Guild Wars 2

I’ve played alot of MMOs from phantasy star online, to guildwars 1, WoW, Aeon, RIFT, SWTOR, TERA…

This is the first time ever that I got 2 hours into an expac and just turned it off. This was a sad disappointment because I very much like guildwars 2 and invested alot of time and money into the game. But HoT just didn’t do it for me.

This is not really meant to be a bashing thread, but I’m wondering what kind of issues people ran into that caused them to be disinterested in the xpac.

For me:

1.) Lack of solid tutorial for the new content. New maps were sensory overload with a ton of new icons that were not explained. I didn’t play the PvE beta, it took a friend explaining that masteries needed to be grinded up a bar before a point could be used.

2.) Elite specializations tallgated behind massive amounts of hero points. All the new playstyles are not really unlockable until your done with like 75% of the new content. The result is pretty much feeling like your going through just another living story with the same class mechanics that you had pre expansion. Alot of the elite specializations are not even that much better or leagues worse than the core class.

3.) Massive frustration for finally getting to hard to reach hero points and finding out you don’t have the mastery to get it.

4.) Hero point challenges crushing solo players, begging for help from friends when you realize they can’t figure out how to get to you or don’t have the masteries to reach you.

Definitely more frustration than fun. Not saying I will quit gw2, but I will go play other games and maybe give this another shot sometime later. But for now, in this state? No way, there are much funner things to play.

For the people that are enjoying the new content, I’m happy for you. If it floats your boat and your not having the same issues then great.

I love the maps. I love the difficulty setting of the npc’s and monsters. The story so far has been good. The only complaint I have is this unnecessary cost for the profession specialization. Tagging the word elite onto the specialization doesn’t make it magically elite. They are on par with the regular professions.

Nothing has driven me from HoT. I’m enjoying it very much. Sorry to disappoint.

As one who has played the betas, as well as one who has read the article releases and watched a lot of footage, the only thing that came as a surprise was the amount of hero points needed to unlock the elite specializations. While I do wish the number were lower, it’s something I can live with. Sorry, if anything I’m more driven to play the game than ever.

Requirements to achieve and create things seem incredibly disproportionate to the new gameplay content available to achieve them with. Especially the central Tyrian masteries. New rewards for things I’ve done so often I don’t particularly want to do them again, that’s not encouraging me. Quite the opposite.

lordhelmos.7623:

I’ve played alot of MMOs from phantasy star online, to guildwars 1, WoW, Aeon, RIFT, SWTOR, TERA…

This is the first time ever that I got 2 hours into an expac and just turned it off. This was a sad disappointment because I very much like guildwars 2 and invested alot of time and money into the game. But HoT just didn’t do it for me.

This is not really meant to be a bashing thread, but I’m wondering what kind of issues people ran into that caused them to be disinterested in the xpac.

For me:

1.) Lack of solid tutorial for the new content. New maps were sensory overload with a ton of new icons that were not explained. I didn’t play the PvE beta, it took a friend explaining that masteries needed to be grinded up a bar before a point could be used.

2.) Elite specializations tallgated behind massive amounts of hero points. All the new playstyles are not really unlockable until your done with like 75% of the new content. The result is pretty much feeling like your going through just another living story with the same class mechanics that you had pre expansion. Alot of the elite specializations are not even that much better or leagues worse than the core class.

3.) Massive frustration for finally getting to hard to reach hero points and finding out you don’t have the mastery to get it.

4.) Hero point challenges crushing solo players, begging for help from friends when you realize they can’t figure out how to get to you or don’t have the masteries to reach you.

Definitely more frustration than fun. Not saying I will quit gw2, but I will go play other games and maybe give this another shot sometime later. But for now, in this state? No way, there are much funner things to play.

For the people that are enjoying the new content, I’m happy for you. If it floats your boat and your not having the same issues then great.

Add on story gating to that list, and spot on!

Pre-purchase is just a hustle.

It’s that simple for me, I won’t pre-purchase any game.It’s a kitten concept that embraces the release of inferior product. As far as gaming goes…no…I won’t pay to beta test your product regardless of the shinies you offer me.

Outside that I was concerned about the gear grind and by most accounts it sounds like HoT raids will be full ascended gear…with a side of “lf druid then go”.

I’ve played since day one, Prophecies. This was never meant to be a game mechanic.

