Guild Wars 2

I came here with legitimate concerns and desires, but I know how these forums work. Before anyone flames me for being “too casual,” let me tell you that I’ve been playing since the game launched. I’ve done the dungeons, I’ve run the bosses, I’ve gone through fractals. Why then don’t I have millions of achievement points? Because I don’t like grind. I do things a few times, and maybe a few times more if I really enjoy it. I made an exception when I decided I wanted ascended armor. After I finally got it, I felt really burnt out and didn’t want to play anymore. I came back a while later and decided I wanted Twilight. After I got that, I felt burnt out and I didn’t want to play anymore. Now HoT is out, and it’s as grindy and repetetive as ever. That, and it’s not a lot of content for the price, and it’s all just too difficult for the average player.

I didn’t get super duper hyped about HoT when it was announced. I purposefully avoided most of the news and hype surrounding it, in order to avoid the ultimate disappointment I would feel when the expansion failed to meet my hyped up expectations. I did the same thing for Halo 5, and I’m doing the same thing for Fallout 4, and I do the same thing for most games I love to play. My disappointments are not a result of raised expectations.

When HoT released, I bought it and played it day one. I was eager to get into the new maps, I had some fun exploring with the waves of people flooding Verdant Brink. It’s a little over a week after that now, and I’m starting to have doubts and worries.

One issue I have at the moment is the apparent need to create a meta-event for every single new map. While it is good that something is always happening, it’s also very annoying to me. There are constantly mordrem attacking this place or that place, and constantly a lack of large groups of people trying to do them, so they never get done. This is my personal experience, anyway. I have personally tried to do it, but failed because I was literally the only person trying. If you have different experiences, then I envy you and you should count yourself lucky that you somehow always end up in a populated and organized map. While it’s like this, it is impossible to explore areas with mordrem everywhere. I like to explore, and I don’t mind fighting things, but when exploration is met with constant battling the exploration loses its fun. Any fans of Final Fantasy might know the frustration of wanting to take two steps without having to fight something. I feel this a lot in the new maps.

Another issue I have is the ramped up difficulty of everything in the expansion, even outside raids. They promised difficult content, being raids. Apparently what actually happened is that they made all the new content extremely difficult, and from what I expect raids are to be nearly impossible unless your live revolves around this game and it’s all you know. This is a problem for what I believe to be the majority of players. I’ve repeatedly seen complains in HoT map chat, in my guild chat, and even in core Tyria area map chats that the new places are brutally difficult. The difficulty of the new mobs coupled with the constant meta-events are turning people off of exploring the new areas.

Lastly, despite the size of the maps, I have a problem with the lack of new areas to explore. I don’t find much appeal in having super vertical maps. It makes them more confusing to traverse for new players, ultimately turning them off. It makes things just more tedious when you do know where you’re going. It all has the same theme and looks pretty much the same everywhere. It just doesn’t feel like a lot to me. For kitten expansion I really don’t feel like that’s worth it. You could argue that there are also masteries and elite specializations. I would argue that most players have a favorite class and will ultimately stick to that one. Masteries are really just an artificial way of extending the life of HoT by requiring you to grind the meta events in the maps to level them up and unlock them.

I love Guild Wars, and I want to see it succeed. I want to find myself still playing in another 3 years time. I don’t think that will be the case if future content will be repeats of Heart of Thorns.

In summary (and TL;DR) I would argue that not everything needs to be meta, and not everything needs to be difficult to an elite level. I hope that in future patches and expansions they will releas content for the average player. Of course, there should be challenging and rewarding content as well. I feel that the challenging content should not be ALL of the content, and it shouldn’t all be super meta.

tl;dr the content you consider to be grind is the content i consider to be meaningful gameplay.
maybe you feel like you’re grinding because you’re not having fun, in which case: stop playing the game if it’s not fun to you.

Canakun.8031:

tl;dr the content you consider to be grind is the content i consider to be meaningful gameplay.
maybe you feel like you’re grinding because you’re not having fun, in which case: stop playing the game if it’s not fun to you.

If grinding away is your idea of meaningful gameplay, then fine. It’s not to me, and it’s not to a lot of people. Which is why they made Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 with a “no grind” philosophy. Which frustrates me that they keep adding meta-events with rewards that require you to grind those meta-events. It wouldn’t be a problem if it were a map or two out of 5 or 6 maps. But it’s every map. 3 of 3 maps. A disappointingly small amount of maps, all of which are grindy in nature.

I don’t have fun grinding meta-events. I have stopped playing, but I do love and enjoy Guild Wars 2 in its core. Hence my thread giving my opinion and criticism of the content provided.

lol I took a long break from GW2 after I crafted my ascended gear, too. I was so burned out, it wasn’t even funny. After a break, I began playing a little here and there and then have been playing more since HoT. It’s been frustrating for me off and on.

The map locations are often confusing, I do a fair amount of waiting around on maps for people, and that one Hero Challenge in Auric Basin that is gated behind the meta event succeeding is REALLY annoying. It takes me repeating that long series of quests and fights many times before I can get one that actually succeeds since it fails A LOT.

Since I have alts, this is going to be tedious in the extreme long term.

As someone who has been playing for 2 years and never even set foot in a dungeon/ fractal or whatever and consider myself a casual player. I really don’t understand why people are saying the new maps are difficult? at most something may take trial and error but once you realize what you have to do its trivial the next time.

Masteries are account bound and once you have jumping mushrooms , gliding and updraft you can go almost anywhere. You also get mastery exp from doing pretty much anything in the new zones. On the first day i just explored and unlocked quite a few mastery traits if you think this is a grind i don’t know what to say they are just bonuses you get from ya know playing the game…..

I don’t 100% love everything in the expansion , i was seriously disappointed with pre cursor collections but it just boggles my mind when peoples complaint is that they have to actually play the game

Total grindfest. Was excited to use my new elites specs until I realized I had to grind the hero points to use those too. Way to go A Net. After months of getting excited to use the Dare Devil, Dragon Hunter and Druid I have to grind xp in the same old specs from 3 years running just to play the new classes. Even funnier is how the first zone all these events are going on just makes it super overwhelming. It’s as if A Net jam packed too much into one zone. Complete chaos.

darkm.4839:

Now HoT is out, and it’s as grindy and repetetive as ever. That, and it’s not a lot of content for the price, and it’s all just too difficult for the average player.

