Guild Wars 2

vesica tempestas.1563:

Vayne.8563:

vesica tempestas.1563:

what bad publicity exactly? apart from the usual nay-saying in gaming forums by the usual negative types the game was received very well across the board, for example:

pc gamer 85
ign 76
metacritic 85
mmorpg 82

If you were following meta critic at first, the game was down around 50. It LATER came up to 85. There was a concert effort by people who were outraged to downvote it on metacritic and that number was very low. I remember posting about it at the time.

Game review sites are meaningless anyway. Most games are sold by word of mouth or advertising. Anyone who wanted to do a search on Guild Wars 2 at that time would have encountered articles in places about fans being dissatisfied, and even reddit, which is usually quite positive about the game, was on the warpath.

In general terms, if you post a stupid negative post on reddit, it gets downvoted to hell. The negative posts on reddit are few and far between. Back then, reddit was on the warpath and the first page was filled with negative posts that remained top rated posts for days on end.

I agree there are often a few loud complaints that take front and center, but this was something completely different.

I said publicity, and those sites along with advertising is the publicity/word of mouth and on average HOT was well received, and is well regarded then and now. The fact is on average the typical punter who has not played GW looking for an opinion on HOT are going to see this and videos, and not disgruntled self-centered highly vocal posts on forums and reddit.

There were articles on MMO sites that told of how the community was unhappy with the company and the game. That’s publicity most new games never get. Those articles are rare and they did exist for HOT. That IS bad publicity.

orignally I was not going to buy HoT until a discount time happened because I was concerned there was not many content for a expansion.

However, it introduced things I wanted to see such as expanding profession’s gameplay and new maps so I decided to buy it.

To be fair though, expansions are not primarily designed to attract NEW customers, but to resell the existing game to existing customers thereby dinging their wallets a second time. That is why all the negative PR on the forums/reddit/map chat more than offset any marketing spin carried by the industry rags.

HoT’s main issue was that they failed to sell the existing customers on the expansion (price point, content, direction, etc.).

Vayne.8563:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Vayne.8563:

vesica tempestas.1563:

what bad publicity exactly? apart from the usual nay-saying in gaming forums by the usual negative types the game was received very well across the board, for example:

pc gamer 85
ign 76
metacritic 85
mmorpg 82

If you were following meta critic at first, the game was down around 50. It LATER came up to 85. There was a concert effort by people who were outraged to downvote it on metacritic and that number was very low. I remember posting about it at the time.

Game review sites are meaningless anyway. Most games are sold by word of mouth or advertising. Anyone who wanted to do a search on Guild Wars 2 at that time would have encountered articles in places about fans being dissatisfied, and even reddit, which is usually quite positive about the game, was on the warpath.

In general terms, if you post a stupid negative post on reddit, it gets downvoted to hell. The negative posts on reddit are few and far between. Back then, reddit was on the warpath and the first page was filled with negative posts that remained top rated posts for days on end.

I agree there are often a few loud complaints that take front and center, but this was something completely different.

I said publicity, and those sites along with advertising is the publicity/word of mouth and on average HOT was well received, and is well regarded then and now. The fact is on average the typical punter who has not played GW looking for an opinion on HOT are going to see this and videos, and not disgruntled self-centered highly vocal posts on forums and reddit.

There were articles on MMO sites that told of how the community was unhappy with the company and the game. That’s publicity most new games never get. Those articles are rare and they did exist for HOT. That IS bad publicity.

There are always articles about complaining about this and that which is perfectly normal in this day and age online especially in gaming forums and the like. These articles do not however represent the whole community where many have applauded the complexity of the new zones and the design. This also does not counteract the position that on balance there was and is far more positive feedback than negative, and in channels far more likely to be evaluated by the man on the street looking for a new game. The real evidence is Anets behavior, if HOT was disastrous they would not be investing in a new expansion. That’s not to say there are not problems with the initial HOT zones (i personally think raids are too exclusive at present) but good games change and adapt and learn, and i see that within later zones.

vesica tempestas.1563:

The real evidence is Anets behavior, if HOT was disastrous they would not be investing in a new expansion.

If HoT was not disastrous, you wouldn’t see a whole patch dedicated solely to fixing it. There’s also that little case of certain person in important top position leaving the company completely accidentally (and very suddenly) around the same time those fixes were being done.

Also, remember, that HoT being a failure is not the same as expac idea being a failure. It’s just that a lot of people ended up disliking the direction of this one.

If HoT wasn’t a disaster, why did the head guy at Anet go to great lengths to assure the community the company had learned from all the mistakes made in HoT…… Seems like he was trying to assure us that they wouldn’t put out another HoT like expansion.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Vayne.8563:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Vayne.8563:

vesica tempestas.1563:

what bad publicity exactly? apart from the usual nay-saying in gaming forums by the usual negative types the game was received very well across the board, for example:

pc gamer 85
ign 76
metacritic 85
mmorpg 82

If you were following meta critic at first, the game was down around 50. It LATER came up to 85. There was a concert effort by people who were outraged to downvote it on metacritic and that number was very low. I remember posting about it at the time.

Game review sites are meaningless anyway. Most games are sold by word of mouth or advertising. Anyone who wanted to do a search on Guild Wars 2 at that time would have encountered articles in places about fans being dissatisfied, and even reddit, which is usually quite positive about the game, was on the warpath.

In general terms, if you post a stupid negative post on reddit, it gets downvoted to hell. The negative posts on reddit are few and far between. Back then, reddit was on the warpath and the first page was filled with negative posts that remained top rated posts for days on end.