Now I hear we have to grind out access to skills….SKILLS.

No thx.

Elite specializations tallgated behind massive amounts of hero points

fireflyry.7023:

Pre-purchase is just a hustle.

It’s that simple for me, I won’t pre-purchase any game.It’s a kitten concept that embraces the release of inferior product. As far as gaming goes…no…I won’t pay to beta test your product regardless of the shinies you offer me.

Outside that I was concerned about the gear grind and by most accounts it sounds like HoT raids will be full ascended gear…with a side of “lf druid then go”.

I’ve played since day one, Prophecies. This was never meant to be a game mechanic.

Now I hear we have to grind out access to skills….SKILLS.

No thx.

Yeah… I am not going to rationalize it, but I turned off today and I hate it. so…

I like the expansion.
Maps are beautifull, “leveling” is fun, story is interesting.

Only a (very big) disappointement : the dragon hunter elite spec is the exact opposite of what I was looking when I chose the guardian as my first character few months ago.
Far more interested by the druid and the revenant/herald

Exxcalibur.6203:

Yeah… I am not going to rationalize it, but I turned off today and I hate it. so…

It’s totally rationalized on both the history of this franchise and what I have seen and read here and in game. Assumption…..

I’m currently very dissappointed. I mean I rly like some things like the new fractal handling and stuff but the mastery system is such a pain… In that time that I have to waste for the pre-cursor collection I could grind the tripple ammount of the required gold to buy a precursor directly. The new maps are one of the worst things I’ve seen in a mmo yet. Again the design is so confusing that you can’t remember a single location and the events make me feel like I’m in silverwastes 2.0 or cursed shore. I’ve also been at the Dragons Resistance event for the Maw of Mordremoth already and it is again the same boring system like the vinewrath event or the marionette back then. I hope that they will change loads of stuff with the upcomming patches cuz right now it looks to me for another unfinished game with tons of grind-stretchings

Finding I can’t actually use the new skills and traits.

Running into champions and events which one shot me, or I can’t do enough damage to down them.

Exxcalibur.6203:

Elite specializations tallgated behind massive amounts of hero points

Yup i thought i could start the new expansion with a new spec but instead i got grind your a** for hours with old spec to get the new stuff i don’t want whole spec right away i just wanted to start with a new weapon and then go from there.

lordhelmos.7623:

1.) Lack of solid tutorial for the new content. New maps were sensory overload with a ton of new icons that were not explained. I didn’t play the PvE beta, it took a friend explaining that masteries needed to be grinded up a bar before a point could be used.

2.) Elite specializations tallgated behind massive amounts of hero points. All the new playstyles are not really unlockable until your done with like 75% of the new content. The result is pretty much feeling like your going through just another living story with the same class mechanics that you had pre expansion. Alot of the elite specializations are not even that much better or leagues worse than the core class.

3.) Massive frustration for finally getting to hard to reach hero points and finding out you don’t have the mastery to get it.

4.) Hero point challenges crushing solo players, begging for help from friends when you realize they can’t figure out how to get to you or don’t have the masteries to reach you.

It’s all a small amount of rushed content. That’s the issue here.

The grind to unlock masteries and the specializations is basically a smoke screen to how ArenaNet could only make a very small amount of content, even after working on HoT all this time and stopping content releases for the core game.

They are trying to make players grind as much as possible because otherwise everyone would be done with HoT in less than one day. But instead of following their old approach – players receive their tools early and may grind for aesthetics later – they simply haven’t released the aesthetics. HoT comes not only with very little content, but also with very few new skins. So grind for the tools it is.

(Meanwhile, look, the Gem Store has a lot of new skins! Just 2000 gems!)

Really, the best thing to do here is ask for a refund and hope ArenaNet learns their lesson from all this. Although I doubt they will.

I’ve been following the forums since release and I am so glad I didn’t pay for this expac.
Forums may be a negative outlet, but it seems to be very overwhelmingly so for HoT.
Forums are also the gateway to an MMO purchase……no way would I go near this expac with whats on the forums, even taking it all with a grain of salt it sounds so bad. There’s probably many other lurkers who haven’t purchased it yet either and after reading all this today, probably won’t. Word of mouth can be a killer.

The fact that I’ve been waiting patiently for a sizable chunk of content to keep me entertained for years now…. and what we received…. was a gated grindfest.