Maybe you just rush one thing to much. I get my ascended armor pretty much for free. I just salvaged loot and craft items when I get enough material. Same with my legendary weapons.

Now HoT is out, and it’s as grindy and repetetive as ever. That, and it’s not a lot of content for the price, and it’s all just too difficult for the average player.

It is not grindy! You just get reward which you deserve. And thats what I want. I just want to be rewarded for my participation and I don’t want be rewarded as someone who don’t participate at all. Now you are constanlty rewarded for playing this game = less RNG based then ever.

Bonanzas.4735:

Total grindfest. Was excited to use my new elites specs until I realized I had to grind the hero points to use those too. Way to go A Net. After months of getting excited to use the Dare Devil, Dragon Hunter and Druid I have to grind xp in the same old specs from 3 years running just to play the new classes. Even funnier is how the first zone all these events are going on just makes it super overwhelming. It’s as if A Net jam packed too much into one zone. Complete chaos.

You are funny. You want everything for free. It’s like: “Anet, I just want log in everyday and do nothing. Where is my reward? Also I need my fully unlocked elite specialization in DAY1”..
I don’t understand why you play this game. You should enjoy new content slowly. Dont rush and then you will see that it’s not chaos. You see chaos because you rush to much.

Masteries is a pretty original way to level up without leveling up: you can keep the level cap and BiS gear but still level up to gain other abilities. They kill two birds with one stone and please the ones who like to level and progress and those who don’t like this kind of treatment which is known for in the genre.

I like it a lot, exploration has never been better in an MMO, Maps like Tangled Roots are so convoluted, vast, huge and ingeniously crafted, you have yet to see something like this in any other online game (play Metroid Prime series on Wii if you like this).

I’d be doing much better in HoT if I was awarded some XP each time I die.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Masteries is a pretty original way to level up without leveling up

Actually they’re not original, FFXI has had non-leveling character progression for many years and other MMOs also provide for increasing character ‘power’ without an increase in level number, LoTRO’s Legendary Items being one other.

That said, gating content by such mechanics is a bad idea IMO and is why people consider it a grind .. it gate’s desirable content behind the need to acquire masses of points of some sort or other which can only be obtained by repeating content over and over and over again, the very definition of a ‘gind’ for many people.

I agree with the part about empty maps.

To get the Mistward head armor you have to kill the chak gerent and in 3 days I’ve been trying I’ve literally seen no one show up to try to defeat this guy. Tangled depths just feels dead empty in general anyways.

I don’t know if it’s because ahead of the curve or people actually aren’t in the area because they don’t like it.

I’m not sure about the future of GW2 for different reasons, actually.

It looks like ArenaNet doesn’t know what they’re doing.

First, they would continue GW2 with the model of a Living World, telling a story in real time as the world would change to make players feel like they saw history as it happened. They even said that, if they did the LW right, GW2 would not have an expansion. Yet the season 1 was a failure, after players complained about all the temporary content that made people feel nothing had really been added to the game.

Then ArenaNet tried a different model with Season 2; it was far more timid, world-changing wise (other than adding a couple new maps, it didn’t really change the existing GW2 world that much), and was focused on instanced, soloable content. They also monetized it more, by making people to have to buy it if they didn’t log-in when the content was released.

Yet, that also failed to increase GW2’s earnings. Not only it didn’t increase the earnings like the spike of an expansion sale, but it also barely stopped the earnings from falling.

So then ArenaNet went in a third, different direction, and stopped releasing new content for the core game while working on an expansion. We are seeing the results of that now, with HoT…

…But the expansion hasn’t been all flowers, either. It’s clearly unfinished – content ArenaNet said would be there at release isn’t (the first three new legendary weapons, the new squad system, the Fractal leaderboard), not to mention the content that ArenaNet promised would come “later” without any tangible release date (raids, the full set of new legendary weapons, and etc).

The hurried release of an unfinished expansion, together with how they began to sell HoT – before even announcing a release date, asking people to pay full money for it, and before they actually made most of the announcements that would later make the community erupt into surges of rage – hint that ArenaNet was kinda desperate for money.

Now, we don’t know what will be the result of this third model (after the LW season 1 model and the LW season 2 model). The empty HoT maps are not encouraging.

Now, what else do we know?

• ArenaNet had basically to make server merges with the megaserver thing, due to how empty the maps were. This doesn’t exactly scream “look how healthy the game is!”.

• GW2 became free to play, and we know that no MMORPG went free to play when its previous business model was being a success. This is a big hint that GW2 wasn’t being that successful as Buy to Play.

• NCSoft, which completely owns ArenaNet, has distanced itself from GW2. We have been told that it’s ArenaNet who’s publishing GW2 now, instead of NCSoft; the lack of advertisement about HoT is a very clear sign of how few resources ArenaNet has as far as publishing goes when compared to NCSoft itself. And when you go to the NCSoft website and hover over the “Games” title in the site’s top bar, the site shows Aion, Blade & Soul, Lineage 2, WildStar… But no GW2.

• Lots of important people have left ArenaNet this year:

Jon Peters, former Game Design Lead? Left ArenaNet a few months ago to join Amazon.

Eric Flannum, former Lead Designer for GW2? Left ArenaNet to also join Amazon.

Kristen Perry, the main artist behind the Sylvary look? Left ArenaNet a couple months ago.

Not to mention Chris Whiteside, who was the one doing all the CDIs with the community. Notice how many of those left ArenaNet a few months ago. Does this hint that everything inside ArenaNet is sunny and happy? Nope, it doesn’t.

• There are many complains about how empty the HoT maps are, just 2 weeks after release.

We will see what happens after HoT. It’s possible that ArenaNet will grow with the earnings from the expansion… Or it’s possible that HoT won’t be big enough to fill the hole in the sinking ship, and soon the layoffs will begin. Time will tell. But really, I wouldn’t be exactly hopeful about the future of GW2 right now.

