Guild Wars 2

Aidenwolf.5964:

They can plan another xpac all they like. I wish them luck but they won’t get a sale from my household. I don’t even go into HoT maps.

At this stage my feedback to anet is the same, I won’t be buying another xpac.

Thaddeus.4891:

But other masteries?

Some are just plane gating. You unlock them, remove a gate and you forget about it. They are not just, they don’t add anything to the game and can be weird.

The language things just doesn’t work since we talk to them from the beginning in the story. It just feel deconnected. They could had at least change a bit the story if you do it with or without the language. You could have a branching quest if you don’t have Itzel and Nohuch langague for exemple to go find an Hylek from core tyria which could half translate since those language are similar, but not exactly the same. Then if you do the story again but with the languge, you don’t need the translater.

Some other like Itzel poison and stealth detection could be nice, but they just don’t have any mechanics to it. You just forget about them as more and more people have them. It was nice for maybe the first few weeks, but after that, not really. They should add a mechanics. Why not use the special action key from raids. You need to press the key to send a wave that detect the stealthed foes, a bit like with guild rush do with trap. They could add a cooldown longer than the detect timer, so you need more than one people to keep the foe detected. Same with Itzel poison. No mechanics. It’s xp farm and forget. It could allow you to get some plants that protect you from the poison when you eat it, so you need to keep some in your inventory or maybe you get a new special action ability that allow you to survive the poison. Something.

There seems to be an additional deficiency with the poison mastery. While it prevents you from taking damage from the very specific type of poison it still keeps you in combat.

The stealth detection doesn’t even work for all the HoT mobs using stealth. Most prominent example would be champ for the HP in the southwest corner of VB.

morrolan.9608:

Aidenwolf.5964:

They can plan another xpac all they like. I wish them luck but they won’t get a sale from my household. I don’t even go into HoT maps.

At this stage my feedback to anet is the same, I won’t be buying another xpac.

Ever?

Ragnarox.9601:

They promised constant updates, but only I see cash shop updates.

pretty much that. It was destined to end like this from the start. If they stayed on the same path as the living stories where every player received a blue ribbon for being there ( like middle grade school sport teams) the content team would always be in a scramble to keep up, now that there is a grind people are upset that they actually have to do something.

I agree it has failed in a sense because a good portion are looking for another game but currently every game that seems to be competitive ends up going under. its succeeds by drawing some players back just for paid visual aesthetics.

Ayrilana.1396:

morrolan.9608:

Aidenwolf.5964:

They can plan another xpac all they like. I wish them luck but they won’t get a sale from my household. I don’t even go into HoT maps.

At this stage my feedback to anet is the same, I won’t be buying another xpac.

Ever?

At the moment I wouldn’t consider it at all, and I will never pre purchase from them again. The fact they even mention another xpac at this point makes me ill.

Aidenwolf.5964:

At the moment I wouldn’t consider it at all, and I will never pre purchase from them again. The fact they even mention another xpac at this point makes me ill.

Yeah I know, my first thought was “well aren’t you gonna finish hoT first?” I mean they haven’t even released 25% of the new legendaries, WvW is a mess, only 1 Stronghold map released… Not even gonna mention raids…

Vayne.8563:

Khisanth.2948:

Vayne.8563:

Khisanth.2948:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’m not sure it is a failure at all. HoT added a lot of things that are pretty decent.

#1: Harder enemies. I’ve been wanting that for awhile.
#2: Elaborate maps and more involved maps. Always a good thing.
#3: A metroid style of progression where you gain the ability to explore new areas.
#4: The elite specializations are awesome (if a bit power-creepy), and I like playing as most of them.
#5: A large series of collections and achievements for completionists.
#6: Some pretty cool looking skins.
#7: Events that are actually fun to do.

So, I like the xpac, and from what I’ve heard it has sold really well, so I wonder what your standard of failure is.

I would consider at least half of the HoT masteries to be failures.

It starts well enough in the gliding line but then we get low effort fillers like <whatever> language/proving/assistance. Look! You can now click on this other vendor tab. So exciting. You can also fight these champions once a day. The fights aren’t really different from anything else and the loot is mostly junk but it is there …

Fun events … I can think of two, the patriarch in VB and Mouth of Modremoth in DS.

Actually I consider this mastery point a success, not a failure. The idea was the give people masteries they needed, so they could gradually aquire the other ones without having to worry about grinding. Imagine the outcry if the last mastery in the line was gliding instead of the first.

There are reasons for certain design decisions. In my mind, this was well done.

Gliding as the last mastery would have been idiotic. That doesn’t justify having completely useless masteries. The issue isn’t a matter of where they are in the mastery line but the fact that those exist at all. They are useless fillers.

Well they’re not useless, but they are gates.

Fillers are useless things are are only useful to their creators. They provide nothing useful to the consumer.

The design issue was to not make them must have, so that people who didn’t want to grind wouldn’t complain. They’re a success because you think they’re not essentially.

Are we even playing the same game? How are they not must haves? How am I going to get poison mastery without Itzel language or blazing mushroom(mushroom isn’t useless but it isn’t useful either)? If they had allowed people to pick whatever mastery they wanted rather than this forced ordering I wouldn’t care what sort of crappy and useless masteries they add in there as fillers.

Khisanth.2948:

Vayne.8563:

Khisanth.2948:

Vayne.8563:

Khisanth.2948:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’m not sure it is a failure at all. HoT added a lot of things that are pretty decent.

#1: Harder enemies. I’ve been wanting that for awhile.
#2: Elaborate maps and more involved maps. Always a good thing.
#3: A metroid style of progression where you gain the ability to explore new areas.
#4: The elite specializations are awesome (if a bit power-creepy), and I like playing as most of them.
#5: A large series of collections and achievements for completionists.
#6: Some pretty cool looking skins.
#7: Events that are actually fun to do.

So, I like the xpac, and from what I’ve heard it has sold really well, so I wonder what your standard of failure is.

I would consider at least half of the HoT masteries to be failures.

It starts well enough in the gliding line but then we get low effort fillers like <whatever> language/proving/assistance. Look! You can now click on this other vendor tab. So exciting. You can also fight these champions once a day. The fights aren’t really different from anything else and the loot is mostly junk but it is there …

Fun events … I can think of two, the patriarch in VB and Mouth of Modremoth in DS.

Actually I consider this mastery point a success, not a failure. The idea was the give people masteries they needed, so they could gradually aquire the other ones without having to worry about grinding. Imagine the outcry if the last mastery in the line was gliding instead of the first.

There are reasons for certain design decisions. In my mind, this was well done.

Gliding as the last mastery would have been idiotic. That doesn’t justify having completely useless masteries. The issue isn’t a matter of where they are in the mastery line but the fact that those exist at all. They are useless fillers.

Well they’re not useless, but they are gates.

Fillers are useless things are are only useful to their creators. They provide nothing useful to the consumer.

The design issue was to not make them must have, so that people who didn’t want to grind wouldn’t complain. They’re a success because you think they’re not essentially.

