Guild Wars 2

Test.8734:

Straylight.7529:

Test.8734:

(and not even just a preorder, rather asking the full price)

This makes no sense. A preorder is a preorder. It’s one additonal option on how to purchase a game. Nothing more, nothing less. And of course it’s full price. Did you expect it to be half the price?

Yeah, because no one has ever said that “Pre-purchase means you buy the game for the full amount. Pre-order means you put some money down towards the full cost”.

And of course, ArenaNet has never made a preorder available to GW players, ever.

I would kindly suggest trying to find better places where to do your research than YouTube. Because, if you haven’t noticed, some people here know what they’re talking about.

Straylight.7529:

There has been information on every major feature on an almost weekly basis since the announcement back in January.

Really? So when did ArenaNet tell people about the paragraph Vayne quoted, on how HoT would be almost entirely challenging content? When did they tell people about the cost of unlocking the elite specializations? When did they tell people about the number of maps available in HoT?

Was any of that in January?

Oh look, it wasn’t! What a surprise! Nor was it in February. Or March! Or April. Or May. June…? Nope.

Meanwhile, they have known for a long time now how few maps HoT would have. They didn’t decide the amount of hero points required to unlock the elite specializations two days before release. ArenaNet knew players wouldn’t be happy with those announcements and so they chose to only release them nearly the very end of the pre-launch period, after months of telling players to prepurchase quickly or lose the opportunity of getting a new character slot.

This was very obviously a way to fool people into buying the game as quickly as possible, with the least information – oh sorry, I guess some people think talking about hylek actually matter, so I’ll rephrase it: with the least relevant information – as possible.

They told us about challenging content on announcement day.

Yea, another evening of grinding in VB yesterday with only food for exp buffs…4x day and night cycles hitting every single event/mob I could resulted in…20% of a MR level. Did anet get taken over by a korean company or something?

Pretty much, they have lowered exp rates into the ground to get you all to buy booster and it’s working. Even more depressing is people are fine with this apparently as they happily blow RL money to get lots of easy exp at 10x the rate of us ‘f2p’ players. Oddly enough, I seem to have bought the gw2 vanilla client AND the HoT client yet I am at f2p levels, in true restrictive f2ps I can DL the whole game for free…no need to buy a single thing just to play it unlike GW2 where you gotta b2p. So when is monthly premium service coming? It has to be soon.

Honestly, the community is going to be responsible for the life or death of this game. for an MMO, community is everything. Ever been to a Video Game news site lately? See the comments on GW2-related posts? Disgraceful.

What’s most puzzling to me is the posters on those comments and especially here on this forum seem to reflect the scum of the GW2 community. Bottom-feeders with no self-esteem picking fights for no reason and acting like children… All while making these hilarious claims like, “I’ve been gaming since before you were born!”

Yet every instance in every map I’ve ever played on GW2 has been the polar opposite. People seem eager to help each other. Almost no name-calling or holier-than-thou B.S.

I don’t think this game will die, per se. I think the 11-year-old keyboard warriors posing as 30-year-old sex gods will be just annoying enough to make the adults leave. The demographic will quickly shift and from there it only goes downhill.

While I’d be the first to agree that ANet has a history of poor communication, I don’t believe that the difficulty level in HoT was such a case. I get my news solely from random stuff I read in the forum and from the blogs on the game’s site. I knew from just those sources that their intent was for PvE difficulty to be substantially increased.

Look at this excerpt from the announcement for the first beta weekend.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-first-beta-weekend-event-begins-august-7/

“The jungle content is predominantly the same content we showed to a small audience in closed beta testing earlier this year, but it’s more polished. We’ve done a lot of work to balance creature difficulty, and we’ll be looking for your thoughts on the overall experience. Do you feel the need to use your entire skill bar in battles? Does teaming up with other players feel more rewarding? Do you find yourself wanting to change your skills and traits to overcome encounters? Warning—creatures will be more challenging than in the existing Guild Wars 2 world.”

Other than the bald warning in the last sentence, take note of them raising the issue of whether the content would force players to use the game’s combat mechanics to their fullest. That’s the key point in their design intent — to present content that could not just be #1 attacked to death.

While I sympathize with those who do not enjoy the level of difficulty in HoT, I’m forced to conclude that those who did not expect it did not do enough reading before they bought. This time, the info was there.

And to be fair, it’s rather balanced. It’s not that difficult (I do not consider myself a “pro”, like some more competitive players would); keep playing, test new strategies and builds, get better, enjoy the game. It’s challenging without being absurd-just don’t expect to be able to solo-smash everything on your path, which at times seemed all-too-easy pre HoT.

IMHO, it’s still a VERY casual friendly game. You don’t need to achieve everything even in a month, and some things are quite frankly for completionists, and not strictly needed. Take your time and enjoy the adventure.

After a killing spree against smokescales – kitten pristine claw – I now know how to fight two veterans smokescales at the same time.

I bring a friend for a while, he make many mistakes while fighting them, saying they’re too strong.
I explained him that it’s the smoke field that allow smokescales to dodge every hit.
After learning to dodge their frenzy and go away from the smokefield before using hundred blades, he find them no as a threat than before.