I agree there are often a few loud complaints that take front and center, but this was something completely different.

I said publicity, and those sites along with advertising is the publicity/word of mouth and on average HOT was well received, and is well regarded then and now. The fact is on average the typical punter who has not played GW looking for an opinion on HOT are going to see this and videos, and not disgruntled self-centered highly vocal posts on forums and reddit.

There were articles on MMO sites that told of how the community was unhappy with the company and the game. That’s publicity most new games never get. Those articles are rare and they did exist for HOT. That IS bad publicity.

There are always articles about complaining about this and that which is perfectly normal in this day and age online especially in gaming forums and the like. These articles do not however represent the whole community where many have applauded the complexity of the new zones and the design. This also does not counteract the position that on balance there was and is far more positive feedback than negative, and in channels far more likely to be evaluated by the man on the street looking for a new game. The real evidence is Anets behavior, if HOT was disastrous they would not be investing in a new expansion. That’s not to say there are not problems with the initial HOT zones (i personally think raids are too exclusive at present) but good games change and adapt and learn, and i see that within later zones.

This isn’t true. There are very very very rarely articles about a new expansion that talk about the revolting of the fan masses over decisions made by the company. In fact, over the years, I can remember three times that approached the bad publicity Guild Wars 2 got. When Eve online released the $90 cash shop monocle, that was probably as big. The fans revolted. It was crazy.

And there was something about WoW and not being able to use your flying mounts in the new area, or something like that.

PC Gamer, which is a pretty big site, reported on the reactions of fans, and it almost never does. So did several other sites.

I’m not sure what sites you follow, but I never remember seeing that sort of bad publicity about a product prior to it’s launch. And I follow the MMO market.

I think there are a couple persona to consider here Vayne if you are looking at channels and engagement, the first is the player new to GW that hears about GW2. These players are likely to be attracted by look and feel in videos and advertising then start looking at reviews. These guys are not going to be following GW specific forums, they are new to the game. Its possible these guys will read about dramas in big sites, but they are sub consciously looking for confirmation that their excitement about a product is well founded, its human nature, especially when there is a lot of positive reviews to confirm the bias.

The second and main persona, is mr average gamer – mid 30s, played for over a decade now. Mid 30s your cooked you can think for yourself and in the main is capable of critical thinking. For e.g one of the main dramas at the time was the flawed argument that getting GW2 vanilla free with HOT = paying for vanilla twice. A 35 year old adult will evaluate themselves and see that HOT was the average price for an AAA expansion not (Vanilla price + Avg expansion price).

I think there are a couple persona to consider here Vayne if you are looking at channels and engagement, the first is the player new to GW that hears about GW2. These players are likely to be attracted by look and feel in videos and advertising then start looking at reviews. These guys are not going to be following GW specific forums, they are new to the game. Its possible these guys will read about dramas in big sites, but they are sub consciously looking for confirmation that their excitement about a product is well founded, its human nature, especially when there is a lot of positive reviews to confirm the bias.

The second and main persona, is mr average gamer – mid 30s, played for over a decade now. Mid 30s your cooked you can think for yourself and in the main is capable of critical thinking. For e.g one of the main dramas at the time was the flawed argument that getting GW2 vanilla free with HOT = paying for vanilla twice. A 35 year old adult will evaluate themselves and see that HOT was the average price for an AAA expansion not (Vanilla price + Avg expansion price).

I agree there are other persona that would be affected by this kind of drama, but there is always drama these days and again confirmation bias is huge these, and I suspect generally most of the unhappy players were already unhappy and no expansion will change that. Happy players allow for disappointment as they are engaged and want to trust more.

Again, I’m just saying the game did get bad publicity, and of a type rarely seen. I’m not saying all that publicity was well deserved. Usually, before an expansion comes out, there’s an air of excitement. People looking forward. But due to decisions made by Anet, the approach to HOT didn’t feel like that at all.

I mean veterans are almost always looking forward to new content in any MMO. And while there were people excited by the expansion, there were just so many issues that we knew about even before launch.

Anet’s decision not to include a character slot was a mistake in my opinion. That they later came back and added one in the prepurchase, well that was too little too late for a fanbase that was already on the warpath.

And again, it wasn’t just the official forums, but it was reddit which self-moderates to some degree. You say something stupid about the game on reddit, it almost always gets downvoted. This wasn’t the case.

On top of that, there was the decision to make it so that you needed 400 points to unlock your elite spec, which many people, rightly so in my opinion, felt was unnecessary.

Finally the nerf to dungeons, fixed to some degree by the changes, was also unnecessary and was too little too late.

So you had disparate groups complaining about legitimate stuff, coupled with the usual trolls and malcontents and people who like other games better.

I mean most people know me as a white knight, but even I was pretty surprised by some of the decisions Anet made.

That and the fact that there were “only” four zones, which is light for an expansion…Anet needed to market this as an expansion/season pass for it to make a bit more sense. Of course, if they did that, they couldn’t really charge for season 3 if you didn’t log in.

I think the way the living world is handled now is going to come back to bite Anet later.

vesica tempestas.1563:

I think there are a couple persona to consider here Vayne if you are looking at channels and engagement, the first is the player new to GW that hears about GW2. These players are likely to be attracted by look and feel in videos and advertising then start looking at reviews. These guys are not going to be following GW specific forums, they are new to the game. Its possible these guys will read about dramas in big sites, but they are sub consciously looking for confirmation that their excitement about a product is well founded, its human nature, especially when there is a lot of positive reviews to confirm the bias.