A glorified list of chores that must be completed before there is any fun to be had.

A system implemented that enforces grinding content you have already ground into dust over the past three years.

We are forced to be casual players.

…yet we are still “active” so anet can boast its playerbase numbers… even if we only stay logged in for a short amount of time.

There is all this “new content” that amounts to nothing when it is not an enjoyable experience.

The quality of the content is what should keep players playing….. not the absurd grinding and gating.

Anet knew it could not keep the promises it made, and they remained deceitful about what they were actually doing…. which was simply putting Living World Season 3 behind a pay wall.

They labeled their actions as an expansion, and it was pretty much a big f you to all their loyal fans.

…but Anet doesn’t care.

Because they have a churn and burn playerbase.

They already got your money, so they care less if you are still happy down the road…. because there will be a new player who will happily fill your shoes after they fork over cash to anet.

Anet has transformed from a wonderful company into a money hungry monster, who no longer delivers quality products, and instead will do anything deceitful just to make a profit.

Anyone who is happy about HoT is either a newer player, or is a super casual who never really played the core game very much.

You can tell everyone how happy you are now…. and down the line when you get bored of how stale the game is, and YOU try voicing your opinions…. I hope you receive the same response from the new players who have come on board at that time.

…and when that future day comes, I hope that then it finally dawns upon you that you’re wearing our shoes (the unhappy veterans of today) and Anet cares nothing about you or what you want… and you remember this thread and this post, and you finally understand what I meant.

I’m having a ball in HoT and very few people I’ve talked to in my guild (1 actually so far) doesn’t like it. If my guild is any indication most people are having fun.

Of course, my guild knew they’d have to get points for both masteries and elite specs, because I’ve been keeping them up to date.

But yeah, over all, the reaction of the hundred or so people who logged in today has been overwhelmingly positive.

Oh I am so sorry, Anet should have implemented a child guide to new content because some of you find it so hard to figure things out on your freakin own ?!
I have met with no complaints yet in my guild nor from people I met in the first zone.
I only Q_Q about pvp sometimes but this is PvE we are talking about here. Just take your time, this xpack is only 1 day old ~_~

I still don’t know about lots of thing in this xpack and this is freaking amazing !
When I see something new I go there and check it out on my own, perhaps with other players and we try to figure stuff out. This is the magic of new stuff, something like in Dark Souls, not much to guide you through a vast and hostile grounds of Maguuma Jungle but your own curiosity.

Rodzynald.5897:

Oh I am so sorry, Anet should have implemented a child guide to new content because some of you find it so hard to figure things out on your freakin own ?!
I have met with no complaints yet in my guild nor from people I met in the first zone.
I only Q_Q about pvp sometimes but this is PvE we are talking about here. Just take your time, this xpack is only 1 day old ~_~

I pretty much only WvW. I have no idea what we are supposed to do in there. Nothing is explained (what are those levers for, ’cause I have no idea?). What masteries do I need in WvW (there are these weird platforms that seem like air or something might shoot out of them. What are these? Once again, I have no clue). If a game requires you to drop out and read pages and pages of a wiki article, scroll through forum posts, and peruse youtube videos, then the game is doing it wrong.

I have met with nothing BUT complaints in game. So, what does that prove? Nothing. Some people like it, some people hate it. The problem is this…if someone comes into these forums to get answers, what impression do you think they will get? There are tons of people complaining, and then there are those defending Anet – but many of them are condescending. Case in point “Oh I am so sorry, Anet should have implemented a child guide to new content because some of you find it so hard to figure things out on your freakin own ?!”

The more I read, the less I will play, and the less chance there is I will ever buy HoT.

Id say nothing game feels fresh and exciting.
Masteries are account bound and with it we got something to use the exp for.
Elite specs are also interesting. As for HP grind i unlocked 1 spec to 50% with only map completion so no idea whats bothering people.
So i’m actually having fun xD

misterman.1530:

The more I read, the less I will play, and the less chance there is I will ever buy HoT.

I’m in agreement but I will buy HoT at some stage.In a month or two it’s just great value at half price or less.

Thing is the points of valid critique vastly outweigh the rebuttal.

fireflyry.7023:

misterman.1530:

The more I read, the less I will play, and the less chance there is I will ever buy HoT.