Improve yourself, learn foes skills, bring friends.
Play the game instead of complain about it.

Kulvar.1239:

Play the game instead of complain about it.

Complaining is the best part.

keeganrms.6301:

Honestly, the community is going to be responsible for the life or death of this game. for an MMO, community is everything. Ever been to a Video Game news site lately? See the comments on GW2-related posts? Disgraceful.

What’s most puzzling to me is the posters on those comments and especially here on this forum seem to reflect the scum of the GW2 community. Bottom-feeders with no self-esteem picking fights for no reason and acting like children… All while making these hilarious claims like, “I’ve been gaming since before you were born!”

Yet every instance in every map I’ve ever played on GW2 has been the polar opposite. People seem eager to help each other. Almost no name-calling or holier-than-thou B.S.

I don’t think this game will die, per se. I think the 11-year-old keyboard warriors posing as 30-year-old sex gods will be just annoying enough to make the adults leave. The demographic will quickly shift and from there it only goes downhill.

Perhaps you mean people like me, though I am 37 but I have never claimed to be a sex god. I have been very very critical on Massively OP, and MMORPG because of my frustration over HoT Open World difficulty, the hostility I received when I dared to make a forum post venting my frustration regarding said difficulty, followed by jeering Trolls sprinkled with legitimate comments, followed by a deluge of abuse after I had the audacity to give it right back, followed by an enforced leave of absence.

So yeah, I took it upon my self to spread my message out to the gaming websites where I’m untouchable.

I’ve been keeping tabs on the forum posts though and I found it very satisfying when people started complaining about empty maps, I assumed folks like me started doing Champ Trains, or The World Boss circuit, or SW; the path of least resistance. Or left to try other games as my fiercest critics have suggested I should do.

If the White Knights turn nasty don’t be surprised if we take it out side the forums, especially if we lose our voice.

A few employees leaving a game title for Amazon is nothing new: even triple a gaming companies pay only so-so compared to amazon, so a lot of folks are jumping over after a few years in (at which point they can often double or triple their salaries). This is an issue across all gaming companies.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

keeganrms.6301:

Honestly, the community is going to be responsible for the life or death of this game. for an MMO, community is everything. Ever been to a Video Game news site lately? See the comments on GW2-related posts? Disgraceful.

What’s most puzzling to me is the posters on those comments and especially here on this forum seem to reflect the scum of the GW2 community. Bottom-feeders with no self-esteem picking fights for no reason and acting like children… All while making these hilarious claims like, “I’ve been gaming since before you were born!”

Yet every instance in every map I’ve ever played on GW2 has been the polar opposite. People seem eager to help each other. Almost no name-calling or holier-than-thou B.S.

I don’t think this game will die, per se. I think the 11-year-old keyboard warriors posing as 30-year-old sex gods will be just annoying enough to make the adults leave. The demographic will quickly shift and from there it only goes downhill.

Perhaps you mean people like me, though I am 37 but I have never claimed to be a sex god. I have been very very critical on Massively OP, and MMORPG because of my frustration over HoT Open World difficulty, the hostility I received when I dared to make a forum post venting my frustration regarding said difficulty, followed by jeering Trolls sprinkled with legitimate comments, followed by a deluge of abuse after I had the audacity to give it right back, followed by an enforced leave of absence.

So yeah, I took it upon my self to spread my message out to the gaming websites where I’m untouchable.

I’ve been keeping tabs on the forum posts though and I found it very satisfying when people started complaining about empty maps, I assumed folks like me started doing Champ Trains, or The World Boss circuit, or SW; the path of least resistance. Or left to try other games as my fiercest critics have suggested I should do.

If the White Knights turn nasty don’t be surprised if we take it out side the forums, especially if we lose our voice.

You get blowback because difficulty in the open world is a rarity in GW2, and traditionally complaining about difficulty has worked in the open world, see Orr for example, the map has seem plenty of nerfs to it’s mobs to the point that anything below a Champ is a joke. For example, Risen Putrifiers used to have a pull instead of an immobilize.
When the HoT betas hit the beta players largely loved the difficulty of VB, to the degree that there was an uproar when one of the betas nerfed the mobs.
The threat of mob nerfs is at least largely seen as credible to the blowback is to be expected, they aren’t defending Anet because they think Anet is perfect, but rather they’re defending what they find fun.
Also your Empty Server point us flawed, because GW2’s open world runs on a Mega Server system. New map instances are opened as the currently open instances reach capacity; meaning 1,000,000 players in a specific zone looks the same as 300 players on that zone, from a player’s perspective. Anet has stated that the HoT zones are currently bugged with respect to the Mega Server system causing lower than normal populations in HoT map instances.

Pretty sure mega server stuff is still kind of broken and zones aren’t being populated as much as they should before new instances are open.

It is not likely that a next expansion will be as hard to play as this one. That is, IF there will be a next expansion. I don’t have insight in Anets finance and profit on this game. Anyway, is there a future for this game? Probably, but changes need to be made. Moving PvE away from crafting and towards exploring large maps with lots of (soloable) dungeons would be a nice start.

