Guild Wars 2

Why did it have to change from something you could do on your own to something that takes a such a large group? There are a couple I have attempted and there were at least 4 others there and we could not finish it. After we were killed there were no waypoints that were open so we could release and come back. That makes no sense in a game design.

The only one that i think is truly hard so far is the one with the Balthazar champion, other than that you only really need a couple more people (which are not hard to find) to finish.

And you’re forgetting the fact that the new hero challenges gives 10 points instead of 1, you don’t expect ANet to just hand them to you do you??

There are only a few so far (our of ~20) I’ve tried that took multiple tries.

yeah i’ve spent all day yesterday grinding for masteries and finally getting heropoints…today ill move on to wvw and get my hero points there.

map looks great and the events are tough, but as a pvp player 1 day swearing and yelling at my mouse and smashing my spacebar. cause glider failed to open….and almost throwing my alienware laptop out of the window, i will move on to wvw heropoint grind….

RapidSausage.4620:

The only one that i think is truly hard so far is the one with the Balthazar champion, other than that you only really need a couple more people (which are not hard to find) to finish.

And you’re forgetting the fact that the new hero challenges gives 10 points instead of 1, you don’t expect ANet to just hand them to you do you??

No I don’t expect them to be just given to me but when I cannot even port back to complete it that is a problem. I also am pretty concerned how the maps are going to be in a few months because honestly there are not many people in the areas where I am now so how few will there be then? I do not understand why it was such a huge jump from the old skill points to the ones now and yes, I get that it is worth 10, but really that is just so they can make up for the huge number you need to get the the elites.

RapidSausage.4620:

The only one that i think is truly hard so far is the one with the Balthazar champion, other than that you only really need a couple more people (which are not hard to find) to finish.

And you’re forgetting the fact that the new hero challenges gives 10 points instead of 1, you don’t expect ANet to just hand them to you do you??

I wouldn’t say Balthazar’s too terribly hard. Me ( Warrior ) and a Ranger duo’d it from on top of the ledge. Since he has ranged attacks, he doesn’t reset his HP/Aggro.

jazzllanna.1278:

RapidSausage.4620:

The only one that i think is truly hard so far is the one with the Balthazar champion, other than that you only really need a couple more people (which are not hard to find) to finish.

And you’re forgetting the fact that the new hero challenges gives 10 points instead of 1, you don’t expect ANet to just hand them to you do you??

No I don’t expect them to be just given to me but when I cannot even port back to complete it that is a problem. I also am pretty concerned how the maps are going to be in a few months because honestly there are not many people in the areas where I am now so how few will there be then? I do not understand why it was such a huge jump from the old skill points to the ones now and yes, I get that it is worth 10, but really that is just so they can make up for the huge number you need to get the the elites.

HoT is literally only 3 days old, many people didn’t prepurchase and are waiting for reviews/opinions, so it’s still too early to judge everything, people are still exploring and experimenting, and soon enough there will be all sorts of guides for hunting HPs and rotations that give the best mstery xp all around.

Wait a week or two and you’ll feel more than familiar with the map layout and you’ll have enough mastery points to get what you want, don’t expect everything to be accessible from day 1/2/3, patience is the key.

But if you’re really hungry for HPs you can always do the tyria ones, i got 90 points a day for my too s who have absolutely no pve maps explored.

Copestetic.5174:

RapidSausage.4620:

The only one that i think is truly hard so far is the one with the Balthazar champion, other than that you only really need a couple more people (which are not hard to find) to finish.

And you’re forgetting the fact that the new hero challenges gives 10 points instead of 1, you don’t expect ANet to just hand them to you do you??

I wouldn’t say Balthazar’s too terribly hard. Me ( Warrior ) and a Ranger duo’d it from on top of the ledge. Since he has ranged attacks, he doesn’t reset his HP/Aggro.

When i did it with a couple of others he had 2 stacks of enrage on him so he basically two shot most of us, we had to keep bim in combat until the others waypointed and ran back to him.

I cannot get HPs from tyria. All of the characters I like have map completion. I am not starved from HPs I just do not understand why they made these so difficult. I do not understand why there was this drastic jump from the old ones.

jazzllanna.1278:

RapidSausage.4620:

The only one that i think is truly hard so far is the one with the Balthazar champion, other than that you only really need a couple more people (which are not hard to find) to finish.

And you’re forgetting the fact that the new hero challenges gives 10 points instead of 1, you don’t expect ANet to just hand them to you do you??