Are we even playing the same game? How are they not must haves? How am I going to get poison mastery without Itzel language or blazing mushroom(mushroom isn’t useless but it isn’t useful either)? If they had allowed people to pick whatever mastery they wanted rather than this forced ordering I wouldn’t care what sort of crappy and useless masteries they add in there as fillers.

Yes we’re playing the same game. You know, this isn’t a shy community and there’s very very little complaining about useless masteries. I may have seen three threads. That’s not exactly a landslide. When people are bothered by something here they let you know.

Even in those three threads, there wasn’t much traction for it. It seems like a non-issue to most of us. I’m really sorry this is something you don’t like but that doesn’t actually make it a problem for the game.

By the same token the 400 point elite unlock was a huge problem for the game, and the fans let Anet know about it and Anet changed it.

So maybe we’re not playing the same game. You seem to be bothered by stuff that really isn’t a hot button issue to most.

Archdevil.1748:

Why HoT failed

scerevisiae.1972:

Mobs and maps being harder was a definite improvement, though i don’t care for the strongly orchestrated, themepark design of the HOT maps. Designing for more of a player-driven, emergent gameplay experience makes for much better long-term replayability, something GW2 is fairly lacking in IMHO.

Well, sure. But the type of game play you are suggesting (like the core game) takes imagination and creativity.

Anet took the “safe” route — meaning, be-like-all-other-MMO’s.

Gate-N-Grind

I doubt that many of the core designers of the base game even work for Anet anymore.

My feedback to A-Net: Your goal is to trick me into thinking that grind-gated and time-gated useless junk is actual content, and that cheap and cheesy PvE mechanics are more interesting that real RvR combat.

That’s your game A-Net, and YOU LOSE.

Daddar.5971:

My feedback to A-Net: Your goal is to trick me into thinking that grind-gated and time-gated useless junk is actual content, and that cheap and cheesy PvE mechanics are more interesting that real RvR combat.

That’s your game A-Net, and YOU LOSE.

RvR?

So, this is what I understand:
Arena Net botched the HoT release and now they’re trying to cover up by suggesting, “…oh we want to focus on the depth of gameplay versus Breadth; polish, polish, polish…”

They mean they want to add everything that should have been in the core game AND Heart of Thorns.
Riiight. I’d wager my account that that, “depth”, will come right along with another paid expansion pack I won’t be buying.

From my perspective, I’m stuck with the current content until 2020 basically. (But not really since I’m pretty sure I’m done with Gw2.)
I for dang sure will never pre-order again. EVER! In that time though, Cyber Punk 2077 and Mass Effect Andromeda AND FF7 Remake will likely have my attention up to that point.

It’s pretty funny looking at some of the replies…It’s like real magic. People falling for them traps already.

The new priority list (all being subject to “cost efficiency”):

Expansion
Polish
Fixing PVP
Fixing WvW
blah
blah
blah
blah fix
blah
blah
blah
blah tweak
blah
blah
blah
blah balance
blah
blah
blah more polish
blah
blah
Fixing Dungeons
Raids <——I bet. I bet so hard… I’ll be listening to TLC – Waterfalls reading the Forums.The rage and tears will just—…GOD!…I’m so excited. Hyped already.

And just that quick, LMAO! Raids, Rock…Bottom. I’m so ugly right now I’m laughing so hard. Imagine Bernie Mac having a stroke and laughing at the same time. XD

Players honestly believe they are magically going to be able to simultaneously achieve all of this over the course of 2016? The roll-out will be so incredibly slow and the quality doesn’t even need mentioning.
It’s clear they can’t work on more than one thing at a time. Just look at HoT!
Why they can’t doesn’t matter, they’ve shown time and time again they prefer rapidly releasing high price mediocrity across large and broad scales.

Arena Net would have to stop everything else and work on one thing at a time and there’s nothing wrong with that but they’re talking too much trying to tell players what they think they want to hear.

I’d find it more believable if they just came out and said they’re lining things up for Arc; there’s a place right next to P.W.I they have ready for it.

It is also clear to me that that ArenaNet approves of team stacking; they’re obviously a team full Dragonhunters; them traps are real.

It’s amazing, it’s like ArenaNet says one thing ( ArenaNet Places trap)
and players just get M.I.B’d and forget (Player walks into trap)
what ArenaNet has previously said and previously done and what they are currently doing and don’t see the discord between. (Player became trapped) Repeat.

First time that an MMO expansion couldn’t hold my interest for longer than a month.

HoT in general is great Improovement from base game and step in right direction. Its only need polishing, bugfixing and balancing thats all.

Vayne.8563:

The expansion doesn’t explain it, because everything doesn’t need to be explained. Maybe you haven’t read a lot of books recently but there are many things in books that happen today that aren’t explained. Hell, short fiction today doesn’t have ending half the time anymore, at least in the traditional sense of the word.

People have always complained about this game because not everything was given to them on a silver platter. But this I have to know it now, as if the story is over and Caithe is dead is just impatience. Caithe can come back into the story and explain herself or she may not. But everything really doesn’t have to be explained. That’s just not how it works.

Also patronizing me by calling my comments cute really doesn’t make your arguments any stronger.

As for the Trahearne thing, well, no we went in trying to rescue Trahearne and talking to him came upon the solution of how we might attack something you can’t attack phyiscally.

It’s really only an issue if you’re looking for issues and let me tell you, if you want to find issues you can find them with any story or book. The problem isn’t the things you’re mentioning.

You liked the length and depth of the original story. The new story is different because it’s faster and doesn’t go into the same level of moment to moment detail and you don’t like the change.

Neither the point about Caithe or the point about figuring out how to beat the dragon is bad writing.

A lot of people complained the personal story was too long or the personal story was too boring so Anet stream-lined it, mostly like as a reaction to complaints.

The same thing happened in Guild Wars 1. People complained Prophecies was too long and too slow, so Anet made Factions. The story was fast, the game was half the size, it could be finished much faster and you leveled far too fast. Why? Because they were reacting to people’s complaints. Anet has a tendency to over-react, and that’s why the story is the length it is. Within a shorter story, particularly one that’s continuing, you don’t to explain everything at the moment.

Would it be interesting to hear Caithe’s story. Sure it would. Is it required to hear Caithe’s story. No. Because she’s a character that drives the action forward and she served her purpose in the story.

Again, in a novel where you have hundreds of pages, you put everything. In shorter stories, you often leave people to figure stuff out. It’s not bad writing and it’s not uncommon.

As for the later cub comment, there’s nothing really to explain. We know what the revenant is, and the story of Rytlock and what happened to him is not the story of HoT. These side passages don’t get explored in shorter stories for a reason. Then they become longer stories, which some people complain about.

A lot of people who love story complained that the expansion was too fast and didn’t give enough detail. A lot of people who don’t like story complained the original story was too long.

And because a game isn’t a book, Anet has to balance it out between people who don’t want a longer story and people who do. There will always be a percentage of people dissatisfied with the balance.