On one hand, I agree the monsters are a bit too difficult at times, frog archers and Mordrem snipers have a tendency to one hit you and kill you instantly if you’re unlucky.

However on the other hand, look at core Tyria maps. I’m one of those that play a lot of alts and level them up, and in comparison, core Tyria isn’t problematic at all. You can easily run past most monsters without any problem at all, and the only reason you’re in the map to begin with is to complete it. No sense of danger, no dread and no feeling of any reward once you’ve completed the map.

Having HoT maps like core Tyria maps would be even more destructive for the game. When you’ve gone through easy mode from 1 to 80, then come over to easy mode jungle, you kind of loop and do the same over and over, just to complete the map. Now why is that destructive?

Well lets look at a competitor that’s managed to mess up for years now; Blizzard. World of Warcraft had promises of savage land and dangerous areas with good treasures to be had for those brave enough. Draenor however turned into a bloody boring mess where you could only die if you run of a cliff. Now add that the game is easy-mode from 1 to 90 to begin with, adding an easy mode 90-100 just completely demolished the game.

In conclusion I think that some adjustments to frog archers and mordrem snipers wouldn’t hurt, but making the map as easy as core Tyria is, isn’t going to cut it. Also, Guild wars 2 is a grind regardless of how you look at it, it’s just good at hiding the obvious here and there. But in its core, you still grind a lot in this game, grind for materials, grind for map completion, grind for items and better gear. Grinding is the soul of an MMO and what gives content. Guild wars 2 isn’t any different on that aspect. However the content does feel more meaningful and the reward at the end a bit worth while. Professions per example is a worthy grind for gear, maybe not the fastest but still worth it. So I don’t think they should change too much on the jungle area, only adjust the damage a bit on certain enemies but that’s about as far as tweaking I would go.

Test.8734:

I’m not sure about the future of GW2 for different reasons, actually.

It looks like ArenaNet doesn’t know what they’re doing.

First, they would continue GW2 with the model of a Living World, telling a story in real time as the world would change to make players feel like they saw history as it happened. They even said that, if they did the LW right, GW2 would not have an expansion. Yet the season 1 was a failure, after players complained about all the temporary content that made people feel nothing had really been added to the game.

Then ArenaNet tried a different model with Season 2; it was far more timid, world-changing wise (other than adding a couple new maps, it didn’t really change the existing GW2 world that much), and was focused on instanced, soloable content. They also monetized it more, by making people to have to buy it if they didn’t log-in when the content was released.

Yet, that also failed to increase GW2’s earnings. Not only it didn’t increase the earnings like the spike of an expansion sale, but it also barely stopped the earnings from falling.

So then ArenaNet went in a third, different direction, and stopped releasing new content for the core game while working on an expansion. We are seeing the results of that now, with HoT…

…But the expansion hasn’t been all flowers, either. It’s clearly unfinished – content ArenaNet said would be there at release isn’t (the first three new legendary weapons, the new squad system, the Fractal leaderboard), not to mention the content that ArenaNet promised would come “later” without any tangible release date (raids, the full set of new legendary weapons, and etc).

The hurried release of an unfinished expansion, together with how they began to sell HoT – before even announcing a release date, asking people to pay full money for it, and before they actually made most of the announcements that would later make the community erupt into surges of rage – hint that ArenaNet was kinda desperate for money.

Now, we don’t know what will be the result of this third model (after the LW season 1 model and the LW season 2 model). The empty HoT maps are not encouraging.

Now, what else do we know?

• ArenaNet had basically to make server merges with the megaserver thing, due to how empty the maps were. This doesn’t exactly scream “look how healthy the game is!”.

• GW2 became free to play, and we know that no MMORPG went free to play when its previous business model was being a success. This is a big hint that GW2 wasn’t being that successful as Buy to Play.

• NCSoft, which completely owns ArenaNet, has distanced itself from GW2. We have been told that it’s ArenaNet who’s publishing GW2 now, instead of NCSoft; the lack of advertisement about HoT is a very clear sign of how few resources ArenaNet has as far as publishing goes when compared to NCSoft itself. And when you go to the NCSoft website and hover over the “Games” title in the site’s top bar, the site shows Aion, Blade & Soul, Lineage 2, WildStar… But no GW2.

• Lots of important people have left ArenaNet this year:

Jon Peters, former Game Design Lead? Left ArenaNet a few months ago to join Amazon.

Eric Flannum, former Lead Designer for GW2? Left ArenaNet to also join Amazon.

Kristen Perry, the main artist behind the Sylvary look? Left ArenaNet a couple months ago.

Not to mention Chris Whiteside, who was the one doing all the CDIs with the community. Notice how many of those left ArenaNet a few months ago. Does this hint that everything inside ArenaNet is sunny and happy? Nope, it doesn’t.

• There are many complains about how empty the HoT maps are, just 2 weeks after release.

We will see what happens after HoT. It’s possible that ArenaNet will grow with the earnings from the expansion… Or it’s possible that HoT won’t be big enough to fill the hole in the sinking ship, and soon the layoffs will begin. Time will tell. But really, I wouldn’t be exactly hopeful about the future of GW2 right now.

I have a feeling you are right. I had the luck of playing on HoT maps that were active. Not always full at that. And I was expecting to be swarming with players, mega events being completed most of the time.

It’s just the oppesite. It’s alive, but barely. It can now either go two ways: keep diminishing or grow. The coming weeks (and patches) will be vital.

It’srather funny to see players from WoW got out of there because it became to easy. And now we have GW, trying to overthrone WoW with more difficult stuff…

you might be right but we also have the Halloween event going on, people who are starting new toons for revenant and people trying to do new higher level fractals but you still bring up a valid point i too. I would try and do events and find myself the only one doing them, within 2 days of the launch.

