impossibility. If you weren’t and early bird that got your crap early, your pretty much screwed. Don’t even think about trying to make celestial gear… if your a ele then your double screwed.

-EVERYTHING is expensive. Whenever I’m standing in front of the TP, I feel like I’m living in the Great Depression and standing in a breadline with a 20$ just to buy one loaf (a.k.a one single strength or scholar rune).

-The expansion is pretty small, I blew through the story in less than an hour and don’t really feel compelled to play through it again just to get slammed with bugs from the last boss. The quality of the storytelling was very low as well.

-From the master system to the above problem, to the length, the game DEMANDS MUCH but RETURNS LITTLE. I feel like my time playing is wasted.

It’s November 15th. The game released Oct 23rd. The expansion has been out 24 days. Considering that, here are some thoughts:

• On a single character, the instanced story content, plus map meta events combined are 20-25 hours of play.

• Map completion for each character will be another 3-5 hours per map (12-20 hours for all maps total depending on many things)
  
  You claim to have got unlock on 9 characters, so even if you had map competition of core game on all characters (don’t lie and claim you did) you have likely spent 100+ hours in HoT up this point. Consider what all they did give you

• Unique maps like nothing we’ve seen before in the game
• Adventures
• New play mechanics for gliding, jumping, etc… though masteries
• New profession
• New elite specializations
• Redesigned meta mechanics that give the entire map purpose and make it feel like a destination.
• Revamped story delivery
• New WvW map
• New sPvP game play format (Stronghold)

HoT brings so much that feels like a new game. It’s a phenominal expansion and we’re not even done yet. Still coming.

• Raids
• Continuation fo Living World
• New legendaries
• sPvP Leagues

I’d say you got your money’s worth and if you really want to be in game that much instead of I don’t know living life, then Skyrim, the new Fallout game… there are plenty of options. It sounds like you’re upset about lack of explorable dungeons, but your repeatable content is coming though raids. ArenaNet has said from the beginning they want you to go play other games as well.

I agree with you completely. This expansion is just big grindfest plus bugfest. We don’t have raids nor new legendaries. Seems 45€ is just way too much for unfinished game.

Game is not fun anymore + rewards are bad.

I just log to do few pvp matches and tried today guild runs and I didn’t get any rewards. Quality of this game is decreasing rapidly (not graphic quality, gaming quality).

After playing the expansion since release I’ve come to the conclusion that it feels like a collection of four large open world raids. I’ve completed the maps (all except Dragon’s stand) on all nine professions, did Tarir countless times (commanded south since the first days when people didn’t know what to do), helped on countless occasions during the Tangled depths meta event but I still have a feeling like I am not important as an individual player. It all comes down to the question if you have the zerg (or zergs) to do the event or not. It is virtually impossible to fail a HoT meta event if you have enough people on the map which know how to at least press #1.

However what really struck me was the nerf that was done to the dungeons. I am (or at least was) a really avid dungeon player. I’ve done every dungeon path at least 50-100 times and found myself lately teaching beginners how to play them. The gold and tokens (the amount before the nerf) were just enough to make it worthwhile for all of us. Now not only is it not worthwhile anymore but the dungeon LFG is actually completely empty most of the time. I don’t like fractals (never actually liked them) so making them more attractive by killing off dungeons is in my opinion a really bad way to do it.

The elite specializations are interesting. Some actually made me finish off map completion on professions I didn’t like before (most notably guardian with Dragonhunter). But the elite specializations weren’t made equally interesting for all professions so my main’s Berserker feels way underwhelming compared to lets say Dragonhunter, Herald, Reaper etc.

What I find interesting and annoying is that I fee YES to both of these:

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Consider what all they did give you

• Unique maps like nothing we’ve seen before in the game
• Adventures
• New play mechanics for gliding, jumping, etc… though masteries
• New profession
• New elite specializations
• Redesigned meta mechanics that give the entire map purpose and make it feel like a destination.
• Revamped story delivery
• New WvW map
• New sPvP game play format (Stronghold)

HoT brings so much that feels like a new game. It’s a phenominal expansion and we’re not even done yet. Still coming.

• Raids
• Continuation fo Living World
• New legendaries
• sPvP Leagues

I’d say you got your money’s worth and if you really want to be in game that much instead of I don’t know living life, then Skyrim, the new Fallout game… there are plenty of options. It sounds like you’re upset about lack of explorable dungeons, but your repeatable content is coming though raids. ArenaNet has said from the beginning they want you to go play other games as well.

holodoc.5748:

After playing the expansion since release I’ve come to the conclusion that it feels like a collection of four large open world raids.

The maps are great and beautiful and coordinated (and relentless), but I don’t feel like I’m my own character in charge of their destiny in a large well designed world. I feel like I’m one overworked creep in a map wide moba and I’m not the champion or summoner.

From my point of view HoT is missing at the very least 1 new dungeons, 2-3 raids, 2-3 more pvp maps and a WvW server-reward-scoring system overhaul.

There is cool new content, but no end game content (farming a thousand hours for a skin isn’t end game content). The story is nice and so are the new PvE zones, but I think each of these PvE maps need a dungon/raid instance.

The expansion was released too early, no doubt. I feel like they didn’t have a choice, though, with fallout 4, assassins creed, CoD, halo 5, and other games coming out shortly after HoT. All of them have a huge fan base.