First of all, please give examples of people complaining about the length of the original story. I can’t remember it being an issue. The problem I remember, was the final battle, which wasn’t really a battle at all. There were a lot of complaints and that part was fixed, now we have a decent final battle (bugged though).

Secondly, the main issue is, that both personal stories came out unfinished. Defend it how you want, but the main reason for all those loopholes and questionable decisions is the expansion being rushed. That’s the main cause and this is where they fail once again.

About fiction that does not require explanation, yes, this kind of fiction exists. Those are complex stories, which leaves most of the stuff for the public to figure out. But aren’t you the one, who said that the video game story should do what it’s supposed to do? You were the one, who said that most people don’t give much attention to the story of a video game. So, was this story supposed to confuse those people even more? That was the purpose?

You see, the points you make does not connect. They are full of loopholes and they do not follow reason. Arguing with you is like playing HoT. I’m trying to understand what are you saying. Sometimes your points make some sort of sense, after a while they’re contradicting themselves, your jump from point to point for no resason, it’s hard to follow but I still try to. Just like playing HoT.

Wait, I figured it out. You are Heart of Thorns. You are a computer program trying to defend itself. That is just natural to you and all my efforts were in vain from the start.

Rozbuska.5263 No.. it needs more then polishing. Not talking about the obvious balancing & the fixing.
I’m talking about the core game mechanics, questing & the objectives. It feels dated & old. Like we bin there a million times & done that already. & like mentioned above, masteries wile it is a good idea to replace level gating, it’s filed with fluff. (Skill’s with absolute no use.) No i said it before, Anet made to many mistakes & banked on there own bad business decisions in the direction the game should go. HoT is the crash cart! That you want to admit or not, the game is on life support. & it has about less then 6 month before they pull out the plug & let it die. I said it first!

oh wheesht with the melodramatic nonsense, you do know hardly any AAA mmo have folder over the last 10 years, and that GW2 is unlikely to ever folds before GW2 comes along in about 7-10 years. There are a tom of mmorpg that offer the same old crap quest/power curve raid model, GW2 offers something different, and while not perfect, its still great quality and something different for us. As for Hot, compare it to its peers, say the WOD expansion for WOW and you will see what stale and old means.

vesica tempestas.1563 you could be right. But, that was the old days. since the last few years, ppl are more like quick takes outs & throw away instead of having a full sit down dinner. Especially if it dose’nt look appetizing. So i’m banking on what i said. Life support will be pulled in 6 month, & Gw2 will be running on it’s own after till death do us part!

we shall see then The game has some issues as does every online game in today’s culture, but at its roots there’s quality and a pretty smart dev team, so those loyal to the Guild wars IP and idealogy will play on.

Those with no emotional connection to the game will continue to play and leave etc etc and in some cases complain endlessly on forums (not referring to yourself here, you know the type of player I mean)

We all have an emotional connection with Gw2.. that’s what makes it hard. With all the time invested & the hardcore faith we have into this game. That is why it’s so frustrating having one disappointment after the other from Anet. The fact is we dont want to face the truth & pretend all is good wile in truth, this relationship with Gw2 is not working out. I hate to admit it! I wish it could work out. But my faith into this is gone.

rly dont know what OP means, HOT for me was and still is far from a failure, not perfect or course but no way near of a failure,

Well Failure is a strong word i would’nt use to describe. But it has failed to be a success.
It’s more that it has’nt reached the potential it could of had.

Vieux P.1238:

Well Failure is a strong word i would’nt use to describe. But it has failed to be a success.
It’s more that it has’nt reached the potential it could of had.

According to whom?
We don’t know how successful it is, but we know it didn’t fail significantly by whatever meassure they use, no company would greenlight a second expansion after the first one failed.

Raziel.4216:

Vieux P.1238:

Well Failure is a strong word i would’nt use to describe. But it has failed to be a success.
It’s more that it has’nt reached the potential it could of had.

According to whom?
We don’t know how successful it is, but we know it didn’t fail significantly by whatever meassure they use, no company would greenlight a second expansion after the first one failed.

MMO’s are not general games and this is not a second edition of a game. If they don’t green light another expansion will mean exactly the opposite. It will mean the game is dead. It would be a suicide not to make expansions.

Remember, the core team that created the original GW franchise have moved on…ANet is a whole new krewe- and they are still learning from their ‘mis steps’ (I won’t call it mistakes, they are still profitable). I believe they are intending to stroke the golden goose with add-ons, (similar to Factions, Nightfall) and LS updates, and down the road if all else ‘fails’, a GW3 where the core game is re created on the game engine used for GW2/ (Ok, that’s my pipe dream). All in all it is still win/win for us players because there is yet to be a game of similar attractiveness to be played. I enjoy HoT..sure, it’s a cruel teacher sometimes..I just adapt, and learn faster so I CAN enjoy the game play. Just my 2 silvers worth

trub.1657:

Remember, the core team that created the original GW franchise have moved on …ANet is a whole new krewe- and they are still learning from their ‘mis steps’ (I won’t call it mistakes, they are still profitable). I believe they are intending to stroke the golden goose with add-ons, (similar to Factions, Nightfall) and LS updates, and down the road if all else ‘fails’, a GW3 where the core game is re created on the game engine used for GW2/ (Ok, that’s my pipe dream). All in all it is still win/win for us players because there is yet to be a game of similar attractiveness to be played. I enjoy HoT..sure, it’s a cruel teacher sometimes..I just adapt, and learn faster so I CAN enjoy the game play. Just my 2 silvers worth

They’ve all quit? That’s interesting. I see that Colin Johanson still works for Guild Wars 2 and I would have though he was core (or at least not new) as well as Mike O’Brien, the head of the company. There’s also Gaile Gray. She’s certainly not new, although perhaps not core.

Truthfully, I have reservations about the claim that they are all, or substantially all, new. I would like to see your source for this.

- in 2016 we are trying to find a balance between frequent – game updates and working on the next expansion.

Well there goes that popular excuse Anet defenders always use as ammunition that we will be getting ls3 for free with HoT right out the ol window.

So essentially game updates will be (judging by 2 months of proof so far) minor bug fixes + mostly cash shop additions while rest the team work on the next expansion? Is that pretty much it?

I honestly can’t believe they openly admitted this. That’s even more disappointing than HoT was.

On topic: 100% agree with everything that fellow said in that vid posted in the OT. +1

Archdevil.1748:

Raziel.4216:

Vieux P.1238:

Well Failure is a strong word i would’nt use to describe. But it has failed to be a success.
It’s more that it has’nt reached the potential it could of had.

According to whom?
We don’t know how successful it is, but we know it didn’t fail significantly by whatever meassure they use, no company would greenlight a second expansion after the first one failed.

MMO’s are not general games and this is not a second edition of a game. If they don’t green light another expansion will mean exactly the opposite. It will mean the game is dead. It would be a suicide not to make expansions.