I do not understand people who can not make a spec that works with the new zones.
I am a returning player, I consider myself a casual player in exotic armor and not even terribly skilled but I love that the new zones are difficult. They inspire me to explore.
I love what anet have done, I think this is the best expansion I have seen in an mmo.
Apart from hero points for elite specs, which I would have prefered to be free instead, I do not feel there is a need to grind because you can play the game even when you decide not to. In any other game I played there was more grind: grind to get to max level, crafting, raiding the same content for months and months just so that every raid member can upgrade their gear (and then it gets replace shortly after with a new expansion). Here they basically give you level 80 and exotics for free. Why are you complaining? Are people that want content they can invest time in for rewards not allowed to have fun too?
I am sorry but the fact that you (the OP) were trying to avoid being disappointed makes me think you were not having a very positive attitude to begin with but instead expecting that if you were getting hyped you would just be disappointed anyway.
Also you were worried about the new player experience in the new zones but there are so many zones that are extremely easy.
I can understand that you are worried about a game you love but I do not think you have to be. There are a lot if people who love the expansion. The happy people might just be more busy playing.

Well I have the exact same problem with meta events. I might be extremly unlucky with megaserver, but I can’t seem to find an active map ever. HoT for me is full of empty maps with WP contested ( except VB, but I still have to complete the meta with max tier).
LFG is full of SW taxi groups, and very few HoT. Most of HoT are asking for a decent map, not taxiing.
So the only thing I’m doing lately is running in circles gathering flax.
After only 1 week.

Cayenne.5341:

The happy people might just be more busy playing.

Considering all the reports about empty maps, maybe there aren’t that many happy people, then?

kanarek.8025:

Bonanzas.4735:

Total grindfest. Was excited to use my new elites specs until I realized I had to grind the hero points to use those too. Way to go A Net. After months of getting excited to use the Dare Devil, Dragon Hunter and Druid I have to grind xp in the same old specs from 3 years running just to play the new classes. Even funnier is how the first zone all these events are going on just makes it super overwhelming. It’s as if A Net jam packed too much into one zone. Complete chaos.

You are funny. You want everything for free. It’s like: “Anet, I just want log in everyday and do nothing. Where is my reward? Also I need my fully unlocked elite specialization in DAY1”..
I don’t understand why you play this game. You should enjoy new content slowly. Dont rush and then you will see that it’s not chaos. You see chaos because you rush to much.

Test.8734:

Cayenne.5341:

The happy people might just be more busy playing.

Considering all the reports about empty maps, maybe there aren’t that many happy people, then?

Not sure whether the information was debunked or not, but wasn’t there a source floating around saying if the expansion wasn’t a certain price, going out at a certain date with a certain amount of minimum sales Anet would fail to meet it’s projected targets?

Hence the overly rushed, incomplete buggy expansion we’ve had effecting not only those who bought it but also those who haven’t.

Yup. After playing for 3 years and being a beta tester I feel like I shouldn’t have to grind out a class specialization with the old ones. Real hilarious there. At least they are toning down the hero points required in a patch or so I heard.

People that find the open world hard needs to stop the berserker gear mentality. Try soldier and such and you will have loads more fun. I can autoattack things to death in soldier gear without problems.
If youve tried the more defensive stuff and still struggle then im not sure what the issue is. I just think a lot of people cant be bothered to explore different builds.

MeveM.7913:

People that find the open world hard needs to stop the berserker gear mentality. Try soldier and such and you will have loads more fun. I can autoattack things to death in soldier gear without problems.
If youve tried the more defensive stuff and still struggle then im not sure what the issue is. I just think a lot of people cant be bothered to explore different builds.

This is a rather ignorant statement. Perhaps you’re the one who needs to change. Try Berserker so that you can wear everyone elses shoes, then you can see where they are coming from. It has really nothing to do with the difficulty of the content, and more to do with the content just one shotting people with zero telegraphs. Berserker gear is fine. What isn’t fine is people not having the chance to react.

Kravick.4906:

MeveM.7913:

People that find the open world hard needs to stop the berserker gear mentality. Try soldier and such and you will have loads more fun. I can autoattack things to death in soldier gear without problems.
If youve tried the more defensive stuff and still struggle then im not sure what the issue is. I just think a lot of people cant be bothered to explore different builds.

This is a rather ignorant statement. Perhaps you’re the one who needs to change. Try Berserker so that you can wear everyone elses shoes, then you can see where they are coming from. It has really nothing to do with the difficulty of the content, and more to do with the content just one shotting people with zero telegraphs. Berserker gear is fine. What isn’t fine is people not having the chance to react.

So youre confirming that because arenanet has finally made other builds wanted they have ruined the 1 build game they had for 3 years.

MeveM.7913:

Kravick.4906:

MeveM.7913:

People that find the open world hard needs to stop the berserker gear mentality. Try soldier and such and you will have loads more fun. I can autoattack things to death in soldier gear without problems.
If youve tried the more defensive stuff and still struggle then im not sure what the issue is. I just think a lot of people cant be bothered to explore different builds.

This is a rather ignorant statement. Perhaps you’re the one who needs to change. Try Berserker so that you can wear everyone elses shoes, then you can see where they are coming from. It has really nothing to do with the difficulty of the content, and more to do with the content just one shotting people with zero telegraphs. Berserker gear is fine. What isn’t fine is people not having the chance to react.

So youre confirming that because arenanet has finally made other builds wanted they have ruined the 1 build game they had for 3 years.

Such a sad and backwards outlook you have. I don’t think I’m going to waste my time trying to explain this to you. I understand you find yourself unable to perform with a certain type of gear set, but is just down right ignorant and selfish to try and impose your own limitations on everyone else.

darkm.4839:

Canakun.8031:

tl;dr the content you consider to be grind is the content i consider to be meaningful gameplay.
maybe you feel like you’re grinding because you’re not having fun, in which case: stop playing the game if it’s not fun to you.

If grinding away is your idea of meaningful gameplay, then fine. It’s not to me, and it’s not to a lot of people. Which is why they made Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 with a “no grind” philosophy. Which frustrates me that they keep adding meta-events with rewards that require you to grind those meta-events. It wouldn’t be a problem if it were a map or two out of 5 or 6 maps. But it’s every map. 3 of 3 maps. A disappointingly small amount of maps, all of which are grindy in nature.

I don’t have fun grinding meta-events. I have stopped playing, but I do love and enjoy Guild Wars 2 in its core. Hence my thread giving my opinion and criticism of the content provided.