The second and main persona, is mr average gamer – mid 30s, played for over a decade now. Mid 30s your cooked you can think for yourself and in the main is capable of critical thinking. For e.g one of the main dramas at the time was the flawed argument that getting GW2 vanilla free with HOT = paying for vanilla twice. A 35 year old adult will evaluate themselves and see that HOT was the average price for an AAA expansion not (Vanilla price + Avg expansion price).

Nice logical thinking. Too bad the real world didn’t actually work like that.
HoT did have a negative press, that did impact sales. And most of the people that were up in arms about the bundle thing were those veterans you claim were too adult to think that way.

And by the way, you might want to look into how much people changed their opinions about the game (and especially expac) once they had a chance to play it more. Because you are mostly wrong in one thing – it was not mostly players that were unhappy before that were unhappy with HoT. The worst press came from those that hoped for something good and found their hopes misplaced.

So….I’v been gone for 3 years from the game and I have not bought HOT. When it first was announced I was very skeptical…especially with the PVP and the Ranger which was the only thing I was interested in and that did not warrant my hard earned money. So I am also very skeptical of the next expansion coming out next week. I am also not interested in the cosmetic stuff like gliders and such. I am thinking of getting POF but only after it comes out for a while…again looking at the Ranger and again severely disappointed. I know it’s hard for Anet to try to please everyone and they probably won’t be able but I will continue to play the game without paying sorry Anet…thanks for the f2P besides the box but until you release a true expansion I will probably just stay casual.

I don’t have money, that’s why. And i won’t have it to buy PoF as well, i guess. But most of the time i just play unranked PvP so i don’t miss HoT that much …

Edit: Just kidding. I’m gonna buy both xpacs as soon as possible

maddoctor.2738:

This is a question that I would like to have some answers to, obviously it’s for players who bought Guild Wars 2 (free players can’t post here) but didn’t buy Heart of Thorns. I’m not looking for players who bought Heart of Thorns but regret it for whatever reason, nor a discussion on how good the expansion is or not, but for owners of the original game that didn’t move on to the expansion to give some reason on why.

So, to repeat the question, what’s keeping you from buying Heart of Thorns?

I bought it just 1 week ago and ironically PoF has been abounded shortly later.
What kept me away is I expected a bigger focus on WvW from GW2. Once I hit level 80 I expected to find a ravaging war in WvW maps (like the old Daoc frontiers). Instead I found deserted areas besides EotM powerlevelling trains and people farming arenas to have the new sets. In the end there was much more farming and cosmetics than I expected.

Also Dungeons were an awful experience as people just seem to run them full speed to get the new drop so they can do it again, they give no time to read the story and understand what’s going on. I did it like 2-3 times and never even dared to queue for that again.

In the end I just bought HoT because I was bored. The content seems ok, I didn’t check if WvW has changed much but if that’s not the case I might quit again soon.

PoF? Maybe. Money is not a problem, but much depends on how much fun I will have in the coming weeks.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

Most likely, because everyone that was interested in it has bought it already, and there’s not enough new players to make a visible impact on sales.

I see this a lot as an argument but I don’t get it. Why was Guild Wars 2: Heroic Edition selling at Q4 2014 (before the announcement of Heart of Thorns in January) so well, for a game that was already old by mmorpg standards AND it was during a period of a terrible content drought (last content update was in August 2014)

Why was the Heroic Edition of GW2 outselling Heart of Thorns so long after the release of the game?

To offer some actual data :
Guild Wars 2 gem cards are ranked #3071 on Amazon
In late 2014 (September) it was ranked around #3,465

Heart of Thorns is ranked #4415 on Amazon
Guild Wars 2 Heroic Edition was ranked #1,697 in late 2014 (pre Heart of Thorns announcement)

You can see the vast difference right there. I know it’s only Amazon rankings, they change a lot, new games are added, older games are removed and so on, and it’s only one retailer. However it’s more than clear that the Heroic Edition was doing FAR better than the gem cards, while in the current situation Heart of Thorns is doing much worse than the gem cards. And also, the ranking of gem cards can be called stable, while the box sales are terrible.

So shouldn’t the argument of “everyone who wanted to buy Heart of Thorns, already did” be applied to the Heroic Edition as well? Why was the Heroic Edition still selling 2+ years after release, and Heart of Thorns is struggling less than 2 years after release?

Going out on a limb here, patience. Free accounts are severely restricted as with chat and mailing. Upgraded core accounts are not. You don’t need a HoT expansion to play all regular content. You don’t need one for world versus world, you don’t need one for pvp and you don’t need one for playing dungeons or fractals or for overland world bosses(Tequatle etc.)

To take it further you don’t need one for materials gathering or for amassing gold the old, hard way and either converting it to gems or simply holding onto it. This means core upgrade accounts are still valuable to third party website online gold/character/legendary weapon sellers for a variety of reasons.

-For leveling characters to max(possibly with hero points maxed to prep them for instant elite specs prior to an account purchase followed by an ex-pac purchase to sell them for money.

-For constructing legendary weapons to sell them for money.

-Market manipulation in order to sell materials and to transfer gold in-game via the auction system(if you’ve ever just perused the auction system across the board and then encountered strange sale items – green, non-rare, low-level items selling in the hundred or thousands of golds chances are that was a gold selling transaction.