If a game doesn’t succeed then there’s no point in investing more into aditional content.
It’d be even worse to make more expansions if the last one failed, that alone tells us it didn’t fail, we just don’t know how succesful it was.

fixit.7189:

- in 2016 we are trying to find a balance between frequent – game updates and working on the next expansion.

Well there goes that popular excuse Anet defenders always use as ammunition that we will be getting ls3 for free with HoT right out the ol window.

So essentially game updates will be (judging by 2 months of proof so far) minor bug fixes + mostly cash shop additions while rest the team work on the next expansion? Is that pretty much it?

I honestly can’t believe they openly admitted this. That’s even more disappointing than HoT was.

On topic: 100% agree with everything that fellow said in that vid posted in the OT. +1

There’s no rule that states that they can’t work on LS3 and an expansion pack at the same time.

Manthas.6234:

Vayne.8563:

The expansion doesn’t explain it, because everything doesn’t need to be explained. Maybe you haven’t read a lot of books recently but there are many things in books that happen today that aren’t explained. Hell, short fiction today doesn’t have ending half the time anymore, at least in the traditional sense of the word.

People have always complained about this game because not everything was given to them on a silver platter. But this I have to know it now, as if the story is over and Caithe is dead is just impatience. Caithe can come back into the story and explain herself or she may not. But everything really doesn’t have to be explained. That’s just not how it works.

Also patronizing me by calling my comments cute really doesn’t make your arguments any stronger.

As for the Trahearne thing, well, no we went in trying to rescue Trahearne and talking to him came upon the solution of how we might attack something you can’t attack phyiscally.

It’s really only an issue if you’re looking for issues and let me tell you, if you want to find issues you can find them with any story or book. The problem isn’t the things you’re mentioning.

You liked the length and depth of the original story. The new story is different because it’s faster and doesn’t go into the same level of moment to moment detail and you don’t like the change.

Neither the point about Caithe or the point about figuring out how to beat the dragon is bad writing.

A lot of people complained the personal story was too long or the personal story was too boring so Anet stream-lined it, mostly like as a reaction to complaints.

The same thing happened in Guild Wars 1. People complained Prophecies was too long and too slow, so Anet made Factions. The story was fast, the game was half the size, it could be finished much faster and you leveled far too fast. Why? Because they were reacting to people’s complaints. Anet has a tendency to over-react, and that’s why the story is the length it is. Within a shorter story, particularly one that’s continuing, you don’t to explain everything at the moment.

Would it be interesting to hear Caithe’s story. Sure it would. Is it required to hear Caithe’s story. No. Because she’s a character that drives the action forward and she served her purpose in the story.

Again, in a novel where you have hundreds of pages, you put everything. In shorter stories, you often leave people to figure stuff out. It’s not bad writing and it’s not uncommon.

As for the later cub comment, there’s nothing really to explain. We know what the revenant is, and the story of Rytlock and what happened to him is not the story of HoT. These side passages don’t get explored in shorter stories for a reason. Then they become longer stories, which some people complain about.

A lot of people who love story complained that the expansion was too fast and didn’t give enough detail. A lot of people who don’t like story complained the original story was too long.

And because a game isn’t a book, Anet has to balance it out between people who don’t want a longer story and people who do. There will always be a percentage of people dissatisfied with the balance.

First of all, please give examples of people complaining about the length of the original story. I can’t remember it being an issue. The problem I remember, was the final battle, which wasn’t really a battle at all. There were a lot of complaints and that part was fixed, now we have a decent final battle (bugged though).

Secondly, the main issue is, that both personal stories came out unfinished. Defend it how you want, but the main reason for all those loopholes and questionable decisions is the expansion being rushed. That’s the main cause and this is where they fail once again.

About fiction that does not require explanation, yes, this kind of fiction exists. Those are complex stories, which leaves most of the stuff for the public to figure out. But aren’t you the one, who said that the video game story should do what it’s supposed to do? You were the one, who said that most people don’t give much attention to the story of a video game. So, was this story supposed to confuse those people even more? That was the purpose?

You see, the points you make does not connect. They are full of loopholes and they do not follow reason. Arguing with you is like playing HoT. I’m trying to understand what are you saying. Sometimes your points make some sort of sense, after a while they’re contradicting themselves, your jump from point to point for no resason, it’s hard to follow but I still try to. Just like playing HoT.

Wait, I figured it out. You are Heart of Thorns. You are a computer program trying to defend itself. That is just natural to you and all my efforts were in vain from the start.

You need examples about people complaining about the original story? You’ve never seen any complaints about it? I’m sure you can find your own complaints.

The original story seemed to go on forever. Anet even tried to shorten it but people who liked the story insisted it get restored. They tried to shorten it because people don’t play the original PS. For a lot of people is it too long. It seems to go on forever and a lot of it is just filler missions. The original PS is some of the least compelling content in the game in my opinion.

Complaints were varied, not just in the length of the final mission but its anticlimactic nature. Or the fact that once you hit level 60, no matter how many alts you have you’re basically doing the same stuff over and over again.

There have been many complaints about the short story but the biggest thing you’ll notice is how many people don’t do it at all. That should tell you something. It really is a long drawn out process unless you love story.

And in fact, how it’s drawn out in some ways, I consider worse writing than the writing on Heart of Thorns.

There were too many side stories that really weren’t that impactful, and didn’t need to be there, and probably shouldn’t have been there. The PS had so many characters that came out of left field, including Trahearne if you didn’t start with a Sylvari.

By contrast, you don’t have that problem in the HoT story because the story is basically the same for everyone, with the exception of some changes to the Sylvari character’s dialogue.

As for your comments about fiction, unfortunately that was my profession. You really don’t want to explain everything in most short stories these days, for a reason. They would no longer be short stories. You can’t explorer every avenue in a shorter work and HOT IS a shorter work.

The HoT story accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish. We absolutely 100% do not have to know everything about Caithe’s reasons, because she’s not there as a main character, she’s there to drive events forward. We may see in the future more of her motivation, but I think obvious that just like Trahearne knew he had to heal Orr, she knew she had to get the egg to the jungle. No one asks why or how Trahearne knows that, we just know it’s his wild hunt. We know it. We don’t have to question it.

You’re questioning it because you want to find flaw. But since you KNOW that the dream of dreams is incomplete, and you don’t get to see everything and there are sylvari that specialize in interpreting what you’ve seen (yes we know that from in game), then there’s no reason to assume that she had all knowledge. But she did know what she had to do. I’m not even sure why this is a conversation.

The Heart of Thorns story was made to be shorter, because the first story was too long for a lot of people. Personal source is people I’ve talked to, which is annecdotal. A more important source would be how many people never do it on a second character, which Anet would know and I don’t.

But yes, I believe Anet knows it was too long.

scerevisiae.1972:

I think HOT turned out ok, the biggest negative was that it was overpriced for what it was. The character slot fiasco was a PR disaster brought about by being too greedy, and that blunder will probably end up costing Anet many times more than the miniscule extra $ they would have made through char slot purchases and has likely tarnished the Anet & GW2 brand for a long time to come.