I’m in agreement but I will buy HoT at some stage.In a month or two it’s just great value at half price or less.

Thing is the points of valid critique vastly outweigh the rebuttal.

You’re better off getting it now to be honest. Many of the events are designed as group content and Verdant Brink feels much less fun with fewer players than it had during the beta.

I don’t know if everyone is in the other maps or if the overflow system is bugged (I had heard this may be the case) but it will only get worse the less people show up to play in it.

Halloween keeping me from the jungle, but I plan to explore a little today with my friend to grab a couple points to explore and such, but we want to focus on the event mostly for this weekend.

misterman.1530:

I pretty much only WvW. I have no idea what we are supposed to do in there. Nothing is explained (what are those levers for, ’cause I have no idea?). What masteries do I need in WvW (there are these weird platforms that seem like air or something might shoot out of them. What are these? Once again, I have no clue). If a game requires you to drop out and read pages and pages of a wiki article, scroll through forum posts, and peruse youtube videos, then the game is doing it wrong.

I have met with nothing BUT complaints in game. So, what does that prove? Nothing. Some people like it, some people hate it. The problem is this…if someone comes into these forums to get answers, what impression do you think they will get? There are tons of people complaining, and then there are those defending Anet – but many of them are condescending. Case in point “Oh I am so sorry, Anet should have implemented a child guide to new content because some of you find it so hard to figure things out on your freakin own ?!”

The more I read, the less I will play, and the less chance there is I will ever buy HoT.

If you really seek knowledge through hours of reading posts on forums and wiki, then good luck on ruining the experience for yourself.
I have only used wiki to read about lore from the first GW just to know what rolls in GW2 and read forums just out of curiosity and not to help myself with something I can’t do in the game.
All knowledge that I need I gain while playing the game and from other players. It’s just simple as that, you don’t have to read to know, just experience it.

Substance E.4852:

You’re better off getting it now to be honest. Many of the events are designed as group content and Verdant Brink feels much less fun with fewer players than it had during the beta.

I don’t know if everyone is in the other maps or if the overflow system is bugged (I had heard this may be the case) but it will only get worse the less people show up to play in it.

I’m not going to pay full price based on that.If such areas are populated purely because of release hype…I’ll pass.If as a consequence I miss out 2-3 weeks from now it must have been crap.

AWful map design coupled with needing masteries to navigate it. which also makes group play awful. oh i dont have bouncing mushrooms yet and you do welp i guess ill get left behind.

Or falling to your death to try and follow someone.

The maps awful for group play, yet everything is tuned for it its almost impossible to explore solo.

Also kittening 400 SP for the elite spec??? when alot of those are locked behind masteries aswell…

They should lock being able to run and jump behind masteries if they are going to lock necessary components of the game behind a grind wall.

The whole experience has been bad for me. I don’t like how they got rid of a map to “add content” to WvW. I also tried the intro zone to HoT. The mastery system is awful. The glider perks should have been included from the beginning. Like the fact you couldn’t even glide at first was a horrendous decision. Everyone I met there was like “wtf? I can’t get anywhere.” Like you need the glider to get around easier so you can go to the events to get XP…but you can’t get the glider without first getting the XP. It’s moronic.

Not only that, the glider is bad without the upgrades. It’s basically a “don’t fall to your death” device with rank 1. So they intentionally made it bad….once they gave it to you at all…so you could have the “fun” of improving it? That is why I despise GW2 PvE content. They literally give you nothing without forcing their kittenty PvE down your throat. WoW had better quests in Wrath of the Lich King (seven freaking years ago!). It’s like, the only thing they could come up with in 7 years was a bad glider?? And they even stole that from another MMO (which has a better glider).

Not only that, WoW improves their old PvE content when new expansions come out to make leveling and doing other stuff more fun, or at least easier. This game? PFFFFT. “Here ya go; have a kitten glider you can upgrade to be slightly less kitten. That is, after you EARN the glider with our brilliant PvE!”

And what “new” quests do you do to get this glider? What brilliant “new” thing do you do? “Oh, this NPC you are standing next to has a NEW name! Yeap, just kill everything near him like you literally did with every NPC since level 1. That’s our new innovative PvE.” And they are trying to force it down your throat so you can get a slightly less kittenty glider, some speed mushrooms, and other crap. It is hogwash.