-For use as disposable, dummy accounts for the purposes of spam pm’ing or broad channel advertising in game for those third party sites. Free accounts are limited on chat usage, a purchased account isn’t.

It doesn’t seem logical to spend that sort of money for the things above but given how ubiquitous the sight of legendary items is now, given Anet’s anti-farming stance(basically finding any instance of regularly farmable materials for just about anything being nerfed into the ground) again- chances are good that these third party sites are/were still making enough money from transactions to offset the overhead of churning through upgraded core game accounts. At least for the times you linked.

Does it mean a lot of the people with low AP sporting legendary weapons purchased them either with straight weapon purchases from a site or with gold purchased from those sites? Don’t know. Not an argument I want to get into here but it’s worth mentioning.

@Lozeph Good points you bring up and you just reminded me my 3rd reason for not purchasing any expansions for Guild Wars. There stance against farming and their manipulation of loot tables in their favor…by their favor IE forcing us to buy gems. In Gw1 I was able to farm swords and amass gold for anything I wanted but with gems to gold it is discouraged in the pursuit of whale/player money. IMHO their greatest expansion was the elona expansion in GW1. If Anet would put more focus and energy on fixing WvW/PVP instead of the store and coming up with more ways to monetize the game they would get more of my money.

For one, there’s the huge chunk they take from any transaction on the BLE. Farmers/gold sellers are just going to factor that chunk in as a cost of doing business whereas regular players lose out big.

Then on top of that there’s the even larger chunk of currency that vanishes down a deep, dark hole every time you either convert gems to gold or gold to gems. Whichever you’re converting the part they skim is excessive. Skimming anything at all is excessive-

In spite of what Anet claims, they do create gold and gems out of nothing- innocent enough on the surface as it’s the nature of bits and pixels.

Still, in a market where gems are bought with actual world money, taking a chunk off the top for an in-game exchange for some sort of dubious VAT before anything(weapons, armour, crafting mats etc.) is purchased is essentially daylight robbery. Particularly when the rate of exchange of gems to gold fluctuates wildly based on nothing they’ve(Anet) ever been transparent about.

There used to be a graph but even that was dubious as it’s still possible to manipulate currency rates, still possible to dump materials or other commodities onto the trading post as there isn’t a way of knowing who you’ve bought from or who has bought from you. It’s all still bits and pixels. We still have only their word that the rates are based on player activity.

In other fields of businesses that would be called shady -misrepresentation and fraud have to be proven and that’s nigh impossible here. Players are essentially being shaken down at the door for more money after having bought a ticket to go inside. And this- considering players are often taxed on credit card transactions by the local governments wherever they live.

Given the seemingly random fluctuation(manipulation) of their currency prices as opposed to say… the set retail pricing of a boxed product- there’s enough of a grey area there where you could call purchases of gems from Anet with a credit card more of a gambling event. This, in turn, SHOULD subject Anet to having to file for state/provincial gambling/gaming licenses wherever they do business if laws for such are on the books. Even if they did this- particularly if we go by the above paragraphs- there’s still the matter of their running a dirty game(rigging the tables with fluctuating exchange rates.)

The least Anet could do is have a flag for where gems come from(whether exchanged for gold earned through pve, playing the exchange, or actual world money purchases) so that gold bought with gems coming from a credit card purchase from Anet isn’t subjected to that exchange fee for the first gold conversion(in order to keep it in line with a boxed product purchase.) That, or allow players on point of purchase to select whether they want their actual world currency to purchase a flat amount of gems OR gold(not subject to in game exchange rates- again a boxed product) straight off. By not doing either they essentially guarantee business for third party sites.

But this in turn brings up the possibility(some woudl say tin foil hattery) that they’re stakeholders(or owners) of those third party operations -something which is again virtually impossible to prove even if it’s true.

But if all that weren’t enough there’s the refusal, thus far, of allowing players to purchase expansion packs with gems. It comes across as Anet having its cake, eating it, and then charging players another price of admission to watch them do it.

As a player I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, if only for the sake and love of my hobby, and suggest they just haven’t known any better -that what they’ve been doing is wrong(regardless of hiding behind a EULA.) Even so, it’s difficult to believe they haven’t had some sort of representation advising them all along about keeping their practices just this side of the bleeding edge of what does or doesn’t cross legal lines.

It’s quite a lot to ponder -even before the crying over whatever pet features players have wanted, delivered or not, from expansion content has begun.

TLDR; Trust matters and it’s difficult to trust Anet right now.

Reasons why I haven’t bought the new expansion:

- I have only recently come back to GW2 after 3 years. I’m pretty much clueless about what has happened story wise. I’m pretty surprised that the majority of content is untouched from when I left and it seems whatever is new is in the xpac.

- I originally bought GW2 for around(probably a bit more) $20AUD (Physical Copy) when it was first released.
The price for HOT alone is around $37.82AUD and the upcoming expansion is bundled with HOT for $63.04AUD. For me it’s just a turn off for these expansions to be over the base game cost. But now the base game value is suddenly 0. I feel like Anet should at least give some sort of trial period to their expansion to see if it’s actually worth getting.

- From brief research I found out that there was some sort of outrage with HOT release for existing players because around the time GW2 was going F2P. If I’m not mistaken there was a possibility for existing players to “refund” their game and basically get a free upgrade to HOT. And this is only for digital purchases. I assume this was a limited time thing and again – I feel somewhat cheated. I bought the game like others a physical copy which I’m pretty sure I still have yet I’m not entitled to the same. It’s just somewhat unfair.