No I don’t expect them to be just given to me but when I cannot even port back to complete it that is a problem. I also am pretty concerned how the maps are going to be in a few months because honestly there are not many people in the areas where I am now so how few will there be then? I do not understand why it was such a huge jump from the old skill points to the ones now and yes, I get that it is worth 10, but really that is just so they can make up for the huge number you need to get the the elites.

Call out in map chat and have someone pop a commander tag. You’ll get more people pretty fast. I have yet to find a point that doesn’t work with.

It’s even better because even if you’ve done it, you can get the reward for it once a day.

There is no reason for hero challenges not to be soloable. Your personal progression should not be dependent on the whims of other people, period.

And now I just tabbed back into the game and this is what I see from another player http://imgur.com/PPAv6oK

People cannot complete the skill points without paying other players?! Oh my this is not going to be good in the long run.

jazzllanna.1278:

I cannot get HPs from tyria. All of the characters I like have map completion. I am not starved from HPs I just do not understand why they made these so difficult. I do not understand why there was this drastic jump from the old ones.

I don’t mind the difficulty as long as there are people around, the challenges themselves are not what bother me, it’s the mazes i have to go through to find them in the first place if anything.

Honestly man, it’s not that bad, it’s usually just 1 champ which takes 3+ people to kill, sometimes even only 2, which is a great deal if you ask me

RapidSausage.4620:

I don’t mind the difficulty as long as there are people around, the challenges themselves are not what bother me, it’s the mazes i have to go through to find them in the first place if anything.

I do agree with this. I am hoping though that I will get use to these maps and they will start to be fun to navigate. So not complaining about that because I think that is more on me to learn it. :p

jazzllanna.1278:

Why did it have to change from something you could do on your own to something that takes a such a large group? There are a couple I have attempted and there were at least 4 others there and we could not finish it. After we were killed there were no waypoints that were open so we could release and come back. That makes no sense in a game design.

I dunno which ones you are looking at, but I have yet to find one that couldn’t be defeated by 2-3 competent people. I just duo’d two of the timed champion fights in the first zone, and one of them I dang near solo’d. It was at like 10% health when the timer ran out.

As for waypoints being far away or under threat, they have said, repeatedly, that they wanted this expansion to be quite alot harder than the base game. I don’t mean to be well, mean, but you should consider practicing content that doesn’t involve stacking in one place with a zerg, if you want to do stuff in this expansion. I have now seen, time and time again, zergers get just dropped like a sack of hammers against the Legendary bosses up in the upper area of the Verdant Edge… often they’ll sit there spamming a high dps attack directly at the Wyverns feet while standing in the 4k/sec fire, then demand resses when they go down and.. are still in that fire.

jazzllanna.1278:

And now I just tabbed back into the game and this is what I see from another player http://imgur.com/PPAv6oK

People cannot complete the skill points without paying other players?! Oh my this is not going to be good in the long run.

It’s obvious that ANet doesn’t care. Player interaction is a good thing, right?

jazzllanna.1278:

And now I just tabbed back into the game and this is what I see from another player http://imgur.com/PPAv6oK

People cannot complete the skill points without paying other players?! Oh my this is not going to be good in the long run.

I am pretty sure I know what skill challenge he’s talking about- you eat poisoned bacon that does like 3% of your health a second and disables all your skills except a heal that can’t solo cover it… unless you have the mastery unlocked that reduces incoming poison damage in Maguuma. In which case its easily done.

He’s basically paying people to avoid having to work on a Mastery. It has absolutely nothing to do with it being a difficult fight or something.

jazzllanna.1278:

And now I just tabbed back into the game and this is what I see from another player http://imgur.com/PPAv6oK

People cannot complete the skill points without paying other players?! Oh my this is not going to be good in the long run.

I would be wary of making blanket judgements based on that screenshot.

Yesterday a player in Dry Top was offering to pay someone to lead him to Silverwastes. We posted the links to the Triforge waypoint and fort in Brisban, explaining that there is no direct connection between the two maps. Yet he still wanted someone to lead him. Does that mean that people cannot get to Silverwastes without paying other players? How hard is it to exit Dry Top the same way you came in and run a little bit north, even if you have not previously explored that part of Brisban?

There always seem to be players who don’t want to make even the most trivial of efforts to get what they want, so they offer pay. It isn’t a sign that paying is necessary.