Eddie Mo.7169:

Expansions are supposed to add endgame content, not more nub stuff. It’d be nice, but it’s kinda not how it works.

Besides, didn’t your moms ever tell you not to go into the jungle alone? It’s dangerous in there!

Why not both?

Oldirtbeard.9834:

keeganrms.6301:

Honestly, the community is going to be responsible for the life or death of this game. for an MMO, community is everything. Ever been to a Video Game news site lately? See the comments on GW2-related posts? Disgraceful.

What’s most puzzling to me is the posters on those comments and especially here on this forum seem to reflect the scum of the GW2 community. Bottom-feeders with no self-esteem picking fights for no reason and acting like children… All while making these hilarious claims like, “I’ve been gaming since before you were born!”

Yet every instance in every map I’ve ever played on GW2 has been the polar opposite. People seem eager to help each other. Almost no name-calling or holier-than-thou B.S.

I don’t think this game will die, per se. I think the 11-year-old keyboard warriors posing as 30-year-old sex gods will be just annoying enough to make the adults leave. The demographic will quickly shift and from there it only goes downhill.

Perhaps you mean people like me, though I am 37 but I have never claimed to be a sex god. I have been very very critical on Massively OP, and MMORPG because of my frustration over HoT Open World difficulty, the hostility I received when I dared to make a forum post venting my frustration regarding said difficulty, followed by jeering Trolls sprinkled with legitimate comments, followed by a deluge of abuse after I had the audacity to give it right back, followed by an enforced leave of absence.

So yeah, I took it upon my self to spread my message out to the gaming websites where I’m untouchable.

I’ve been keeping tabs on the forum posts though and I found it very satisfying when people started complaining about empty maps, I assumed folks like me started doing Champ Trains, or The World Boss circuit, or SW; the path of least resistance. Or left to try other games as my fiercest critics have suggested I should do.

If the White Knights turn nasty don’t be surprised if we take it out side the forums, especially if we lose our voice.

Actually, I was referring to community members that are hostile to any criticism of the game whatsoever. Criticism can only make a game better. Fanaticism is how things fall apart.

I had to login for this.

So…
Let me tell you that during my 3 years of playtime I rarely put myself to grind(those were items I reallllly wanted and was impatient) Seriously, even got Ascended gear without grinding, sure, took longer but I enjoyed it. Why do you force yourself something you don’t enjoy? There are other ways of doing stuff. The game is fine, it’s awesome. It’s YOU, the PLAYER who needs to change or adapt for the better word.
If you can’t, then sorry, this is not for you.

Metas are fine, but keep in mind, Halloween was here and a portion of players consumed that content as it’s gone now but I’ve heard ppl organize and succed so you’re probably just unlucky and remember, Orr wasn’t a faceroll for everyone when the game came out. Vinewrath had to fail before we got the tactics down, Twisted Marionette also failed number of times before ppl actually learned how to deal with that stuff.

Seriously, It’s only 2 weeks and ppl judge that content like they were playing it for the same amout of time as the vanilla. It’s hard, meant to be hard, you’re in the territory of an Elder dragon who rekt an entire fleet without any hassle. Learn to adapt. to survive, be happy it’s not about spamming autoattack, you’d whine about that now.

Edit: This may sound rude but I hope no offense was taken. It’s fresh and new, give it some time.

Sicarius.4639:

Eddie Mo.7169:

Expansions are supposed to add endgame content, not more nub stuff. It’d be nice, but it’s kinda not how it works.

Besides, didn’t your moms ever tell you not to go into the jungle alone? It’s dangerous in there!

Why not both?

Definitely both would be good nice, but since most people spend most of their time on the endgame, it makes more sense to expand on the endgame.

I love the core game. HoT has only increased that love.

The only thing I don’t love about this game is listening to cranky pants players in map chat.

Oh, wait, there’s /ignore in game.. reminded why I love this game so much. <3

Why do so many people seem to think that the only options are Easy or Hard, and that it’s the players that must adjust to the game instead of the game adjusting to the players?

Yes, difficulty adjusters would take a lot of work for ANet to put in, but they’re the best way to make everyone happy with the same content. And with Megaservers, even the open world could (in theory) be set up to work that way.

Palador.2170:

Why do so many people seem to think that the only options are Easy or Hard, and that it’s the players that must adjust to the game instead of the game adjusting to the players?

Yes, difficulty adjusters would take a lot of work for ANet to put in, but they’re the best way to make everyone happy with the same content. And with Megaservers, even the open world could (in theory) be set up to work that way.

And then the people on easy would complain that drop rates aint as good as hard and they want the same making the people doing hard, why are we doing hard when easy give us the same reward.

Kraggy.4169:

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.

The thing is that content has to be gated one way or another otherwise managing the player’s experience becomes impossible.

Mastery gating is a less obtrusive and more lore friendly way to gate than the traditional level gating is.

I am a little bit curious right now:
Has vertical instead of horizontal progression made any difference for your right now with a different type of gate in place? As raids are suggesting the use of acended armor, has this tactic really paid off in your opinion if you should discard your exotic armor anyway at some point? Level raise through the backdoor, yes or no?