What I find bad about the expansions:

- Class skills/specializations : I dislike that it’s ONLY available for HOT users. It’d be nice if it was the new class was for the HOT expansion and the specialization update was available for all; else allow it to be unlocked for those who had existing accounts prior the game turning F2P.

- Gliders : I thought this was just odd seeing in GW2 very odd. I still don’t know what to think of it. I’ve only seen it’s use in a jumping puzzle in Lions arch that required the use of the glider. Why that JP is in a “F2P” map I don’t know. But thank gosh there are HOT Mesmer that are willing to cheat us through <3.

- Story restrictions : Literally am restricted to getting story content. What if I just paid for the episodes can I just get into the relevant map instances for the story? No. I HAVE to have HOT. To me it’s just a turn off to returning to the game and being excluded to such an important aspect to the game.

Sorry for any errors or if some parts make no sense; somewhat tired but was looking for threads related to HOT.

I bought GW2 pre-release and played early access and the closed beta’s etc. I leveled several classes to max level, participated in seasonal events and did several jumping puzzles. After awhile, I was like.. “what to do now?”. The lack of end-game wore away at me. Fractals came out and I really liked it, for awhile. Once I had done that repeatedly, I grew bored and again ran out of things to do.

I checked out other MMO’s and FFXIV caught my eye. I eventually stopped logging into GW2 and made FFXIV my main game.

When HoT came out, I still had a meh feeling about GW2. I heard it brought raids and healing, which piqued my interest, but I just continued on with FFXIV.

With the announcement of Path of Fire, I decided to buy the HoT+PoF bundle and have been playing HoT all weekend. I now seriously regret not getting the game way back when. The mastery system is really good, imo. The story is strong, and I’m loving Chronomancer.

Silver Moons.1372:

Reasons why I haven’t bought the new expansion:

- I have only recently come back to GW2 after 3 years. I’m pretty much clueless about what has happened story wise. I’m pretty surprised that the majority of content is untouched from when I left and it seems whatever is new is in the xpac.

- I originally bought GW2 for around(probably a bit more) $20AUD (Physical Copy) when it was first released.
The price for HOT alone is around $37.82AUD and the upcoming expansion is bundled with HOT for $63.04AUD. For me it’s just a turn off for these expansions to be over the base game cost. But now the base game value is suddenly 0. I feel like Anet should at least give some sort of trial period to their expansion to see if it’s actually worth getting.

- From brief research I found out that there was some sort of outrage with HOT release for existing players because around the time GW2 was going F2P. If I’m not mistaken there was a possibility for existing players to “refund” their game and basically get a free upgrade to HOT. And this is only for digital purchases. I assume this was a limited time thing and again – I feel somewhat cheated. I bought the game like others a physical copy which I’m pretty sure I still have yet I’m not entitled to the same. It’s just somewhat unfair.

What I find bad about the expansions:

- Class skills/specializations : I dislike that it’s ONLY available for HOT users. It’d be nice if it was the new class was for the HOT expansion and the specialization update was available for all; else allow it to be unlocked for those who had existing accounts prior the game turning F2P.

- Gliders : I thought this was just odd seeing in GW2 very odd. I still don’t know what to think of it. I’ve only seen it’s use in a jumping puzzle in Lions arch that required the use of the glider. Why that JP is in a “F2P” map I don’t know. But thank gosh there are HOT Mesmer that are willing to cheat us through <3.

- Story restrictions : Literally am restricted to getting story content. What if I just paid for the episodes can I just get into the relevant map instances for the story? No. I HAVE to have HOT. To me it’s just a turn off to returning to the game and being excluded to such an important aspect to the game.

Sorry for any errors or if some parts make no sense; somewhat tired but was looking for threads related to HOT.

Er, dude… you clearly never played an MMO. It’s totally normal, that’s why it’s called an expansion.

As someone who played this a ton and has not played for the past few years, I can honestly say that I am on the fence as to whether purchase POF or grab the bundle. Especially with the price of alternatives today

This is the wrong question.
YOU NEED TO ASK:
WHY DO YOU REGRET BUYING HO?.

Seyiwaji.4082:

This is the wrong question.
YOU NEED TO ASK:
WHY DO YOU REGRET BUYING HO?.

LOL I’ve seen a fair number of people say they do regret buying. I’ve had moments when I’ve regretted it, usually owing to some completely unnecessary frustration built into the system or another. Overall, I don’t regret buying it because there are some things about it I still like. I like gliding and mushroom jumping. I like VB. I like the Season 3 maps (most of them). I like the story (most of it).

My main problem with HoT is that I don’t feel like it’s “aging” well with fewer and fewer people playing the maps. Most players have moved on and even more will move on with PoF. This has the potential for new players to buy HoT in the future but not be able to get their characters through all the content.

I did and never regretted it

i didn’t because i couldn’t charge my visa card and that also because of the problems that my country going throw . after war problems. i live in Libya in north Africa . :

I bought HoT, but I waited for months post launch (not long before LS3 started) to do so. My reason for the delay, and the reason that I would not have made the purchase at all if not for a desire to be able to access LS chapters, is a dislike for the map design.

I am not fond of mazes and actively dislike the Mario-esque/platforming aesthetic and themes so ubiquitous in the HoT maps.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Seyiwaji.4082:

This is the wrong question.
YOU NEED TO ASK:
WHY DO YOU REGRET BUYING HO?.