Juunro.7082:

jazzllanna.1278:

And now I just tabbed back into the game and this is what I see from another player http://imgur.com/PPAv6oK

People cannot complete the skill points without paying other players?! Oh my this is not going to be good in the long run.

I am pretty sure I know what skill challenge he’s talking about- you eat poisoned bacon that does like 3% of your health a second and disables all your skills except a heal that can’t solo cover it… unless you have the mastery unlocked that reduces incoming poison damage in Maguuma. In which case its easily done.

He’s basically paying people to avoid having to work on a Mastery. It has absolutely nothing to do with it being a difficult fight or something.

I’ve attempted to do this one with a friend, you can’t receive heals when you’re holding the thing, so asking for heals is pointless.

The only problem I have with this train of thought Anet has taken.. is that what happens when the zones are less populated and you can’t find people to do them with?

Will everyone just have to train through wvw/eotm to get their elite specs?

Devildoc.6721:

The only problem I have with this train of thought Anet has taken.. is that what happens when the zones are less populated and you can’t find people to do them with?

Will everyone just have to train through wvw/eotm to get their elite specs?

They’ll do what they did with Orr, retune it a little bit. Except it’ll be easier because megaservers are a thing now.

Well it IS counting as 10 points, not just 1. So naturally it should be difficult.

Devildoc.6721:

The only problem I have with this train of thought Anet has taken.. is that what happens when the zones are less populated and you can’t find people to do them with?

Will everyone just have to train through wvw/eotm to get their elite specs?

Or people could make friends in a social game and help each other.

When you say “everyone” what you’re really saying is “people who insist on treating a multiplayer game like a single player game”

It’s good to have friends, it always has been, and doing anything with some like minded others is pretty much always more fun.

MMOs generally revolve around the assumption that you bring or make friends. GW2’s systems were made as cooperative as possible to make sure it was easier to make friends, by removing most of the stress points where other players could interfere with your play. At worst they can ignore you, at best, they help you out.

I know people don’t want to hear this, but really, try talking to people, saying thank you when they help you, and forming social ties with other players.

jazzllanna.1278:

And now I just tabbed back into the game and this is what I see from another player http://imgur.com/PPAv6oK
People cannot complete the skill points without paying other players?! Oh my this is not going to be good in the long run.

Heyyy, finally my Druid may be useful. (Kidding! I have a Druid and a Mesmer, they don’t help for gold.)

On the topic of the maps feeling a bit empty, I think that the lack of players may get a bit better after Halloween is over. I have HoT and haven’t played much more than 10 minutes of content because I’m doing the Halloween events. There also has to be some Revs who are playing though the content from level 1 – 80, give them a few weeks to catch up. After that, you will get the people who want to join their guilds in the new zones. I think it’s going to be ok

PopeUrban.2578:

Devildoc.6721:

The only problem I have with this train of thought Anet has taken.. is that what happens when the zones are less populated and you can’t find people to do them with?

Will everyone just have to train through wvw/eotm to get their elite specs?

Or people could make friends in a social game and help each other.

When you say “everyone” what you’re really saying is “people who insist on treating a multiplayer game like a single player game”

It’s good to have friends, it always has been, and doing anything with some like minded others is pretty much always more fun.

MMOs generally revolve around the assumption that you bring or make friends. GW2’s systems were made as cooperative as possible to make sure it was easier to make friends, by removing most of the stress points where other players could interfere with your play. At worst they can ignore you, at best, they help you out.

I know people don’t want to hear this, but really, try talking to people, saying thank you when they help you, and forming social ties with other players.

A lot of people hate begging for help with things and dragging people, even their friends, out to the middle of nowhere to help them do something they can’t do on their own.

It’s one thing if it’s mutually beneficial, but it’s another entirely when I’m asking someone to go out of their way to help me.

Devildoc.6721:

PopeUrban.2578:

Devildoc.6721:

The only problem I have with this train of thought Anet has taken.. is that what happens when the zones are less populated and you can’t find people to do them with?

Will everyone just have to train through wvw/eotm to get their elite specs?

Or people could make friends in a social game and help each other.

When you say “everyone” what you’re really saying is “people who insist on treating a multiplayer game like a single player game”

It’s good to have friends, it always has been, and doing anything with some like minded others is pretty much always more fun.

MMOs generally revolve around the assumption that you bring or make friends. GW2’s systems were made as cooperative as possible to make sure it was easier to make friends, by removing most of the stress points where other players could interfere with your play. At worst they can ignore you, at best, they help you out.