Linken.6345:

Palador.2170:

Why do so many people seem to think that the only options are Easy or Hard, and that it’s the players that must adjust to the game instead of the game adjusting to the players?

Yes, difficulty adjusters would take a lot of work for ANet to put in, but they’re the best way to make everyone happy with the same content. And with Megaservers, even the open world could (in theory) be set up to work that way.

And then the people on easy would complain that drop rates aint as good as hard and they want the same making the people doing hard, why are we doing hard when easy give us the same reward.

People complain about the loot now. It wouldn’t be a new problem.

And yes, bigger rewards for playing on higher difficulty would make sense, but how to balance that? Well, for starters, have ascended crafting items drop in hard mode, but not in easy mode. If easy mode doesn’t make grinding out ascended worth it, but hard mode does, then that right there would be a good first step in making the rewards fit the difficulty. And if people playing easy mode do want ascended, they can still get it the slower way, right?

macon.4065:

The part that hurts the most is many. many , many people made suggestions about what to do. Guildwars 2 lost key people and it shows. It was very clear that Guildwars and Anet do not care to hear our insight or our views. In reality they are looking for the bottom line of their wallet. A suggestion ANET use the KISS method it actually works. Now please show us what the $100.00 expansion actually gave us. So far we have lag, not enough folks on maps to complete much less willing to work together (I’m hoping your thinking about bringing Heroes back to help the players, that was helpful in the original game and its needed now), an economy that blows (lets face it we need gold as players to buy in the Black Liuon Trading company why is getting Gold from the GEM store for a high price any different from getting it from a Gold seller for a low price) lets face the reality here they beat you with a fairer price and a better deal. Now your punishing the player who you need desperately to support you. Here’s what I forasee as a long time player.
1 Guild Halls are going to fail – reason players don’t all do PVP or WVW much less want to pay for things to put in a Guild Hall and make you money. Happened in GW1
2 Your economy is so bad people won’t need to go to HOT becasue they are not going to be able to afford to go. If you can’t be properly equipped be ready to kiss paydirt.
3. Reviewers will continue to criticize the game because the players are but in order to get release and insight from the company they will not say much simply becasue you cut off the honest reviewersm but you can’t cut off the players.
4. If you do not reverse your system, simplify it and change it as was suggested in the beginning. THIS includes going back to the old way of doing builds, eliminating the Black Lion trading company and create 1 economy that is based solely on what one person can earn in a few days time with a price cap, and developing a meaning full expansion you aren’t going to make it. And I feel sorry for this I have been a long time supporter of the game but your hitting the player for a lot and say suport me support me but we aren’t getting what we paid for or see the value in what you have done. The exodus to other games will continue and I hope that you fix this before more players abandon ship and go to other games because you actually had a product that wasn’t broken before and was managable (that’s why you needed more servers). Whoever made the suggestion to change it was saddly mistaken.

I don’t think you played GW1.. Guild Hall Sigils were a strong part of the early game economy and the halls themselves were very much enjoyed by many – not to mention being a key part of your GvG strategy.

Your economic ramblings are insane; price capping, “economy that is based solely on what one person can earn in a few days time.” Just crazy…

The new trait system gives more choice and variety of USEFUL builds.

And the rest of your posts is just doomsaying. Also the price of the exp was $50 (£35) not $100.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

keeganrms.6301:

Honestly, the community is going to be responsible for the life or death of this game. for an MMO, community is everything. Ever been to a Video Game news site lately? See the comments on GW2-related posts? Disgraceful.

What’s most puzzling to me is the posters on those comments and especially here on this forum seem to reflect the scum of the GW2 community. Bottom-feeders with no self-esteem picking fights for no reason and acting like children… All while making these hilarious claims like, “I’ve been gaming since before you were born!”

Yet every instance in every map I’ve ever played on GW2 has been the polar opposite. People seem eager to help each other. Almost no name-calling or holier-than-thou B.S.

I don’t think this game will die, per se. I think the 11-year-old keyboard warriors posing as 30-year-old sex gods will be just annoying enough to make the adults leave. The demographic will quickly shift and from there it only goes downhill.

Perhaps you mean people like me, though I am 37 but I have never claimed to be a sex god. I have been very very critical on Massively OP, and MMORPG because of my frustration over HoT Open World difficulty, the hostility I received when I dared to make a forum post venting my frustration regarding said difficulty, followed by jeering Trolls sprinkled with legitimate comments, followed by a deluge of abuse after I had the audacity to give it right back, followed by an enforced leave of absence.

So yeah, I took it upon my self to spread my message out to the gaming websites where I’m untouchable.

I’ve been keeping tabs on the forum posts though and I found it very satisfying when people started complaining about empty maps, I assumed folks like me started doing Champ Trains, or The World Boss circuit, or SW; the path of least resistance. Or left to try other games as my fiercest critics have suggested I should do.

If the White Knights turn nasty don’t be surprised if we take it out side the forums, especially if we lose our voice.