The hero points are, by far, the worst of it.

I’m glad they didn’t spoil everything in a bunch of blog posts, finding stuff by yourself is a refreshing experience.
The only thing I don’t like so far is the huge amount of hero points required for the elites, I expected them to require something from HoT, just not so much.
The way they designed the maps, the masteries and the new class are amazing.

I am not “driven from HoT” at all. I am having a blast. I like it quite a bit actually. I have nothing yet that makes me not like it.

It’s unfortunate that people felt the need to prepurchase the thing. No matter how much you try to tell someone they have all the power, they’re willing to fork it over in an instant.

Had no one prepurchased and the vast majority of people had waited to purchase at all, we wouldn’t have the situation we currently do. Please keep that in my for the next expansion or purchase of any video game.

I agree with the op. I find HoT boring and uninspired.

The grind. I hate how to progress you now need to farm masteries. Hours and hours worth of brainless farming. That’s awful and unskillful game design right there. Maybe they should have created more maps instead of forcing us to do boring events over and over again to proceed.

I agree with the OP on HoT. The expansion feels like it was designed for group play/guild play only. That makes a lot of players happy, I know, but not THIS player.

It’s unfortunate that I had to purchase the expansion to discover that Heart of Thorns is far more like the Living Story, Season 2 (i.e., difficult, grindy, gimmicky [jumping mushrooms, glider abilities that take forever to acquire, etc.], and tedious — and certainly nothing I’d want to through play through a second time on an alt) than it is like the base GW2 game, which I greatly enjoyed.

I’ll be interested to see if ArenaNet continues on this philosophical game design path, but as for me, I think I’m done with GW2 for a while.

wyllam.5890:

It’s unfortunate that I had to purchase the expansion to discover that Heart of Thorns is far more like the Living Story, Season 2 (i.e., difficult, grindy, gimmicky [jumping mushrooms, glider abilities that take forever to acquire, etc.], and tedious — and certainly nothing I’d want to through play through a second time on an alt) than it is like the base GW2 game, which I greatly enjoyed.

Remember to get a refund. It’s easy!

Just click here, pick “Purchase Issue” in the first option, then “Refund request” in the “Specific issue” field, fill the other forms and click “Submit”! You’ll have one less headache and $50,00 more in your pockets.

^ Remember your core account will be locked, you wont be able to access the base game unless you re-purchase.

I hate the layer design of the maps. It is extremly unclear especially in zones when you have 4 !!!!! layers of map. You don’t get to actually see at which level of a map a hero point is, for example. Just a random “123423578612571237612 away”. Who designed this crap?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Nothing has driven me from HoT. I’m enjoying it very much. Sorry to disappoint.

^This.

Xavier.2176:

The grind. I hate how to progress you now need to farm masteries. Hours and hours worth of brainless farming. That’s awful and unskillful game design right there. Maybe they should have created more maps instead of forcing us to do boring events over and over again to proceed.

I blame the SW trains, by which metrics Anet came to the decision that players like hours and hours of mindless farming. So they added more, and this time made sure that everyone (except the holy spvp, heaven forbid the esports are affected), especially wvw players, now get to spend their leisure time in pve grinding out masteries so they can get out of pve and back to what they enjoy (that will mainly be EB now, new BL maps= ghost towns).

Me personally? The huge grind it takes JUST to play with your specializations.
I see no reason the traits need to be locked behind a huge wall of hero points.
Should be just as expensive as the standard traits.

It’s the opposite for me. The new difficulty increase makes the combat more engaging, and the maps and mastery system remind me of the olden days of Metroid and the like. You find something, but you need to come back later after unlocking your freezing missiles. The only complaining that I’ve seen, really, is by people who want their hand to keep being held and want to power rush through the content in a single playthrough, with zero backtracking, like the rest of vanilla GW2. Good on Anet for changing the system.

I have never been so dissapointed in a game in my life. I was so regretting pre purchasing.

Give yourself more time. Two hours is not enough to really develop an unbiased opinion. I was really frustrated at first but got to like it after a while.