No, playing the game is not grind to me. I enjoy playing the event chains, because I enjoy the event chains. I don’t play them to get experience. I play them for fun. Which is not grind. Frankly I think that anyone who thinks the zone is too difficult, should avoid it and go play in the old zones, which are very very easy.

Fans of been asking for more challenging content for a long time. Something in the game has to require some challenge.

And it’s not that people can’t do it. It’s that they don’t want to learn how to. Not everything in the game has to be for everyone.

OP anything can be a grind if u go at it to fast and often. A healthy gw2 approach is to be a pvx player, play much varied content in different phases, do some hot zones, go for collections, fractals, pvp, etc. A mixed bag to be explored, nothing has to happen now. Cgrats u got ascended armor, most likely u dont have to get another as itll be top stats always, which is different in other mmos.

I have been in PVP for 3 years and now I want to play in Fractal then I found out that there are no Carrion trinkets or Occram’s Trinket. I need Condi, Vit and pow stat. planning on quiting soon because there is nothing more for me to do if I do not even have the flexibility of using stat I require on ascended. also pvp is now boring.

You should be more worried about the future of MMORPGs. Because eventhough alot of people seem to think that the grass is greener elsewhere, the MMO-market in genereal is on the decline and eSports-oriented games are totally dominating the gaming market currently.

HoT is not perfect and there is alot of flaws, however, I think that Anet is doing a great job compared to most companies out there.

Kravick.4906:

MeveM.7913:

Kravick.4906:

MeveM.7913:

People that find the open world hard needs to stop the berserker gear mentality. Try soldier and such and you will have loads more fun. I can autoattack things to death in soldier gear without problems.
If youve tried the more defensive stuff and still struggle then im not sure what the issue is. I just think a lot of people cant be bothered to explore different builds.

This is a rather ignorant statement. Perhaps you’re the one who needs to change. Try Berserker so that you can wear everyone elses shoes, then you can see where they are coming from. It has really nothing to do with the difficulty of the content, and more to do with the content just one shotting people with zero telegraphs. Berserker gear is fine. What isn’t fine is people not having the chance to react.

So youre confirming that because arenanet has finally made other builds wanted they have ruined the 1 build game they had for 3 years.

Such a sad and backwards outlook you have. I don’t think I’m going to waste my time trying to explain this to you. I understand you find yourself unable to perform with a certain type of gear set, but is just down right ignorant and selfish to try and impose your own limitations on everyone else.

y0. Glass staff Ele here. Like full Sin’s and Scholar rune.
Personally I’ve found the difficulty in this state fine. I say this knowing I could be insta defeated by an Champ Arrowhead or Snipers trace shot, or ganked by a pack or Pocket Raptors.
I’m fine with all this and find the high risk a very engrossing experience. Needing to know where to stand when engaging enemies, to know if any roving enemies may join in, and to know who the major threats are in an encounter are feels great. Any time I down is on me. I don’t consider myself a pro player.
All that out of the way, it seems to me, if you’re finding mobs too strong, you’ve reached your limitation too. My suggestion is either up your game or adapt your build. Glass is meant to be high risk, and it is no longer the golden key to GW2.
If you want to stay glass, my advice is develop your situational awareness and learn which enemies do what, I’ve yet to see anything that a little on the fly pre-planning won’t handle.

I don’t mind grind as long as it doesn’t gate off content. Now, I’m not sure if you actually need all of the stuff from the mastery thingums in HoT to progress, but it kinda feels that way so far (correct me if I’m wrong… and if I am, I apologize). Forcing people to grind is not fun. Having it as an option is good. I’m also happy that it’s an account wide thing. If it were character restricted, that would drive a lot of people bonkers.

I wouldn’t want everything given to me all at once cause, well, that isn’t fun in my book. Actually I will go ahead and admit that I don’t have any better ideas of making the mastery system better for everyone. So far I’m having fun cause I’m taking it slow… but that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned about other players. This system, as far as I can tell at the moment, goes against the “no grind” promise. A very difficult promise to hold true to at that. (again, if I’m wrong about the mastery system needing certain things to progress from one zone to the next, please correct me!)

Other than that, the events are fun to me, so far I enjoy the new zone (I haven’t gone beyond the first one… I’m going reeeeaaaally slow), somewhat annoyed by the mushroom and updraft crap, but I’ll get those eventually… The Itzal dialect thing is odd (doesn’t it basically block certain purchases from those merchants?), I love the music, love the look of the jungle and the challenge the enemies provide. It vaguely reminds me of GW1 stuff… except the expacs in that game were huge. (Only three maps in this expac? Seriously? I hope they’ll add more as time goes on…)

What I really, really don’t like that came with this expac though? All these people bashing on each other simply because of clashing preferences and whatnot. Doesn’t matter if you’re “tired of hearing the moaning and groaning” and stuff either. That doesn’t permit anyone to call others names or make them feel terrible. There is a difference between a debate and a verbal thrashing. If the complainer themselves are being rude and nasty and you still want to engage in conversation with them, try to do so graciously. The other option is that you can just ignore those posts.

Probably did a lot of rambling here and may have gotten some things mixed in this mess of typing. If that is the case, I apologize.

tl;dr – Grinding is okay as long as it’s an option, not a requirement. If you engage in these conversations about grind, try to do so in a gracious manner.

EDIT: May as well add this too – I miss the fact that obtaining a Guild Hall was not tied to an expac. It kinda spits on small guilds as well (talking 5 people and smaller… or 10 or smaller. Really, REALLY small friend guilds), as they have to pull their hair out trying to “claim” the piece of land. Maybe it’s possible, but I dunno. In GW1, you could just get a Hall from a large selection of choices. I know ANet is trying to make things as epic and rewarding as possible, but catering to certain people will only leave a sour taste in the mouths of some others.

Vayne.8563:

Frankly I think that anyone who thinks the zone is too difficult, should avoid it and go play in the old zones, which are very very easy.

This is such a lazy man’s argument and gets trotted out blithely any time a discussion of balancing the HoT content comes up.

Many people bought this game based on the content available – core Tyria maps were a huge part of this – so it set the tone for the game, and people based their decisions to buy largely on it. This is simply logical sense.