I know people don’t want to hear this, but really, try talking to people, saying thank you when they help you, and forming social ties with other players.

A lot of people hate begging for help with things and dragging people, even their friends, out to the middle of nowhere to help them do something they can’t do on their own.

It’s one thing if it’s mutually beneficial, but it’s another entirely when I’m asking someone to go out of their way to help me.

I suppose we have very different kinds of friends. Usually my friends are happy to help get the entire group on the “same page” even at the cost of their personal advancement, so we can then advance together.

I think a lot of the disappointment that certain people have with HoT really is that sense of rush. Like, they don’t really enjoy the way GW2 expects people to actually enjoy running around maps, stumbling in to things, etc. and would rather be led on a more direct course with a clear progression.

That’s valid, but, at least to me, the advancement systems in HoT feel like a natural extension of how the pve already operated. Masteries are more useful achievements Hero points are more useful skill points. Both are generally paced longer, but short enough that you make meaningful progress per play session in terms of map completion, hero point advancement, mastries, etc. With increased difficulty befitting the expections of people that have exhausted the core content.

What would have really been a disappointment would have been a paid expansion that simply offered more of the same. I like that HoT pushes social interaction more. Core GW2 could be a very lonely game even with all the people running around. The game naturally encouraged people to help one another when they stumbled in to each other, but it did nothing to encourage them to actually adventure together as the design simply funneled everyone in to these big faceless zergs where any individual player’s contributions to your success were completely unnoticable, and thus everyone around you sort of became this ever present blur.

Devildoc.6721:

A lot of people hate begging for help with things and dragging people, even their friends, out to the middle of nowhere to help them do something they can’t do on their own.

It’s one thing if it’s mutually beneficial, but it’s another entirely when I’m asking someone to go out of their way to help me.

But hey, who you are as an individual doesn’t matter. You should just be like the Pope there and suck it up and your life will be cake.

Btw, maybe I’m a little slow, but where is the S in MMORPG? You know, S for social, the Pope tells me that all those words that have nothing to do with being social still means social somehow. I’ve never understood why some people think the words multiplayer and social are synonyms.

see there’s where you’re wrong. If people are rushing, they’re in a hero point group doing them all at once just following a leader.

Its when they go off on their own to explore that they stumble across hero points alone that they have no chance of doing alone and having to beg for help and make people go out of their way to help them.

Hence people like the guy offering to pay for help getting things. It sucks feeling like you’re begging for help from someone who’s going to get nothing out of it, sometimes I feel like I should be compensating my guildmates for helping me.

Ataraxis.6098:

Devildoc.6721:

A lot of people hate begging for help with things and dragging people, even their friends, out to the middle of nowhere to help them do something they can’t do on their own.

It’s one thing if it’s mutually beneficial, but it’s another entirely when I’m asking someone to go out of their way to help me.

But hey, who you are as an individual doesn’t matter. You should just be like the Pope there and suck it up and your life will be cake.

Btw, maybe I’m a little slow, but where is the S in MMORPG? You know, S for social, the Pope tells me that all those words that have nothing to do with being social still means social somehow. I’ve never understood why some people think the words multiplayer and social are synonyms.

In general, the word multiplayer assumes the base design of the game requires multiple players for the design to work. That doesn’t mean expecting people to sign blood pacts, but, honestly, if making even temporary friends (or having friends from your life outside of the game) feels like a chore for a person, I don’t see how primarily multiplayer cooperative experiences of any sort appeal to that person.

The primary lesson Arenanet learned from GW1 was that when you give people the option to completely ignore multiplayer interactions they do so, often to the absolute detriment of your design. When you encourage them to work together, that design tends to have a lot more longevity simply due to the social factor.

People have become used to this idea of other players in GW2 as resources rather than people specifically because of GW2’s over the top cooperative design. When you know a group of people showing up near you is a ticket to a free ride even if you’re being outright hostile to them, it removes any incentive to actually interact with them in a positive manner. The fact is people have adjusted to this assumption that a faceless pile of other people will always show up to cover them.

HoT’s event and hero point designs specifically subvert that by spreading out the player base significantly, removing the certainty that things will just get done through sheep force of numbers to loot efficiency. Things will get done, but in any given cycle there are so many things that need to be done there is never a guarantee that the thing you personally want to get done will happen.