LOL I’ve seen a fair number of people say they do regret buying. I’ve had moments when I’ve regretted it, usually owing to some completely unnecessary frustration built into the system or another. Overall, I don’t regret buying it because there are some things about it I still like. I like gliding and mushroom jumping. I like VB. I like the Season 3 maps (most of them). I like the story (most of it).

My main problem with HoT is that I don’t feel like it’s “aging” well with fewer and fewer people playing the maps. Most players have moved on and even more will move on with PoF. This has the potential for new players to buy HoT in the future but not be able to get their characters through all the content.

Megaserver makes this a non-issue. In fact, if there were fewer map instances open at any given time you’d probably have less chance of ending up on a “dead” map.

Experienced players know they need to use LFG to get off of the empty map instances left over before and after the meta (due to players consolidating on a meta map and then leaving afterward), but for new players it just seems like you hop from one dead map to another.

Once you figure that part out, you see that the maps are quite active. You can find HP trains, meta maps, and get help with events easily. And there’s no reason to expect that will change. People still play core maps and they are far less rewarding. They will continue to play HoT maps as well.

I didn’t buy HoT because I didn’t trust Anet.

After the Manifesto was ditched for Ascended gear two months into the game, and early incomprehensible changes to WvW (like the arrow cart buff and gating guild catapults behind PvE content), I just did not believe Anet would do the right thing by their game.

This was completely borne out by HoT: incomprehensible maps added to WvW made by people who don’t understand the game mode, and the removal and regating of upgrades like WvW supply from small guilds. This sort of “screw you” change was exactly what I expected them to do, and they did it.

In the two years after HoT, it seemed to me that Anet was suitably chastened and would, if not stop, then at least think twice about “screw you” changes. A lot of the changes to WvW reward tracks, for example, seem to be evidence that there is actual consideration of what players want. The 180 too on the desert map is further evidence.

There’s still a risk the old Anet will come back. But at $50 for both PoF and HoT, that is a manageable one for what is still a very fun game (at least in PvE), all things considered.

I left GW2 right before HoT launched, completely due to HoT. I didn’t like the direction Anet was going and did not agree with the price of what was then an unfinished expansion.
A couple days ago, after mindlessly grinding away in another MMO, I updated and logged into GW2 to see what was happening here.
I found lots to do, WvW was active (had a queue, even), and I saw that there was a second expansion coming. The price of HoT bundled with PoF was finally something I could justify spending. And after catching up on what’s been going on with GW2 the last couple years, it seemed like Anet was back on a path I could get behind again.

I don’t regret it at all thus far. Plenty to do and see and spending far more time in game than I probably should be, lol.
I also don’t regret not buying it when it was new, now that I’ve seen it. It was overpriced for what it was, IMO. I always thought it was a $20 expac when they were hyping it up and now that I’ve seen it, I see I was right and $20 is what I ended up actually paying for it

Celtic Lady.3729:

My main problem with HoT is that I don’t feel like it’s “aging” well with fewer and fewer people playing the maps. Most players have moved on and even more will move on with PoF. This has the potential for new players to buy HoT in the future but not be able to get their characters through all the content.

This isn’t an issue. As I said, I only got HoT a couple days ago and I already have Verdant Brink 100% from an HP train and part of Auric Basin (part only due to my own time limitations and had to leave the train). I’ve done the Meta for Verdant and Auric multiple times in the last couple days too (maps have actually been full so some couldn’t even join).
If people are on empty maps, it must only be because they don’t know how LFG works.

Well, I bought HoT because I did want to give it a chance, due to my enjoyment of the core game.

I dislike HoT sadly, but such is life. Personally, it just is not my taste , not what I wanted in GW2.

I will not be getting PoF.

After a very long break I came back for the core game, to get a change from some other games I play. The whole appeal of the core game for me.

But, to each, his own. Some love HoT, will love PoF.

Bottom line for me, is HoT/PoF just are not what I wanted in GW2.

So, I bought HoT to give it a try, did not enjoy it, and now core GW2 is something I do when I want a change from other games. In a sense, one could say the game has no “future” for me. But I still enjoy the core Tyria game.

I bought HoT for Revenant and, more things to do. I enjoyed it even though parts of it wanted to make me want to rip my hair out.

I’m happy this thread is still going. Knowing why players didn’t buy Heart of Thorns is a great piece of information. Now I will make another one when PoF launches to compare notes.

Brtiva.9721:

Bottom line for me, is HoT/PoF just are not what I wanted in GW2.

Just curious here but how do you know PoF is not what you want in GW2? I can understand about HoT since it has been out for a long time, there is tons of information around about it. But our knowledge of PoF is very limited

maddoctor.2738:

Brtiva.9721:

Bottom line for me, is HoT/PoF just are not what I wanted in GW2.

Just curious here but how do you know PoF is not what you want in GW2? I can understand about HoT since it has been out for a long time, there is tons of information around about it. But our knowledge of PoF is very limited

Oh, sorry I did not mention the PoF demo. I should have included that in the post!

I did the demo over the weekend and disliked it. It is enough for me to know that PoF too is not for me.

Please keep in mind, I am not saying anything is bad about HoT/PoF, just that they are not my taste. To each, his own and all that.

If HoT is/was successful (I assume it is), I expect PoF will be too.