Then the content and the maps change significantly and people express their concerns about it. And they’re told not to expect to be able to play any of it or even bothering to buy new content or expansions. They’re told to just keep playing content they’ve done over and over without expecting anything new. This is ridiculous.

When you spend your money using the evidence available and see a game and say, “Hey, this game is fun and terrific for my playstyle,” it isn’t exactly surprising if they would like to have some new content in line with what they based their buying decision on in the first place. This doesn’t make them bad people or stupid people.

They certainly deserve some respect and not the cesspool ideology of “go find a real game to play” and “stop being a stupid, worthless noob,” “L2P,” etc. ad nauseum the kind of stupid, pointless things people say because they need to feel superior to anyone disagreeing with them.

Test.8734:

I’m not sure about the future of GW2 for different reasons, actually.

It looks like ArenaNet doesn’t know what they’re doing.

First, they would continue GW2 with the model of a Living World, telling a story in real time as the world would change to make players feel like they saw history as it happened. They even said that, if they did the LW right, GW2 would not have an expansion. Yet the season 1 was a failure, after players complained about all the temporary content that made people feel nothing had really been added to the game.

Then ArenaNet tried a different model with Season 2; it was far more timid, world-changing wise (other than adding a couple new maps, it didn’t really change the existing GW2 world that much), and was focused on instanced, soloable content. They also monetized it more, by making people to have to buy it if they didn’t log-in when the content was released.

Yet, that also failed to increase GW2’s earnings. Not only it didn’t increase the earnings like the spike of an expansion sale, but it also barely stopped the earnings from falling.

So then ArenaNet went in a third, different direction, and stopped releasing new content for the core game while working on an expansion. We are seeing the results of that now, with HoT…

…But the expansion hasn’t been all flowers, either. It’s clearly unfinished – content ArenaNet said would be there at release isn’t (the first three new legendary weapons, the new squad system, the Fractal leaderboard), not to mention the content that ArenaNet promised would come “later” without any tangible release date (raids, the full set of new legendary weapons, and etc).

The hurried release of an unfinished expansion, together with how they began to sell HoT – before even announcing a release date, asking people to pay full money for it, and before they actually made most of the announcements that would later make the community erupt into surges of rage – hint that ArenaNet was kinda desperate for money.

Now, we don’t know what will be the result of this third model (after the LW season 1 model and the LW season 2 model). The empty HoT maps are not encouraging.

Now, what else do we know?

• ArenaNet had basically to make server merges with the megaserver thing, due to how empty the maps were. This doesn’t exactly scream “look how healthy the game is!”.

• GW2 became free to play, and we know that no MMORPG went free to play when its previous business model was being a success. This is a big hint that GW2 wasn’t being that successful as Buy to Play.

• NCSoft, which completely owns ArenaNet, has distanced itself from GW2. We have been told that it’s ArenaNet who’s publishing GW2 now, instead of NCSoft; the lack of advertisement about HoT is a very clear sign of how few resources ArenaNet has as far as publishing goes when compared to NCSoft itself. And when you go to the NCSoft website and hover over the “Games” title in the site’s top bar, the site shows Aion, Blade & Soul, Lineage 2, WildStar… But no GW2.

• Lots of important people have left ArenaNet this year:

Jon Peters, former Game Design Lead? Left ArenaNet a few months ago to join Amazon.

Eric Flannum, former Lead Designer for GW2? Left ArenaNet to also join Amazon.

Kristen Perry, the main artist behind the Sylvary look? Left ArenaNet a couple months ago.

Not to mention Chris Whiteside, who was the one doing all the CDIs with the community. Notice how many of those left ArenaNet a few months ago. Does this hint that everything inside ArenaNet is sunny and happy? Nope, it doesn’t.

• There are many complains about how empty the HoT maps are, just 2 weeks after release.

We will see what happens after HoT. It’s possible that ArenaNet will grow with the earnings from the expansion… Or it’s possible that HoT won’t be big enough to fill the hole in the sinking ship, and soon the layoffs will begin. Time will tell. But really, I wouldn’t be exactly hopeful about the future of GW2 right now.

On the less pessimistic side:

1) A lot of people are enjoying the expansion thoroughly.

2) The GW2 team is not only communicating regularly, but has already made a quick change based on feedback (e.g. the elite spec debacle).

3) The mastery system and elite spec both put a framework in place for a lot of cool features down the road that would be relatively easy to add.

Sure, I’ll grant you that the direction of the game is up for question when 2 or 3 high up in the chain employees leave the company. But when you’ve been updating an MMO for, what is it now, 3 years? I don’t think it’s gonna be that hard to stick to the direction you’ve been going in for so long.

I get that some say this expansion diverges from their manifesto, but people have been saying that about a number of features (particularly legendaries, IIRC) since I joined this game over a year ago.

One could argue they are diverging more intensely from the manifesto, but I wasn’t around for the original Cursed Shore either, and it is my understanding that that was as intense in mob density and type as the HoT zones are.

Let me start with the positives. I am really enjoying the mastery system. You get to choose which masteries to work on and each gives you a little boost, often a major boost in what you can do. Some of these gate your story line, some of these gate parts of the new maps. I do not feel they are a grind at this point as I am at level 18 in just over a week. I find myself looking forward to some of the higher end masteries and it’s something to work on over time. I have found the first zone to be very well populated with both players and events and other than the Itzel Archers the difficulty has been very reasonable. Not every event succeeds and you do have to move on in a few cases here and there, but often just popping a commander tag will draw in enough to complete the event.

I find the look and diversity of the second and third areas to be very nice however I do see problems with them. The complexity of the first area is refreshing, but the second area raises that bar considerably, and forget about the third area. Tangled Depths is an understatement. The strengths of the foes in those areas is alarming in many cases and just getting through an area is a huge challenge sometimes. Combining the high death rate with the tangled complexity makes exploration extremely daunting, let alone attempting any of the events. Player population is very low to non existent. I don’t know if it’s because it’s to early or due to Halloween, but I am similarly concerned that map wide events may rarely get completed. Roaming mobs have been brought back from GW1 and while that is cool, again the difficulty is upped even more.