I still question the wisdom & sincerity of any game company that thinks not including a character slot for all in an expac that introduces a new class is a good idea for the brand.

The best thing about the expac was gliding, by a decent margin, and if i were them i’d be rolling that out everywhere else in the world.

The other thing is that the elite specs in many cases are have made the old weapons and traits obsolete, essentially making them mandatory. Rev for instance is pretty hard to play without Herald because it’s the main source of sustain for the class.

Mobs and maps being harder was a definite improvement, though i don’t care for the strongly orchestrated, themepark design of the HOT maps. Designing for more of a player-driven, emergent gameplay experience makes for much better long-term replayability, something GW2 is fairly lacking in IMHO.

Hmm I don’t think there would have been too much issue with the lack of a character slot if the cheapest edition was $30 rather than $50. The timing with free to play didn’t help.

Hot killed our enjoyment of the game ( gf and myself).

The nerf on dungeons did hit hard on us since they were our principal income source.

The Hot story is plain pathetic, poorly written, elements that makes no sense and the way we finally kill the dragon… The fight in itself isnt bad but the kitten “hes the mind dragon so lets attack his mind” concept is utterly stupid, if the German attacked the Maginot line during ww2 France wouldn’t never been occupied in the first place but this is a game and with the magic of poor writing this will do!

The new zones are nice at first but when you realize that there are only 4 of them and the last one is either broken or completely empty you start getting the buyers remorse ( well this is when we did).

Personally for me the only redeeming points of the expansion are the Revenant and the Elite specializations… Everything else is shallow, poorly done, simply missing and insult to injury even nerfed the content we enjoyed the most because " stop playing the old stuff, the new stuff is way better!".

Being a fan since the very beginning and knowing what Arenanet can produce in therm of expansion with the first game: Faction, Nightfall and lastly Eye of the North, Heart of thorns feels totally overpriced and plain anemic compared to what we had before and they had more time to work on it!

We dont play it anymore, we connect to get the daily reward but then we dont even know what we want to do, our guild is mostly empty, same goes for our friend list and map feels barren. The hype about it was too great and it did ruined the experience we had with the game, living season might save it but i wouldnt bet on that.

My thoughts:

The good:
1. No increased levels. I’m glad about that.
2. One frac level per run. I didn’t want to have to do 4 fractals in a row. I like that I can just do one now.
3. Rev. This is a class fun, although not balanced.

The bad:
1. WvW – This was a disaster. It should never have been implemented. Whoever is running the WvW team needs to be replaced.
2. PvP Leagues: These were not thought through at all.
3 Class Balance: Possibly the worst that it has been in the history of the game.
4. Masteries: Some are interesting, but as you earn them, they actually take fun away from the game. It is crazy that by gaining masteries the game gets more boring. Instead, masteries should be required for certain areas of the map. Just poorly implemented.
5. The story: It’s like whoever wrote the story lost all creativity.

style.6173:

My thoughts:

The good:
1. No increased levels. I’m glad about that.
2. One frac level per run. I didn’t want to have to do 4 fractals in a row. I like that I can just do one now.
3. Rev. This is a class fun, although not balanced.

The bad:
1. WvW – This was a disaster. It should never have been implemented. Whoever is running the WvW team needs to be replaced.
2. PvP Leagues: These were not thought through at all.
3 Class Balance: Possibly the worst that it has been in the history of the game.
4. Masteries: Some are interesting, but as you earn them, they actually take fun away from the game. It is crazy that by gaining masteries the game gets more boring. Instead, masteries should be required for certain areas of the map. Just poorly implemented.
5. The story: It’s like whoever wrote the story lost all creativity.

Raziel.4216 says According to whom? Where’s your source? Rolf

Raziel.4216:

Archdevil.1748:

Raziel.4216:

Vieux P.1238:

Well Failure is a strong word i would’nt use to describe. But it has failed to be a success.
It’s more that it has’nt reached the potential it could of had.

According to whom?
We don’t know how successful it is, but we know it didn’t fail significantly by whatever meassure they use, no company would greenlight a second expansion after the first one failed.

MMO’s are not general games and this is not a second edition of a game. If they don’t green light another expansion will mean exactly the opposite. It will mean the game is dead. It would be a suicide not to make expansions.

If a game doesn’t succeed then there’s no point in investing more into aditional content.
It’d be even worse to make more expansions if the last one failed, that alone tells us it didn’t fail, we just don’t know how succesful it was.

The alternative was giving away the content in LS for free, here they made money from their content. I’d definitely push more of that kind of thing.

OP, I think you failed. You have zero data, yet you are making a big claims.

Xillllix.3485:

Aidenwolf.5964:

At the moment I wouldn’t consider it at all, and I will never pre purchase from them again. The fact they even mention another xpac at this point makes me ill.

Yeah I know, my first thought was “well aren’t you gonna finish hoT first?” I mean they haven’t even released 25% of the new legendaries, WvW is a mess, only 1 Stronghold map released… Not even gonna mention raids…

Creating expansion takes years. They started working on HoT right after the main game release. You know, company like ArenaNet has many teams and each works on something else. From what I have read about the balance between regular updates and expansions, I understand that we should expect new story update every 4-6 weeks and that way we can go kill another dragon in 2 years instead of 3. I think that is nice….

Mortifer.2946:

Xillllix.3485:

Aidenwolf.5964:

At the moment I wouldn’t consider it at all, and I will never pre purchase from them again. The fact they even mention another xpac at this point makes me ill.

Yeah I know, my first thought was “well aren’t you gonna finish hoT first?” I mean they haven’t even released 25% of the new legendaries, WvW is a mess, only 1 Stronghold map released… Not even gonna mention raids…

Creating expansion takes years. They started working on HoT right after the main game release. You know, company like ArenaNet has many teams and each works on something else. From what I have read about the balance between regular updates and expansions, I understand that we should expect new story update every 4-6 weeks and that way we can go kill another dragon in 2 years instead of 3. I think that is nice….

I don’t believe they started working on HoT right after the main game released. I think they had other plans to move forward with the living story and it didn’t work out, so they had to scramble. Some of the projects, obviously, were already in the works though.

The good:

1. Gliding, it’s everything we had hoped for and more.

2. Guild Halls, very pretty and very grand, need bigger guild arenas though, and more customization all around.

3. Elite specs, very powerful and fun.

4. Verdant Brink & Auric Basin, I had a good time in these zones, they were refreshing, challenging, fun, and doable.

5. Squad UI

6. The early reversal & reduction to hero points needed to unlock elite specs. Good move on this to make the change early, I don’t think I would’ve stuck around if the game still required 400 hp’s to unlock each elite specs per character. Able to obtain hero points in WvW was also a good thing, although making them soulbound was a bad move.

7. Personal story, I thought it was fun.

8. Masteries, some of the masteries are actually interesting to obtain. I dreaded the grind initially but eventually after several characters, I’ve unlocked most masteries I’ve wanted. So in hindsight the grind isn’t as bad as I initially thought as long as I don’t play to grind the mastery points. Instead I just went through and unlocked elite specs on several characters, did their personal stories, and obtained mastery points while doing so, and it worked out.