If the idea of having people on a friends list, or guild roster, or asking around to see if anyone else needs to do the thing you also need to do or whatever feels like something you have to “Suck it up” to do, I can understand why that design is disappointing.

It’s my personal belief that that kind of social interaction is what makes MMOs different than other sorts of games, and that at some level it’s integral to the DNA of the genre, no matter how wild or different the combat, gear, or whatever other systems are.

You are obviously of a different opinion, and that’s completely valid. I just don’t empathize with or even quite understand that point of view.

In VB there are 5 champ hero challenges (and 2 require high rank). When you say it is easy to get people to kill them then how come I was trying my best yesterday (switching zones and TS servers) and didn’t find a single person to go there with me?
If it is so easy, how come it doesn’t happen? Please, explain this to me, I would love to hear your explanation!

You’re missing it again.

Multiplayer playing is great, when people are cooperating for MUTUAL BENEFIT. If everyone gathered at the hero point needs the hero point, that’s all great.

It’s when ONE person drags 3-4 guildmates or friends to do something JUST FOR THEM, that some people feel uncomfortable with.

Because people have been begging for more difficult content since day one and now that they have it they cry like babies.

Also the map system is currently broken leaving maps with less players making them feel empty, once that is fixed it will be super easy.

Arnath.2319:

Because people have been begging for more difficult content since day one and now that they have it they cry like babies.

Also the map system is currently broken leaving maps with less players making them feel empty, once that is fixed it will be super easy.

People want instanced difficult content, like raids. Open world difficult content is a lot harder to get behind because you’re operating a pug most likely, a pug not on voice communication makes difficult landscape content not fun, but frustrating.

Difficult content should all be instanced, because then you can make sure your group is organized and able to focus and do it.

Arnath.2319:

Also the map system is currently broken leaving maps with less players making them feel empty, once that is fixed it will be super easy.

Has this been confirmed? I find it odd that the game has not even been out for a week and I am the only one at events but I have not seen anything that says this is a bug with the maps.

jazzllanna.1278:

Arnath.2319:

Also the map system is currently broken leaving maps with less players making them feel empty, once that is fixed it will be super easy.

Has this been confirmed? I find it odd that the game has not even been out for a week and I am the only one at events but I have not seen anything that says this is a bug with the maps.

I have been on some empty maps also. Would like to know if this is true or are people already not playing the maps?

RapidSausage.4620:

The only one that i think is truly hard so far is the one with the Balthazar champion, other than that you only really need a couple more people (which are not hard to find) to finish.

And you’re forgetting the fact that the new hero challenges gives 10 points instead of 1, you don’t expect ANet to just hand them to you do you??

LOL, I had a funny experience at the Balthazar one. I went in with a warrior and stealth us both up with a shadow refuge, I go to grab the point and for some reason he accidentally hits 1 and aggros the boss. He dies quickly, but it interrupts my channel, I had to jump around like a mad man for a minute until shadow refuge came back off cooldown to get the hero point. Was fun, I can only imagine the frustration for that warrior that can`t stealth. It seemed really hard, and for a thief, not worth even trying.

PopeUrban.2578:

If the idea of having people on a friends list, or guild roster, or asking around to see if anyone else needs to do the thing you also need to do or whatever feels like something you have to “Suck it up” to do, I can understand why that design is disappointing.

You are obviously of a different opinion, and that’s completely valid. I just don’t empathize with or even quite understand that point of view.

Another thing to keep in mind is that many people play in much quieter time zones.

Not all of us live in the NA or EU.

As an oceanic player from New Zealand this has always been an issue. Guilds, un-official “pacific time friendly” servers, mega-servers and the friendships I have formed in-game help this matter but we still have a vastly smaller pool of players to rely on for such content and the servers are usually at their quietest when we play.

Point being solo play is not always merely a choice and group play is not always an available option.

As such this even being mentioned as an issue 3 days after release is a far bigger issue to some players than others.

What I think is going on atm is that most people are exploring the maps.
I myself was doing an event solo and I thought let’s pop my commander tag and see if people come. And yes within 2 minutes 3-10 people came from different directions.
I say give people some time to explore every part of the maps.
Maybe in a week all those hero points will be done by several people

Well I tried to get the hp in creeping crevasse with a champ there. I asked in map and 1 person showed up. The expansion is out 4 days and only 1 person shows up for this? Please make these so you can get them on your own this is just not going to work.