I regret the purchase Hot everytime in my life!
1- Dungeons got destroyed by arena nerfing the rewards
2- Visual downgrade on some spells especially the auras of elementalist when “NOBODY ASKED FOR THIS !” and you see how in this discussion how many people are p**ed like myself https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Visual-nerfs-Merged/page/22#post6634681
3- The leggendary weapons broken promises
4- E-sports propaganda when the first important thing in a MMO is the Pve and after the PvP.
I can’t trust them with new expansions, they made me hate this game with the expansion.

Seyiwaji.4082:

This is the wrong question.
YOU NEED TO ASK:
WHY DO YOU REGRET BUYING HO?.

I have regretted buying Heart of Thorns many times. The HoT maps are very anti casual and focused on the elitist style of play. I play irregularly so I am mostly a solo player. Trying to get skill points and mastery points is like beating your head against a desk. The story being gated behind mastery acquisition grinding. My breaking point came when I had to kill the same mobs over and over again to try and get the mastery point due to their ridiculous respawn timer.

If I wanted a thread that asked if you regret buying HoT or not then I’d make a thread like that. I was very specific in my opening post in what I want from this thread, if you want to know if players regret buying it, make another thread with that topic.

Well, I didn’t buy it on release. I bought it later when I got many reviews from my friends saying it is quite fun to play. Why didn’t I buy it on release? Poorly done advertisment campaign, I guess. Information was scattered all around, I was like “Can I have a simple short feature list, please? No? Fine”. And I didn’t bother to lurk for the information because I was tired and doubting if I wish to continue playing. It was on ANet marketing department to got me hyped and they failed. Plus I thought LW2 locations is some kind of preview for HoT and I didn’t like them much. Also theme and flavour were not very appealing. “More jungle landscapes? Thank you sir, I had enough in vanilla game”.

probably not an answer you want or that matters to you, but i’ll tell you anyways:

I bought GW2 about 2 months before HoT was announced.
I started by playing my personal story and completing map exploration.
When HoT was announced I had just found a little guild with really nice people, even tho they all had maxed out gear + legendarys etc. already. They were always willing to teach me the game, but i still felt like they had to carry me.

So when i heard about the expansion, i was like:
hmm, i barely know anything about the core game, and now i’m supposed to buy HoT, just so i can be an even bigger burden for them while they’re trying to figure out the expansion for themselves.
so i stopped playing gw2.

until about one month ago, just before PoF was announced so I’m basically at the same point as when i first started playing.
And this time i figured:
If there’s any time to start again and learn the game, it’s now, when everyone else has to learn and explore the new expansion, too.

Played on my bros account. Reasons are:

#1. Power Reaper/Necro still sucks.
#2. The Maps are very bad and annoying.

Sorry for not being the intented audience (i have HoT and love it), but i will provide few possible reasons, given by common sensical reasoning:

1. They moved on and didn’t get the memo.
Early HoT has had it’s fill of serious issues too numerous to list, that certainly did drive many away from purchase, and some of them did not care to look back. They’re already long gone from this game, despite a-net fixing and improving a lot of those to the point where it’s extremely good and fun in current form.

2. Bad reviews. More over the online reviews did not help. No one trusts IGN & friends, they’re known sellouts. People look for player not professional reviews. And the former tend to be extremely biased (lots of 10s and 0s for one title). Even after all the good changes lot of them are still negative cause regular players aren’t the most distanced and cool headed bunch.

3. Casuals. GW2 is the casual friendly MMORPG. HoT is not. It’s challenging, demanding your time, attention, coordination and wits. I gladly picked that gauntlet up, but for many it may have been betrayal of what they wanted from their friendly and chilled Fashion Wars 2.

4. money!. Not every GW2 player lives in USA or Germany. A lot of poorer folks here too for whom $50 (initial HoT price) was a hard pill to swallow. If they weren’t around to bump into discounts and unlock LS3 chapters for free, chosing to buy HoT now would really rack up their bill.

50$ instead of $30 if they want the HoT + PoF bundle, and that’s without living story chapters.
And while the latter can be bought with gems, xpacs need to be purchased with real life money, period.

Fiddlestyx.9714:

This game isn’t worth spending money on anymore.

It’s worth it just for the gliding alone. Gliding in old content is so much fun

alceste.8712:

Seyiwaji.4082:

This is the wrong question.
YOU NEED TO ASK:
WHY DO YOU REGRET BUYING HO?.

I have regretted buying Heart of Thorns many times. The HoT maps are very anti casual and focused on the elitist style of play. I play irregularly so I am mostly a solo player. Trying to get skill points and mastery points is like beating your head against a desk. The story being gated behind mastery acquisition grinding. My breaking point came when I had to kill the same mobs over and over again to try and get the mastery point due to their ridiculous respawn timer.

Sounds like you made it hard on yourself.
I, too, am mostly a solo player. No guild and no friends list atm as I returned from a long absence, but I still got all the HP’s and HoT maps done. Once I realized this content wasn’t soloable, I just went to LFG and joined a HP train and LFG’s for the harder mastery and achievements. Doesn’t kill you to join a train to get them all. Don’t even have to talk to them if you’re that insistent on being that solo.
You have to be in a large group of people to do any bosses or metas on even the core maps, this is really no different.

So… after not logging in for around 2 years and yesterday, getting a random ad about the new expac… I’ve stumbled into the official board once again. Yey!