My friend is one of these top 100 achievement addicts and I needed him as a guide to get me through the Hero Points and other interesting places in the second map. I still have NO idea what the meta map events are, what they unlock, or even where to go or how to help out. I do not understand how people can complain there was not enough content with this expansion, there is more than enough if you can figure out how to get to and survive it all. I think the real problem is going to be a lack of players that will persevere long enough to master these higher level areas.

I’m worried about my future with Guild Wars 2. I’m worried that I’m not going to have a social life anymore after avoiding all my friends and family because I’m playing HoT too much.

No, seriously. I felt compelled to post this because I see a LOT of threads up with people discussing how disappointed they are with HoT. I’m really hoping this is the vocal minority, and that the majority of happy players are spending their time playing the new content and simply don’t see these threads or check the forums, and thus aren’t contributing their positive opinions. Really hoping this is the case, surely the entire playerbase can’t be this upset? I’m not the only one having fun with all the TONS of shiny new stuff stuff stuffy stuff?

I know I speak for most of my guildmates as well as myself when I say that we absolutely love the new content. At first I was also disappointed that we were only getting 4 new maps with HoT.. but after having played on the first two (VB and Auric) for a rather considerable length of time I’ve really come to love them. It’s pretty clear to me that the developers really put their hearts and souls into the design of these maps and exploring them is just, well, fun. I’ve only briefly delved into Tangled Depths and Dragon’s Stand simply because I like to take my time in each new map and explore them fully (not just by doing map completion, mind you), taking in all of the “sights and sounds,” as it were.

Maybe I’m the rare breed of gamer that doesn’t mind a little time sink, but even the “grind” that I hear so many people complaining about is something that I enjoy. To me, things like masteries and elite specializations are end-game rewards and unlocks that give me something to work toward. I don’t like instant gratification in all things—that has a time and place for me, but on the whole I really do enjoy the feeling of having finally completed something I’ve been working on over a relatively long period of time. I’m even one of those rare folks who was disappointed when they dropped the elite spec requirement from 400 HP to 250 (although I do understand their reasoning and think it was probably the right call).

Regarding empty maps, I honestly think the two biggest reasons you’ll find there aren’t many people on the later maps (specifically TD and DS) are Halloween, and progression. I know of quite a few others like myself who haven’t really explored much in those two maps yet simply because we’re still spending all of our time in Verdant Brink or Auric. Combine that with the Halloween content which is only going to be around for another day or two—I imagine when players are no longer able to farm the Mad King’s Labyrinth and Halloween has been put back on the shelf until next year, the new HoT maps will get a big injection of players to liven things up. As for Verdant Brink and Auric, I can’t say that I’ve really seen much emptiness in either of those maps. They always seem to be populated, in my experience.

I really hope all the negativity on the forums lately isn’t disheartening to the folks at Anet who have been working their butts off to bring us the beautiful new content we’ve been asking for. If any devs are reading this and they’re starting to feel downtrodden by this vocal minority, please know that there are a LOT of us who would love to thank you personally for all your hard work. It shows. Heart of Thorns is awesome and my guildmates and I are absolutely loving it. Thank you!

EDIT: ^^^^ Glad to see that in the time it took me to write this post, two other players took time to comment with their own positive opinions. All is not lost!

Celtic Lady.3729:

Vayne.8563:

Frankly I think that anyone who thinks the zone is too difficult, should avoid it and go play in the old zones, which are very very easy.

This is such a lazy man’s argument and gets trotted out blithely any time a discussion of balancing the HoT content comes up.

Many people bought this game based on the content available – core Tyria maps were a huge part of this – so it set the tone for the game, and people based their decisions to buy largely on it. This is simply logical sense.

Then the content and the maps change significantly and people express their concerns about it. And they’re told not to expect to be able to play any of it or even bothering to buy new content or expansions. They’re told to just keep playing content they’ve done over and over without expecting anything new. This is ridiculous.

When you spend your money using the evidence available and see a game and say, “Hey, this game is fun and terrific for my playstyle,” it isn’t exactly surprising if they would like to have some new content in line with what they based their buying decision on in the first place. This doesn’t make them bad people or stupid people.

They certainly deserve some respect and not the cesspool ideology of “go find a real game to play” and “stop being a stupid, worthless noob,” “L2P,” etc. ad nauseum the kind of stupid, pointless things people say because they need to feel superior to anyone disagreeing with them.

And what of those of us who like the difficulty? Are you suggesting we should stand idly by and let those with grievances suck the fun out of the new zones, reducing them to a bland husk, of more enemies who are trivially easy to ignore?
This is a problem where either one group needs to up their game, or the other will find the content dull.
Players can improve their skills, lowering one’s skills is significantly harder.

I have come 540 degrees on HoT. At first I thought it was too grindy because all the annoying Hero Points and Masteries. Then I started to enjoy it after they changed the requirement from 400 to 250 and I could stop stressing about my elite specs. Now, I am back to being of the opinion that it is too grindy again, mainly because of the ridiculously high cost of crafting the new gear. For example, exotic sinister gear from SW cost about as much as the average piece of crafted gear. Viper gear is stupid expensive. Just the linseed oil alone costs 30g at current TP prices. Seriously anet, you don’t think 200 flax seeds for one piece of gear is excessive?

Dual.8953:

And what of those of us who like the difficulty? Are you suggesting we should stand idly by and let those with grievances suck the fun out of the new zones

The fact that you like the maps the way they are doesn’t invalidate my point that it’s reasonable for people to make monetary decisions based on the evidence they have. In this case, the nature of the PvE maps available. People that can reasonably expect more of the same.

There can be both kinds of content – new content similar to what people experienced when they made the decision to buy this game in the first place and new content that is different and more challenging. It’s a balancing act.

I don’t mind the difficulty as much as I mind not having enough waypoints.
Although, Hero Points could be a bit easier.

As far as it being hard, that is mainly to do with gear/build.

Treat it like PVP and gear and build for survivability and it will be a lot less deadly.

The main cause of death, if you do that, is via falling.

The meta was thought of to be Zerker, but now it’s probably Soldier, unless you are extremely (and more importantly, constantly) focussed and adept.

Totally agree with DarkM and Labjax. Excellent documentation! Think Anet/GW2 ultimate demise is possible. Anet lab rats play glorified beta HOT in hopes they can fix it!