The bad:

1. Tangled Depths and Dragon Stand. I could never got into these zones, hence HoT’s content is cut short for me because I just can’t stand playing in TD & DS. The devs that designed VB & AB, kudos, you all deserve cookies. Please re-evaluate the differences between these zones and understand why people embrace Auric Basin yet stay away from Tangled Depths. Tedious is not fun. Every character I play now, I go through to unlock their hero points via the first 2 zones, then finish the rest in WvW. I would finish the personal story line, but that’s about all I enter TD & DS for. If only the last 2 zones were as fun as the first 2.

2. WvW, you’ve introduced tons of bugs, with no fixes in sight nearly 3 months into HoT launch. New BL’s have buggy gimmicky mechanics such as oasis event which creates terrible zone-wide lag. You’ve introduced overpowered banners & upgrade mechanics that this game mode didn’t need and no one asked for. So not only is WvW extremely buggy to play in at the moment, it’s totally unbalanced and at times downright not fun at all.

3. PvP league, no need to say more. Spend a few minutes reading the PvP forum you’ll get a good idea at how unhappy people are. I managed to soloQ to diamond, but I can’t say I enjoy much of PvP at the moment. Balance is extremely whacked, match system is a mess, and there are still bugs such as getting randomly stuck in place bug or invisible dragonhunter traps that shouldn’t exist in a competitive environment.

4. You messed with your casual playerbase. It’s common knowledge that if you want a successful MMORPG, you don’t mess with your casual playerbase. People are unhappy about the expansion for many different reasons. You should never make people feel comfortable about playing your game, get used to their characters and the way you developed the content, etc.. then in one sweep change things drastically to cater to a much smaller playerbase that enjoy things being tedious. There’s a very fine line between tedious and challenging. You swing the content too far the other direction, you’ll find yourself losing a large chunk of your casual playerbase.

5. Baseline classes got left behind. Elite specs are an improvement to virtually all baseline classes.

Mortifer.2946:

Xillllix.3485:

Aidenwolf.5964:

At the moment I wouldn’t consider it at all, and I will never pre purchase from them again. The fact they even mention another xpac at this point makes me ill.

Yeah I know, my first thought was “well aren’t you gonna finish hoT first?” I mean they haven’t even released 25% of the new legendaries, WvW is a mess, only 1 Stronghold map released… Not even gonna mention raids…

Creating expansion takes years. They started working on HoT right after the main game release. You know, company like ArenaNet has many teams and each works on something else. From what I have read about the balance between regular updates and expansions, I understand that we should expect new story update every 4-6 weeks and that way we can go kill another dragon in 2 years instead of 3. I think that is nice….

I think you failed. You have zero data, yet you are making a big claims.

If you really think they started working on HoT right after the main game release something must be wrong with you. The first HoT map wasn’t finished in the first betas and some dev said that quite a lot of the stuff in the HoT trailer (shown late January 2015 – 9 months before release) was mostly placeholder stuff.

It really feels like they started on the expansion about the time when they worked on LS2. So a little bit over a year dev time.

Vieux P.1238:

style.6173:

My thoughts:

The good:
1. No increased levels. I’m glad about that.
2. One frac level per run. I didn’t want to have to do 4 fractals in a row. I like that I can just do one now.
3. Rev. This is a class fun, although not balanced.

The bad:
1. WvW – This was a disaster. It should never have been implemented. Whoever is running the WvW team needs to be replaced.
2. PvP Leagues: These were not thought through at all.
3 Class Balance: Possibly the worst that it has been in the history of the game.
4. Masteries: Some are interesting, but as you earn them, they actually take fun away from the game. It is crazy that by gaining masteries the game gets more boring. Instead, masteries should be required for certain areas of the map. Just poorly implemented.
5. The story: It’s like whoever wrote the story lost all creativity.

Raziel.4216 says According to whom? Where’s your source? Rolf

He’s expressing his opinion.
Your claim in the previous page involved every non-hardcore player.
I’m sure you can tell the difference with a bit of effort.

Vayne.8563:

You need examples about people complaining about the original story? You’ve never seen any complaints about it? I’m sure you can find your own complaints.

To be fair, you are the one making the claims about other people’s complaints about the original story. The burden is on you to provide them. While I do remember there were some (very few) complaints, I don’t recall them being the same as you do, and I don’t believe that there were as many as there are for HoT.

The original story seemed to go on forever. Anet even tried to shorten it but people who liked the story insisted it get restored. They tried to shorten it because people don’t play the original PS. For a lot of people is it too long. It seems to go on forever and a lot of it is just filler missions. The original PS is some of the least compelling content in the game in my opinion.

This is wrong and is why you need to support your statements. Anet changed the story because they changed how you level and get rewards from the story. It was not significantly shorter at any time. At that time, I recall the only complaints were that the story was out of order and missing sections that caused it to not make sense. People want logical consistency to their stories. People want their stories to make sense. If they are not logically consistent, then it needs to be explained. This is basic writing.

Complaints were varied, not just in the length of the final mission but its anticlimactic nature. Or the fact that once you hit level 60, no matter how many alts you have you’re basically doing the same stuff over and over again.

Actually, the only complaints I remember were that the final mission was anti-climatic, which is more of a complaint about how that mission was designed and not the story. In fact, the story from Fort Trinity up to the final mission was not bad. You got to see how the dragon was being weakened. You got to see how the Pact pushed forward into Orr. You can nitpick here and there on it, but the fundamental story was strong.
HoT’s story was objectively nonsense. You go from seeing the pact struggle to recover from Mordremoth’s assault to being able to mount an attack on the dragon itself within a few days (or less). Characters behave inconsistently and unbelievably. It’s not well explained and doesn’t make sense. This is bad storytelling no matter how you look at it. Yes, the only thing the HoT story has going for it is that it is short, if you want that.

There have been many complaints about the short story but the biggest thing you’ll notice is how many people don’t do it at all. That should tell you something. It really is a long drawn out process unless you love story.

You seem to be confusing complaints about the story being too short with what a short story is. People aren’t complaining that HoT is a short story (it is not), they are complaining that the story is too short. This is a very different argument. Also, about what you are saying about these “many people.” If you are talking about professional writers, of which some of us are, you are wrong. No one would write a short story like HoT and expect it to get published. It is not focused and contains a lot of extraneous material that distracts from the primary plot/theme (which is non-existent also, tbh). HoT is better described as a chapter in a much longer story. But again, the type of story it is not the problem with it. Nor is it what people are complaining about.

As for your comments about fiction, unfortunately that was my profession. You really don’t want to explain everything in most short stories these days, for a reason. They would no longer be short stories. You can’t explorer every avenue in a shorter work and HOT IS a shorter work.

Sigh. A good short story doesn’t leave so many loose ends to begin with. It doesn’t spend significant time in frog villages, egg trials, and empty cities, when its primary story is about a war with a dragon. HoT is not a short story!