You’re untouchable BUT I’ve seen far less complaints about the HoT difficulty than I have see about the ease of old Tyria. Get over yourself. Spreading the word to hurt the game because a change doesn’t include you?

You’re not the only guy playing. Changes are made for the playerbase as a whole, not one person. So you’re disenfranchised by a change? Even the most blinkered forum goer can’t deny this was a change that players have been asking for.

After 2 weeks I’m not done with the story on my 1st character partly due to spending time doing Halloween but also due to the mobs. I was sitting down to tackle the story and after fighting and running through a never ending gaggle of mobs I reached a vet, who killed me. I went from soloing champs in GW2 to getting owned by vets in HoT. What did I do? Turned off the game. When others aren’t doing what you’re doing in HoT maps you’re screwed and it isn’t fun. I don’t mean I was on an empty server, I mean I was the only one in the area important to ME and my leg of the story.

These maps will be ghost towns unless you’re zerging events and that’s not fun to me.

Aidenwolf.5964:

After 2 weeks I’m not done with the story on my 1st character partly due to spending time doing Halloween but also due to the mobs. I was sitting down to tackle the story and after fighting and running through a never ending gaggle of mobs I reached a vet, who killed me. I went from soloing champs in GW2 to getting owned by vets in HoT. What did I do? Turned off the game. When others aren’t doing what you’re doing in HoT maps you’re screwed and it isn’t fun. I don’t mean I was on an empty server, I mean I was the only one in the area important to ME and my leg of the story.

These maps will be ghost towns unless you’re zerging events and that’s not fun to me.

I’ve found precious few vets I can’t solo. Not sure why you had an issue, but if you’re wearing zerker gear, that might be part of the problem. At any rate, I’ve run all over the zone solo and I’ve not often had a problem. And I’m by no means a leet player.

macon.4065:

okay need to respond and no your mistaken. In the United States players were given the choice of three expansions one for $60, one for about $74 and the last for $100. Each tier had different choices.

And this company is making hand over fist of money from the player. In the world of Gold Sellers you are looking at a seller right their in the game. The GEM trading is you buy gems and change them into gold. Now you can do that but Gold Sellers are cheaper and not necissarily obtaining their gold illegally rather buying their gold from re4al life players.

And yes I was involved in the original Guildwars game (as a matter of fact I was part of their fansite) and no Guild Halls grew out of sink. People that did the halls basically hung out were not all active and packed things in as the cost of the player. The only folks that did this to a real great extent were the few that used the halls for other purposes. I was also part of one of the biggest guildes in that game and I state for a fact that this is indeed true and in the end many of the gamers from GW1 never came to GW2 and a lot of this is simply becasue they felt GW2 strayed from the original intention of GW1 and I do believe different developers were used as well.

The US price was $50 for the expansion.

The reason Gold Sellers are an issue (besides in game economics) is they hack and steal accounts and suggesting they get their money from “buying their gold from re4al life players” (must be a troll right?) is naive at best.

You are not expressing yourself well on Guild Halls; they were an enjoyed meeting place, dueling arena, GvG home and access to services. Go back and check guild wars guru and see all the posts about getting a GH and events held there-in. I’m not sure why you think GHs are causing some exodus from GW2 anyway – they are kinda a side feature if anything.

macon.4065:

I am going to touch on the poster from above and say sorry guy the gaming reviews are not good. HOT is not sucessful and you stil have 30 days from the time of purchase to get your money back. As long as the company wants us to spend money from something of little value your going to see this resistance. And the 11 year old has way little buying power than the older adult. You need the adults to keep game afloat. At the rate this is going on your going to see a complete boycott of the game and a complete shut down. And I hate to say this but the reviewers are claming this as the game keeps nickle and diming the player and their no grind philosophy and ELU agreeement has gone out the window.

Thanks a lot for the info, head of NCSoft internal revenue.

macon.4065:

I am simply trying to tell you all that unless you are really looking into GVG, WVW or even PVP the Guild Halls are moot to the PVE player who can still get their gear and things from the game cities as before.

I don’t think you understand the power of decorating, some people go NUTS for it (I’m not one of them but I played Wildstar for a bit and the obsession people had with decorating was both impressive and scary). I doubt GHs will fail its just too much of a tool for customisation and people love those (plus “our GH has X” lets people boast even if they had nothing to do with getting X and the masses love reflected glory).

macon.4065:

If you want to get into the fashion crazy more power to you but when the ball drops you’ll find that its going to be a minimal use of Guild Halls except for the reasons above. I know I for one will not be using them for any reason its just not a valuable resource. Omce again ANET – Guildwars 2 developed a system that is for a portion of the population and not for the whole population. Of course they really didn’t ask our opinion either – either way we still get the bill.

The question is what portion of the population. I’m pretty sure that there are very few things 100% of the population of this game would be happy with. Anet made the open world harder, something people have been asking for for years, and the complaints start about the open world being too hard.

Unfortunately there isn’t one playerbase that wants one thing….but I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb to say that more people would get into decorating that playing GvG on the whole. A more casual game, attracts more casual people for 3 years, you have to expect that sort of thing.

This whole making something for the whole population is a myth and doesn’t exist.