Osu, I’m missing 57 hero points after “adjustment”. Had 263, but ended up with 206 . TY Gaiyl Gray!l

Celtic Lady.3729:

it’s reasonable for people to make monetary decisions based on the evidence they have. In this case, the nature of the PvE maps available. People that can reasonably expect more of the same.

On the other hand, if one’s tolerance or preference for challenge is restricted to what was presented in the core game, then it might not be reasonable to buy an expansion which has been advertised as being more challenging. Of course this point is exacerbated by the pre-purchase model.

Celtic Lady.3729:

There can be both kinds of content – new content similar to what people experienced when they made the decision to buy this game in the first place and new content that is different and more challenging. It’s a balancing act.

I agree that there can be, and perhaps should be, both kinds of content.

Dual.8953:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Vayne.8563:

Frankly I think that anyone who thinks the zone is too difficult, should avoid it and go play in the old zones, which are very very easy.

This is such a lazy man’s argument and gets trotted out blithely any time a discussion of balancing the HoT content comes up.

Many people bought this game based on the content available – core Tyria maps were a huge part of this – so it set the tone for the game, and people based their decisions to buy largely on it. This is simply logical sense.

Then the content and the maps change significantly and people express their concerns about it. And they’re told not to expect to be able to play any of it or even bothering to buy new content or expansions. They’re told to just keep playing content they’ve done over and over without expecting anything new. This is ridiculous.

When you spend your money using the evidence available and see a game and say, “Hey, this game is fun and terrific for my playstyle,” it isn’t exactly surprising if they would like to have some new content in line with what they based their buying decision on in the first place. This doesn’t make them bad people or stupid people.

They certainly deserve some respect and not the cesspool ideology of “go find a real game to play” and “stop being a stupid, worthless noob,” “L2P,” etc. ad nauseum the kind of stupid, pointless things people say because they need to feel superior to anyone disagreeing with them.

And what of those of us who like the difficulty? Are you suggesting we should stand idly by and let those with grievances suck the fun out of the new zones, reducing them to a bland husk, of more enemies who are trivially easy to ignore?
This is a problem where either one group needs to up their game, or the other will find the content dull.
Players can improve their skills, lowering one’s skills is significantly harder.

You’re going to have raids. That was the promised challenging content. The base maps in the expansion shouldn’t be that challenging for the average player. If you re-read my post you’ll see that I said exactly this.

darkm.4839:

You’re going to have raids. That was the promised challenging content. The base maps in the expansion shouldn’t be that challenging for the average player. If you re-read my post you’ll see that I said exactly this.

The problem with a statement of this sort is that it can just as easily be written as:

You have the majority of the game. The base maps in the expansion should be challenging for the average player.

Ashen.2907:

darkm.4839:

You’re going to have raids. That was the promised challenging content. The base maps in the expansion shouldn’t be that challenging for the average player. If you re-read my post you’ll see that I said exactly this.

The problem with a statement of this sort is that it can just as easily be written as:

You have the majority of the game. The base maps in the expansion should be challenging for the average player.

I paid $50 for an expansion to a game that I enjoy. It is very reasonable to expect similar content from said expansion. I found that the content is not to my liking, and I am voicing my opinions and concerns. I don’t think it would be wise to continue this practice. It’s essentially saying “this new content is only for the elite, the average player need not apply.” Should the average, casual player not purchase future expansions? What do you think that would mean for the future of ANet?

Ashen.2907:

Celtic Lady.3729:

it’s reasonable for people to make monetary decisions based on the evidence they have. In this case, the nature of the PvE maps available. People that can reasonably expect more of the same.

On the other hand, if one’s tolerance or preference for challenge is restricted to what was presented in the core game, then it might not be reasonable to buy an expansion which has been advertised as being more challenging. Of course this point is exacerbated by the pre-purchase model.

To be fair, “more challenging” is kind of vague and doesn’t necessarily tell me that specific content (such as completing map items) is going to be so very different from the previous maps, including the ones that were added after launch. I assumed (wrongly when I pre-purchased, in this case) that it meant the enemies would have more challenging AI and the DEs would require more cooperation. It didn’t tell me several other things that I wouldn’t have automatically known from the term “more challenging” and others similar to it.

darkm.4839:

Ashen.2907:

darkm.4839:

You’re going to have raids. That was the promised challenging content. The base maps in the expansion shouldn’t be that challenging for the average player. If you re-read my post you’ll see that I said exactly this.

The problem with a statement of this sort is that it can just as easily be written as:

You have the majority of the game. The base maps in the expansion should be challenging for the average player.

I paid $50 for an expansion to a game that I enjoy. It is very reasonable to expect similar content from said expansion. I found that the content is not to my liking, and I am voicing my opinions and concerns. I don’t think it would be wise to continue this practice. It’s essentially saying “this new content is only for the elite, the average player need not apply.” Should the average, casual player not purchase future expansions? What do you think that would mean for the future of ANet?

^^^ See, this is a much better point to make.

Of course I have seen casual players commenting on how much they enjoy the new challenges. This may be a matter of differing definitions of casual.

For what it is worth, the elite are not likely to consider the open world content to be challenging. It isn’t for them. It is for everyone else.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Ashen.2907:

Celtic Lady.3729:

it’s reasonable for people to make monetary decisions based on the evidence they have. In this case, the nature of the PvE maps available. People that can reasonably expect more of the same.

On the other hand, if one’s tolerance or preference for challenge is restricted to what was presented in the core game, then it might not be reasonable to buy an expansion which has been advertised as being more challenging. Of course this point is exacerbated by the pre-purchase model.

To be fair, “more challenging” is kind of vague and doesn’t necessarily tell me that specific content (such as completing map items) is going to be so very different from the previous maps, including the ones that were added after launch. I assumed (wrongly when I pre-purchased, in this case) that it meant the enemies would have more challenging AI and the DEs would require more cooperation. It didn’t tell me several other things that I wouldn’t have automatically known from the term “more challenging” and others similar to it.

Completely agreed.

I do feel that Anet wasn’t as forthcoming as they could (should?) have been when describing the content.