The HoT story accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish. We absolutely 100% do not have to know everything about Caithe’s reasons, because she’s not there as a main character, she’s there to drive events forward. We may see in the future more of her motivation, but I think obvious that just like Trahearne knew he had to heal Orr, she knew she had to get the egg to the jungle. No one asks why or how Trahearne knows that, we just know it’s his wild hunt. We know it. We don’t have to question it.

Semantically, we don’t need to know much of anything. We don’t need to know why Mordremoth is attacking or captured our allies. We certainly didn’t need to know that Rata Novus knew that dragons had a weakness. However, while we don’t need to know, some things make for a weaker story when we don’t know. Good writers recognize what should be explained further and what shouldn’t. HoT is not good writing. LS2 was HoT’s prelude and it focused heavily on Caithe. HoT pretty much gave us the conclusion to that story arc. But it didn’t. It feels like a major part of the story of LS2 and HoT is left untold. These weren’t setup like mysteries to be solved (a crutch Anet leans far to heavy on), but like they were simply forgotten.

You’re questioning it because you want to find flaw.

Um, you can’t tell us what someone else’s motivations are. You can tell us what your motivations are, but I think we can all see them clearly.

The Heart of Thorns story was made to be shorter, because the first story was too long for a lot of people. Personal source is people I’ve talked to, which is annecdotal. A more important source would be how many people never do it on a second character, which Anet would know and I don’t.

What you are saying is that you have no evidence to back up your claims. You constantly request others to back up their claims and have even said that is why you post so frequently in complaint threads. If you really want people to make claims with verifiable evidence, I recommend setting the example yourself.

I’m sorry, but the HoT story is not good at all. There may be parts of it that are good, but overall it is a disappointing experience. Recommending HoT for the story would be a disservice to potential players.

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

You need examples about people complaining about the original story? You’ve never seen any complaints about it? I’m sure you can find your own complaints.

To be fair, you are the one making the claims about other people’s complaints about the original story. The burden is on you to provide them. While I do remember there were some (very few) complaints, I don’t recall them being the same as you do, and I don’t believe that there were as many as there are for HoT.

The original story seemed to go on forever. Anet even tried to shorten it but people who liked the story insisted it get restored. They tried to shorten it because people don’t play the original PS. For a lot of people is it too long. It seems to go on forever and a lot of it is just filler missions. The original PS is some of the least compelling content in the game in my opinion.

This is wrong and is why you need to support your statements. Anet changed the story because they changed how you level and get rewards from the story. It was not significantly shorter at any time. At that time, I recall the only complaints were that the story was out of order and missing sections that caused it to not make sense. People want logical consistency to their stories. People want their stories to make sense. If they are not logically consistent, then it needs to be explained. This is basic writing.

Complaints were varied, not just in the length of the final mission but its anticlimactic nature. Or the fact that once you hit level 60, no matter how many alts you have you’re basically doing the same stuff over and over again.

Actually, the only complaints I remember were that the final mission was anti-climatic, which is more of a complaint about how that mission was designed and not the story. In fact, the story from Fort Trinity up to the final mission was not bad. You got to see how the dragon was being weakened. You got to see how the Pact pushed forward into Orr. You can nitpick here and there on it, but the fundamental story was strong.
HoT’s story was objectively nonsense. You go from seeing the pact struggle to recover from Mordremoth’s assault to being able to mount an attack on the dragon itself within a few days (or less). Characters behave inconsistently and unbelievably. It’s not well explained and doesn’t make sense. This is bad storytelling no matter how you look at it. Yes, the only thing the HoT story has going for it is that it is short, if you want that.

There have been many complaints about the short story but the biggest thing you’ll notice is how many people don’t do it at all. That should tell you something. It really is a long drawn out process unless you love story.

You seem to be confusing complaints about the story being too short with what a short story is. People aren’t complaining that HoT is a short story (it is not), they are complaining that the story is too short. This is a very different argument. Also, about what you are saying about these “many people.” If you are talking about professional writers, of which some of us are, you are wrong. No one would write a short story like HoT and expect it to get published. It is not focused and contains a lot of extraneous material that distracts from the primary plot/theme (which is non-existent also, tbh). HoT is better described as a chapter in a much longer story. But again, the type of story it is not the problem with it. Nor is it what people are complaining about.

As for your comments about fiction, unfortunately that was my profession. You really don’t want to explain everything in most short stories these days, for a reason. They would no longer be short stories. You can’t explorer every avenue in a shorter work and HOT IS a shorter work.

Sigh. A good short story doesn’t leave so many loose ends to begin with. It doesn’t spend significant time in frog villages, egg trials, and empty cities, when its primary story is about a war with a dragon. HoT is not a short story!

The HoT story accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish. We absolutely 100% do not have to know everything about Caithe’s reasons, because she’s not there as a main character, she’s there to drive events forward. We may see in the future more of her motivation, but I think obvious that just like Trahearne knew he had to heal Orr, she knew she had to get the egg to the jungle. No one asks why or how Trahearne knows that, we just know it’s his wild hunt. We know it. We don’t have to question it.

Semantically, we don’t need to know much of anything. We don’t need to know why Mordremoth is attacking or captured our allies. We certainly didn’t need to know that Rata Novus knew that dragons had a weakness. However, while we don’t need to know, some things make for a weaker story when we don’t know. Good writers recognize what should be explained further and what shouldn’t. HoT is not good writing. LS2 was HoT’s prelude and it focused heavily on Caithe. HoT pretty much gave us the conclusion to that story arc. But it didn’t. It feels like a major part of the story of LS2 and HoT is left untold. These weren’t setup like mysteries to be solved (a crutch Anet leans far to heavy on), but like they were simply forgotten.

You’re questioning it because you want to find flaw.

Um, you can’t tell us what someone else’s motivations are. You can tell us what your motivations are, but I think we can all see them clearly.

The Heart of Thorns story was made to be shorter, because the first story was too long for a lot of people. Personal source is people I’ve talked to, which is annecdotal. A more important source would be how many people never do it on a second character, which Anet would know and I don’t.

What you are saying is that you have no evidence to back up your claims. You constantly request others to back up their claims and have even said that is why you post so frequently in complaint threads. If you really want people to make claims with verifiable evidence, I recommend setting the example yourself.

I’m sorry, but the HoT story is not good at all. There may be parts of it that are good, but overall it is a disappointing experience. Recommending HoT for the story would be a disservice to potential players.

When you make a claim you need to back it up. I’m not making claims I’m countering them. There are FAR more complaints about the personal story than there are about the HoT story. If you don’t believe it, goggle guild wars 2 personal story or PS and look.

Most people know this, because it was obvious from being on here. People hated the personal story. They hated Trahearen. They added Arah story mode. Look it up.

Mortifer.2946:

Xillllix.3485:

Aidenwolf.5964:

At the moment I wouldn’t consider it at all, and I will never pre purchase from them again. The fact they even mention another xpac at this point makes me ill.