I still haven’t bought HoT. It’s really hard to tell after such a long time why exactly I refused to buy it back then, but let me try to add a few points to this discussion. This might be a bit of an essay, so here are (only) three reason why I didn’t give ArenaNet any more of my money:

1. No additional character slot if you don’t buy the pig in a poke. I never liked the idea of pre orders since most of the time, “this won’t end well” – a certain Sylvari voice echoes in my head. It just felt somewhat phony of ArenaNet to first not give any free slots away, but then only to those who pre order the game. I didn’t like this treatment from a company I payed over 200 euros in just 3 years. Having nine lvl 80s and no empty slot left, I would have been forced to delete one character or pay 10 bucks extra for a new slot. And the 10 bucks extra leads us directly to the second point.

2. 50 (+10) Euros for an expansion sounded terribly overpriced imo. I played the beta after endlessly farming that special item in the silverwastes; and from what I saw, this wasn’t worth the price. 60 bucks are more than I had payed for the main game back in 2012. The pricing right now seems to be more justified though (30 for PoF or 50 for both expansions). The char slot problem still remains and I would have to farm weeks to exchange enough gold to gems to play the 3rd living story episodes.

3. Last but not least the guild hall costs involved with HoT. My guild was almost dead after the WvW changes and the announced dungeon nerfs. The only thing that inspired the remaining 4 of us to buy the expac was the idea of an own guild hall. I have no idea if ArenaNet has adjusted the system while I was gone, but during that time, a “4 man guild” of casuals could only dream of having an averagely good upgraded guild hall.

Tl;dr: I had bigger and smaller reasons to avoid the expac, but I do consider to maybe give it a try together with PoF (I was a master at jps, the maps shouldn’t be a problem). The missing character slot still tastes a bit salty, but I have no right to complain about living story s3, since I didn’t log in during that time.

Is there a list or some sort of compilation video about the changes ArenaNet made after the huge initial kittenstorm against HoT? I want to know what criticism the devs had acknowledged and how it affected the expansion months and years after it’s launch. I’m not really informed about anything in GW2 after such a long time ;c

Sorry i’m not vid maker (yet) but i can give you a rundown of what was fixed over time with HoT:

1. map rewards system – early on it was merciless grind, and rewards were chained to doing full map meta, which if you dcd was lost without any mercy.

Now it’s far more lenient – you get rewards as you do events, map meta reward is only chained to ending events, not the full 1h+ event chain (outposts to map meta). Also much easier to level higher tier masteries.

2. Xpac price obviously went down to a fair level.

3. Living story chapters added 6 new maps, most of them good (minus lake Doric, everyone hates that one). Now base HoT + ls maps feels fair, and not content starved.
Btw still get Lake Doric – it has most useful mastery of all if you’re not a PvE pro – #5 skill for downed, very powerful in certain necrotic hands.

4. They dug themselves outta dirt with 2nd generation legendaries. We’ve been getting steady stream of those every LS release and much like raids it’s not tied to HoT alone. They’ll keep coming regardless of which xpac is current one.

5. Raid wings were added as promised, we currently have 13 total raids inside 4 raid wings. Also legendary armors are no longer a “to be” feature, but recently landed and are a thing.
Even more recently (due to complexity of their visuals and player backlash on them) World vs World and Spvp legendary armors were also introduced, but these are functional upgrades of already existing ascended ones. You get no new visuals here, but you do get full legendary utility (free stat swaps on the fly, ability to replace upgrade componets without losing them).

6. Also legendary backpacks are a thing now in each game mode.
You got Ad Infinitum for fractal frequenters
The Ascension for spvp maniacs
And Warbringer for WvW carnage fans.

Oh and there’s a disgustingly pink legendary accessory for Living Story owners.

7. They added two new spvp conquest maps – Revenge of Capricorn and Eternal Colliseum. Both are HUGE for an spvp map, so you better have your mobility skills ready.

8. Fractals were upped to level 100. They added some new ones too. Generally they had a small rewamp, biggest part of which is that you no longer are forced to do 4 in a row, but just one, and randomness was cut out. Each fractal level is tied to specific fractal and you yourself choose where you go (given your or party member’s fractal levels allows to open it).

Unfortunately Guild halls still seem to be ass (albeit the guild hall armor and weapons are beautiful).
And balance issues are still here such as elite specs being waaaay stronger then base in most cases, necros and revenants being shafted in raids, chronos and warrs being the polar opposite – everyone wants and needs them. Oh and raid healer spot being monopolized by druids.

But as a guy who got HoT about a month after it’s launch i will say “go for it” It looks to be far less then it really is – there is a huge amount of replayability and fun there, lots of stuff to do, especially if you get bored of the usual map meta (adventures, collections, gliding for fun and views, legendary crafting, trying out new builds, mastery point hunting, raids).

Thank you Zef for taking the time to write all of this down.

k, let’s see..

1. Darn this sounds good! DCs always got me during the huge LS season 1 events (Scarlet’s invasions on several maps, or in the middle of Lion’s Arch rescue) and later in the Silverwastes and pre HoT event chains too.

2. Yes, it looks very fair now.

3. Neat, I expected them to add only 2 or 3 more (like it was with Southsun Cove, Dry Top and Silverwastes). Interesting!

4.-8. Not necessarily relevant for me, but surely great for others.

Overall they changed much more than I expected. The guild hall costs might no longer be a problem now (since my last guild probably doesn’t have any active players anymore^^‘), might as well join a new one at this point. The balance was always a bit problematic, half of my characters weren’t even welcome in dungeons, but at least my ranger might now be able to join a dungeon/raid group.

It sounds definitively worth to return to the game. Thanks again for the overview, Zef! ;)