Vayne.8563:

Aidenwolf.5964:

After 2 weeks I’m not done with the story on my 1st character partly due to spending time doing Halloween but also due to the mobs. I was sitting down to tackle the story and after fighting and running through a never ending gaggle of mobs I reached a vet, who killed me. I went from soloing champs in GW2 to getting owned by vets in HoT. What did I do? Turned off the game. When others aren’t doing what you’re doing in HoT maps you’re screwed and it isn’t fun. I don’t mean I was on an empty server, I mean I was the only one in the area important to ME and my leg of the story.

These maps will be ghost towns unless you’re zerging events and that’s not fun to me.

I’ve found precious few vets I can’t solo. Not sure why you had an issue, but if you’re wearing zerker gear, that might be part of the problem. At any rate, I’ve run all over the zone solo and I’ve not often had a problem. And I’m by no means a leet player.

Wearing PTV gear and celestial trinks and not all vets are an issue but not all are vet level in difficulty. I seriously believe they aren’t called champs because they don’t want to dole out champ boxes.

Hi btw glad you’re enjoying HoT, it’s not my cup of tea.

macon.4065:

Yep that’s true its hard to please everyone – oh wait a minute didn’t the original game do that – hmm…. this game in its original form has survived for 3 years total Guildwars years 13. I’d say the original game had everyone’s support. I’ve never seen as much companints about one expansion as I have seen about HOT with the exception of maybe Factions. I’m simply saying that unless this company reverses course quickly and goes back to a process that was working your going to loose those people that are actually contributing money to your game your going to end up dieing on the vine. I simply think that the developers also feel this way they have run out of ideas and are now going to a rinse and repeat method of content developed by the original development team of Guildwars 1. Problem is they add to what wasn’t broken and should have kept the same concept. And I will say that the content is hardly worth the money when you used someone else’s work.

No the original game didn’t please everyone. In fact, the original game lost a lot of people the moment ascended gear was introduced. It didn’t please everyone because some people couldn’t figure out where to go or what to do, and they wanted more of a breadcrumb trail. It didn’t please everyone because threads about dueling and mounts were everywhere, till recently even. And of course, I’m sure we all know people who stopped playing because they didn’t like the original game.

The fact is, the people who keep playing probably are pleased, sure. But then there are probably as many people who stopped playing as there are who continued. So how, pray tell, did the original game please everyone?

macon.4065:

Yep that’s true its hard to please everyone – oh wait a minute didn’t the original game do that – hmm…. this game in its original form has survived for 3 years total Guildwars years 13. I’d say the original game had everyone’s support. I’ve never seen as much companints about one expansion as I have seen about HOT with the exception of maybe Factions. I’m simply saying that unless this company reverses course quickly and goes back to a process that was working your going to loose those people that are actually contributing money to your game your going to end up dieing on the vine. I simply think that the developers also feel this way they have run out of ideas and are now going to a rinse and repeat method of content developed by the original development team of Guildwars 1. Problem is they add to what wasn’t broken and should have kept the same concept. And I will say that the content is hardly worth the money when you used someone else’s work.

You’ve forgotten the advances in communication the world has gone through over that time, twitter has made peope think their opinions matter and that whining online is the same as taking action and contributing. This false world has generated armchair activists who spill out nonsense with little thought then defend it to their death.

This is why you see more complaining on forums now – back then people could only take action by changing themselves now they cry online and think they’re changing the world.

#i’vedonemybitforworldchangenowright?

When put into perspective, I wouldn’t say that Guild wars 2 is in a bad position, and they’re certainly doing a lot of good things. There are some balancing issues going on in terms of monster damage output, but on the overall I wouldn’t say that Guild wars 2 is in a bad position taken its competitors into account.

What I’ve missed in other MMOs is something to do beside the tedious dungeon crawling for gear when at max level. In WoW per example the levelling and exploring more or less stops when you hit max level. Then it’s a few days of dungeon work, then onwards to raids. You have no reason to move about in the world. In Guild wars 2 and The secret world, the creators have solved this by having “max level” content zones (The secret world doesn’t have levels in that regard so a bit off there).

Now what would you prefer, to be honest. Standing in a major city (or in WoW’s case, an empty garrison), doing nothing, or move about in the world, exploring, slaying things and earn treasure and loot? And look at The elder scrolls: Online, oh BOY did they mess up (and clearly show Zenimax studious as the nubs of MMO creation), a max level outdoor zones that forced players into grouping up. The result was people grouping up, to grind one specific area of the new content to get their max level. I never got to see the entire zone of Craglorn because you couldn’t do it alone, and no one wanted to group up to do the content because it was inefficient in terms of levelling.

Then we have subscription based games that became F2P games and messed up that way. Rift per example, where you’re 2-3 levels short for every dam zone unless you purchase XP boosters from their store, or Star Wars: The old republic where you have to pay even to take of your helmet (unless you’re a subscriber).