In my opinion, anet royally screwed up the early player experience by the way they did the HoT masteries. OK, so you get gliding pretty much immediately. That’s great, but to really enjoy VB you have to have the Super Mario mushroom bounce mastery and the updraft mastery. Only problem is, the huge amount of experience needed to get those 2 masteries is extremely frustrating. I spent 3 hours in VB last night with the guild and only just got the mushroom bounce mastery by the end of the night, and that’s with a bday booster activated. It would make much more sense to me if the experience needed for each mastery increased incrementally. Having this huge amount of experience to obtain is made worse by the fact that there are not enough events going on and the mobs are much more difficult to grind.

Difficult content is fun. I don’t want my hand to be held. I just want to play my elite specialization in WVW without grinding for the traits. Make them just as expensive as the standard traits? Grinding and spending hours on end in the HoT maps for the spec-specific weapons/armors i’m ok with. Just the traits that kill it for me.

Their progression drove me away long before the expansion so I did not of course get it.

Reading all this stuff now has been very interesting. :/

Substance E.4852:

fireflyry.7023:

misterman.1530:

The more I read, the less I will play, and the less chance there is I will ever buy HoT.

I’m in agreement but I will buy HoT at some stage.In a month or two it’s just great value at half price or less.

Thing is the points of valid critique vastly outweigh the rebuttal.

You’re better off getting it now to be honest. Many of the events are designed as group content and Verdant Brink feels much less fun with fewer players than it had during the beta.

I don’t know if everyone is in the other maps or if the overflow system is bugged (I had heard this may be the case) but it will only get worse the less people show up to play in it.

Wait. So months from now, when new players join GW2 they will be screwed? They won’t be able to do this unless there’s a group. Well, that’s just awesomesauce. Brilliant design. Slow clap…

Baldrick.8967:

Xavier.2176:

The grind. I hate how to progress you now need to farm masteries. Hours and hours worth of brainless farming. That’s awful and unskillful game design right there. Maybe they should have created more maps instead of forcing us to do boring events over and over again to proceed.

I blame the SW trains, by which metrics Anet came to the decision that players like hours and hours of mindless farming. So they added more, and this time made sure that everyone (except the holy spvp, heaven forbid the esports are affected), especially wvw players, now get to spend their leisure time in pve grinding out masteries so they can get out of pve and back to what they enjoy (that will mainly be EB now, new BL maps= ghost towns).

So, VB is like Silverwaste? Man, adding that to the Cons column in my Pros and Cons on buying HoT list. That’s too bad.

Rodzynald.5897:

If you really seek knowledge through hours of reading posts on forums and wiki, then good luck on ruining the experience for yourself.
I have only used wiki to read about lore from the first GW just to know what rolls in GW2 and read forums just out of curiosity and not to help myself with something I can’t do in the game.
All knowledge that I need I gain while playing the game and from other players. It’s just simple as that, you don’t have to read to know, just experience it.

Really? So, here’s an anecdote. I go into WvW…the new BL map. I see these levers. You can interact with them, but nothing happens. No description as to what they are or what they do. They are just there. Unless I read the wiki, or a forum post, how would I find out? By experience? In my “experience”, they do nothing…they don’t even move when you interact with them. Apparently, they do something – guild thing. No idea. A clue would be nice. Some sort of instruction manual you can pick up in game and read. That would be cool.

I don’t mind puzzles. Love those in games. But I would like puzzles I can solve by exploring…by finding clues and hints throughout the location. From talking to NPCs. But there doesn’t appear to be any of that.

i don’t know why anet thought combining jumping puzzles with powerful trash mobs (hey i finally got that blue i wanted after a 3 minute fight ^^;) was a good idea.

the maps lack any sort of charm..there is no pleasure in exploring these tiny trails that lead to deadends and roadblocks-and fighting these mobs at every twist and turn is just lame.

after 20 minutes i feel so depressed i just log out and never want to go back-how is it possible they made content this lackluster and uninspired?

Selkirk.4218:

i don’t know why anet thought combining jumping puzzles with powerful trash mobs (hey i finally got that blue i wanted after a 3 minute fight ^^;) was a good idea.

the maps lack any sort of charm..there is no pleasure in exploring these tiny trails that lead to deadends and roadblocks-and fighting these mobs at every twist and turn is just lame.

after 20 minutes i feel so depressed i just log out and never want to go back-how is it possible they made content this lackluster and uninspired?

No idea but they have certainly managed it. spent 30 mins trying to get to an SP only to find out i cant unlock it because i dont have the mastery. Such great rewards for exploring.