Yeah I know, my first thought was “well aren’t you gonna finish hoT first?” I mean they haven’t even released 25% of the new legendaries, WvW is a mess, only 1 Stronghold map released… Not even gonna mention raids…

Creating expansion takes years. They started working on HoT right after the main game release.

No they didn’t. They clearly thought they were going to be able to survive on living story style updates. That revenue obviously died so they had to do an xpac which they probably began working on around 18 months ago.

Vayne.8563:

When you make a claim you need to back it up. I’m not making claims I’m countering them. There are FAR more complaints about the personal story than there are about the HoT story. If you don’t believe it, goggle guild wars 2 personal story or PS and look.

No, no, no, no. That’s not how it works. Countering claims doesn’t mean you don’t have to support your own statements. You are saying that there are far more complaints for the Tyria PS. I don’t believe you because I’ve been here since beta and haven’t seen the number of complaints about the personal story that you claim. If you can back it up, please do so. Otherwise, don’t make such claims because you are not giving out accurate information.

They hated Trahearen.

Yes, a lot did. And I agree that they had a valid point. But that’s just one thing.

They added Arah story mode. Look it up.

They added Arah story mode to improve gameplay experience. It didn’t change the story at all. That’s twice you’ve trying to use that to support your claims.

morrolan.9608:

Mortifer.2946:

Xillllix.3485:

Aidenwolf.5964:

At the moment I wouldn’t consider it at all, and I will never pre purchase from them again. The fact they even mention another xpac at this point makes me ill.

Yeah I know, my first thought was “well aren’t you gonna finish hoT first?” I mean they haven’t even released 25% of the new legendaries, WvW is a mess, only 1 Stronghold map released… Not even gonna mention raids…

Creating expansion takes years. They started working on HoT right after the main game release.

No they didn’t. They clearly thought they were going to be able to survive on living story style updates. That revenue obviously died so they had to do an xpac which they probably began working on around 18 months ago.

I recall them stating several times before LS2 that they weren’t planning an expansion. I believe the expansion decision occurred around the end of LS1. That doesn’t mean that they weren’t working on content that became part of the expansion. It also doesn’t mean that the revenue dried up. They may have just figured that it was more profitable to make an expansion and choose that route.

Vayne.8563:

Khisanth.2948:

Are we even playing the same game? How are they not must haves? How am I going to get poison mastery without Itzel language or blazing mushroom(mushroom isn’t useless but it isn’t useful either)? If they had allowed people to pick whatever mastery they wanted rather than this forced ordering I wouldn’t care what sort of crappy and useless masteries they add in there as fillers.

Yes we’re playing the same game. You know, this isn’t a shy community and there’s very very little complaining about useless masteries. I may have seen three threads. That’s not exactly a landslide. When people are bothered by something here they let you know.

Even in those three threads, there wasn’t much traction for it. It seems like a non-issue to most of us. I’m really sorry this is something you don’t like but that doesn’t actually make it a problem for the game.

By the same token the 400 point elite unlock was a huge problem for the game, and the fans let Anet know about it and Anet changed it.

So maybe we’re not playing the same game. You seem to be bothered by stuff that really isn’t a hot button issue to most.

Inaction equals proof that there is no problem? That is certainly convenient.

Vayne.8563:

You need examples about people complaining about the original story? You’ve never seen any complaints about it? I’m sure you can find your own complaints.

The original story seemed to go on forever. Anet even tried to shorten it but people who liked the story insisted it get restored. They tried to shorten it because people don’t play the original PS. For a lot of people is it too long. It seems to go on forever and a lot of it is just filler missions. The original PS is some of the least compelling content in the game in my opinion.

Complaints were varied, not just in the length of the final mission but its anticlimactic nature. Or the fact that once you hit level 60, no matter how many alts you have you’re basically doing the same stuff over and over again.

There have been many complaints about the short story but the biggest thing you’ll notice is how many people don’t do it at all. That should tell you something. It really is a long drawn out process unless you love story.

And in fact, how it’s drawn out in some ways, I consider worse writing than the writing on Heart of Thorns.

There were too many side stories that really weren’t that impactful, and didn’t need to be there, and probably shouldn’t have been there. The PS had so many characters that came out of left field, including Trahearne if you didn’t start with a Sylvari.

By contrast, you don’t have that problem in the HoT story because the story is basically the same for everyone, with the exception of some changes to the Sylvari character’s dialogue.

As for your comments about fiction, unfortunately that was my profession. You really don’t want to explain everything in most short stories these days, for a reason. They would no longer be short stories. You can’t explorer every avenue in a shorter work and HOT IS a shorter work.

The HoT story accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish. We absolutely 100% do not have to know everything about Caithe’s reasons, because she’s not there as a main character, she’s there to drive events forward. We may see in the future more of her motivation, but I think obvious that just like Trahearne knew he had to heal Orr, she knew she had to get the egg to the jungle. No one asks why or how Trahearne knows that, we just know it’s his wild hunt. We know it. We don’t have to question it.

You’re questioning it because you want to find flaw. But since you KNOW that the dream of dreams is incomplete, and you don’t get to see everything and there are sylvari that specialize in interpreting what you’ve seen (yes we know that from in game), then there’s no reason to assume that she had all knowledge. But she did know what she had to do. I’m not even sure why this is a conversation.

The Heart of Thorns story was made to be shorter, because the first story was too long for a lot of people. Personal source is people I’ve talked to, which is annecdotal. A more important source would be how many people never do it on a second character, which Anet would know and I don’t.

But yes, I believe Anet knows it was too long.

Such a wall of text and everything you said could be summed in “look for something yourself; I heard something somewhere; I’m a writer, I know better”.

I’m not looking for examples I’ve just asked you to provide. In fact, my claim is that there are no such examples. Why would I look for something, that I don’t think exists? You are talking about a lot of people who think like you, but I’m supposed to look for them myself. Yeah…

You mentioned that you are a writer a few times. Was that supposed to impress me? Are you trying to appeal to your authority as a writer? First of all, appeal to authority is a common argument form which can be fallacious, such as when an authority is cited on a topic outside their area of expertise, or when the authority cited is not a true expert. In the context of logical reasoning, any appeal to authority is fallacious, because it is not a logical argument. Secondly, you even described yourself as a fanboy whose opinion is being denigrated. You hold little to no authority in these forums, do no appeal to it.

A better example of appeal to authority:
A youtuber with 100 616 subscribers (at the moment of writing), a devoted GW franchise fan and a lore geek wrote a review of HoT story. Even he agrees with me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL-8bSUothk

Try again.

Manthas.6234:

First of all, please give examples of people complaining about the length of the original story. I can’t remember it being an issue. The problem I remember, was the final battle, which wasn’t really a battle at all. There were a lot of complaints and that part was fixed, now we have a decent final battle (bugged though)*.

We do? I could not find any difference between the two versions other than the fact that you can do it solo now. You are still killing an elder dragon with fireworks.