My whole point is that perspectives are good to have, and playing some other MMOs beside Guild wars 2 paints a bit broader picture. Anet isn’t perfect but they’ve done a surprisingly good job with HoT. They’ve made entire zones that aren’t a cakewalk for any players out there and can be challenging in certain areas. They’ve made group events streamlined and you can pop in and out of any events going on without being part of a group. They encourage exploring with certain incentives going on for those who explore a lot. I’m not trying to be a fanboy here, but I’ve played a great deal of MMOs over the course of 12-15 years and that puts things a lot in perspectives. And I think that when compared to what other MMOs are doing, you’re a bit better off playing Guild wars 2 than those.

macon.4065:

Well in order to change the world you actually need a world (or company) that care to listen to its people. The fact remains that this comapny sold the people a lemon. Unfortunatley we are also in a situation where we have no options and must deal with this nickle and diming quite frankly probally for the existance of the game. Its just very sad that many, many saw this coming and posted it and begged to be heard and really we were ignored. We all know the problems out here and either deal with them or grow tired of promises made and not delivered. We try to put up a fight for what we believe is fair and justifiable but its very hard to do that when you have been nailed so many times over 13 years from a company that owns a game you rather enjoy in its originality but has now changed what Guildwars truly ment in the beginnning. They are alienating myself and others. While this may not seem thought provoke or overtly progressive it does give someone a voice. Whether they actually care to understand it and stop being hypicritical is up to them. But in a nutshell the only folks they will hurt in the end is themselves, the more you tack on the player the more they will come to the realization they are being used. In the end more than likely will walk away in outrage. I am hoping this company will resolve this before it becomes so nasty folsk actually walk away in droves. Many that I started with and in the Guilds I know have go on to other games. So I am pleading that they revert back to retain their gamers. If not split the server into 2 and have one server for a HOT like atmosphere and place the other in the original Guildwars 2 content. With original content design not a it worked in the other game which was sucessful can it work here too idea. What made Guildwars truly a game for the ages was questing, leveling, developing solo style game where folks could log on when ever they wanted and get a group even if they were NPCS or Heroes and seperating WVW and PVP from the actual game world and let players choose how they want to interact not forcing them to interact in area they feel are rediculous or have no interest in. Your restriting your gamers who do not want to work in those areas and they are not going to bend just to please you when its not their gaming style. If you are going to set a standard then you obey the standard too. don’t deviate because you are hurting for cash and take it out on your players and for God’s sake dont’ do the you can buy GEMS from us at a higher cost to get gold when in reality you can buy it from a merchant or even an auction house because your economy is failing at the good shopper found a deal. Either lower the prices for affordabilty or establish price caps so people cannot chrage over a given amount per item as already apprasied by your own system. (If you look at everything in the game at the bottom is the price the game sets as the actual value of the item- people should be able to ear that amount to get that item). We did not create the system the developers did and unfortunately we are tied to the wipping post right now and forced to accept these situations. While my opinion clearly doesn’t matter and some lame individual will contradict me that situation is that the game created it, controlled it and marketed it. Blame the ability to handle this on the company’s end not on the gamer who is trying to make ends meet in the game and have fun. Once I’d like to spend one day not grinding for gold personally and actually enjoy the game. I’m a PVE person and proud to do quests, dungeons and content in the main maps. I’m not a fractal fan, or a PVP fan or a WVW fan but I relize to actually get the thing I want I have had to lower my standards to get these to do content I think is repulsive. And the poeple I associate with are just like me PVE players. I want a simple game, easy to understand, with questing (events are pointless folks they are not story driven and don’t have any real bearing) and yes a straight forward game system one currency for all, one easy to use system of buying and trading based on the actual system generated price of the items (its what was designed originally) to get the equipment I need to go out and enjoy the game. Right now hack and slash, price gouging, over cost to players is not going to make this better an din the end hurt everyone.

Don’t go saying that this company sold people a lemon when there are so many people really enjoying it. Selling a lemon means simple it doesn’t work. That it doesn’t function.

YOU may not like it. That doesn’t make it a lemon. It only means you don’t like it. I have a couple of people in my guild who don’t like it either but by far, the largest number of people seem to be enjoying HoT.

Some people actually feel like they have been heard.

Torolan.5816:

I am a little bit curious right now:
Has vertical instead of horizontal progression made any difference for your right now with a different type of gate in place? As raids are suggesting the use of acended armor, has this tactic really paid off in your opinion if you should discard your exotic armor anyway at some point? Level raise through the backdoor, yes or no?

By how theye going and who they cater to level raise with whole new ascended gear grind (10 levels higher now with 50% higher stats) can be expected.

I took a week long vacation and played GW2 a ton during launch and I’m only mastery level 15. There are ways to play the game and enjoy it that aren’t grindy. Just doodle around having fun and trying out new things.

It’s just a game, so maybe stop feeling the pressure to treat your character progression like a job and just take it easy.

MikaHR.1978:

By how theye going and who they cater to level raise with whole new ascended gear grind (10 levels higher now with 50% higher stats) can be expected.

Nope.

In addition to them flat out saying that ascended level gear is meant to be the max level, nothing about “how they’re going” indicates vertical character progression increases.

Instead, everything indicates it’s all going towards lateral progression. Masteries…elite specializations… entirely lateral.

macon.4065:

Yes we are going to see a lot of changes in the Guildwars 2 game but I am not seeing many positives here.

You’re not seeing them because you’re not looking for them.

As these forums attest, there’s plenty to criticize about Guild Wars 2, but your claims are so full of hyperbole and innuendo that it’s almost impossible to discern the facts buried within so much fantasy.

If you’re willing to offer some credible sources to support your assertions, it would definitely help, but absent those, it’s difficult to reconcile what you’re saying with the realities of the game or the company that makes it.

Also, avoiding walls of text makes posts easier to follow and more likely to be read.

Trying not to be too pedantic here, just offering some honest feedback, and I hope it will be taken in the spirit it is given.

I wanted to play HoT, I really did, but too many things just stop me.

It’s not the difficulty for me (I’m actually not finding it that hard, just grindy, like mobs being unkillable until you grinded the hell out of some mastery line, like wtf?).

What stops me is... Completely empty HoT maps with map mechanics that require coordinated zergs. Even hero challenges require 2-3 people. HoT maps are just too much of a ghost town for the player quantity requirements they have. They need to stop making so many map copies and just dump everyone in one map like they do in the old Tyria maps... Been to Cursed Shore recently? I got zero problems finding large numbers of people in the old maps, it’s just HoT maps that are dead.

And to add as icing on the tasteless cake, just when you finally managed to get into a populated map that manages to progress a meta event... Boom, crash or disconnect, play slot denied and you lost all progress and re-join in a dead map. Crashes and disconnects are a daily occurrence in GW2 (and only in GW2, nothing else), you’d think that by now some slot reservation system would have been implemented, but no.

The mastery system is indeed too grindy, but so are the maps in general. In ArenaNet they seem to have the same definition for the words "replayable" and "repetitive"... A darn shame too, as the new maps are certainly the best looking in the game, and gliding does add to the gameplay a lot more than just being a gimmick.

My final significant issue lies with how terribly rushed the personal story is, it’s clear that they cut out a lot of missions especially during the second half of the story (let’s not waste words about the ending). They even dropped multi-path choices down to only offering it in the very first mission and it had no real significance unlike how they hyped it to be.

Here is to hoping the next expansion will do better on these fronts.

Coulter.2315:

macon.4065:

Yep that’s true its hard to please everyone – oh wait a minute didn’t the original game do that – hmm…. this game in its original form has survived for 3 years total Guildwars years 13. I’d say the original game had everyone’s support. I’ve never seen as much companints about one expansion as I have seen about HOT with the exception of maybe Factions. I’m simply saying that unless this company reverses course quickly and goes back to a process that was working your going to loose those people that are actually contributing money to your game your going to end up dieing on the vine. I simply think that the developers also feel this way they have run out of ideas and are now going to a rinse and repeat method of content developed by the original development team of Guildwars 1. Problem is they add to what wasn’t broken and should have kept the same concept. And I will say that the content is hardly worth the money when you used someone else’s work.

You’ve forgotten the advances in communication the world has gone through over that time, twitter has made peope think their opinions matter and that whining online is the same as taking action and contributing. This false world has generated armchair activists who spill out nonsense with little thought then defend it to their death.

This is why you see more complaining on forums now – back then people could only take action by changing themselves now they cry online and think they’re changing the world.

#i’vedonemybitforworldchangenowright?

+1
Well done sir. I can’t say this better then you. You are my hero.

Raap.9065:

What stops me is… Completely empty HoT maps with map mechanics that require coordinated zergs. Even hero challenges require 2-3 people. HoT maps are just too much of a ghost town for the player quantity requirements they have. They need to stop making so many map copies and just dump everyone in one map like they do in the old Tyria maps… Been to Cursed Shore recently? I got zero problems finding large numbers of people in the old maps, it’s just HoT maps that are dead.

The underpopulated maps are likely the result of a bug that Colin mentioned here and which doesn’t appear to be fixed yet.

Needless to say, given the nature of the content, not fixing this ASAP is a particularly bad thing for Heart of Thorns to be saddled with.

For what it’s worth, I’m not a fan of “Zerg Wars” (zerging literally makes me fall asleep), and rarely spend much time following commander tags around in either PvE or WvW.

We’re definitely seeing the same phenomenon in HoT, but it does appear that many of the events are designed to reward players for not zerging, and indeed punishing zerging by causing meta events to fail if players don’t simultaneously complete multiple objectives in different locations.

I’m also not a fan of group-only content, and think it’s a mistake not to scale most non-meta events and hero challenges down to soloable, because when people aren’t there, people aren’t there.

Scaling content to be soloable if only one player is present does not mean it needs to be easy. It can be absurdly hard. As long as it’s doable, it’s reasonable.

One of the marquee features of Guild Wars 2, and what has attracted many players who would not otherwise play it, is the fact that players can enjoy completing group-oriented content without having to deal with the overhead and hassle of joining formal groups.

Straying too far from that formula would forfeit a major advantage GW2 has over most of its competition and would constitute a grave strategic error. I hope ArenaNet recognizes that.

Anyway, long story short, I share more than a few of your concerns, but I also think it’s very likely ArenaNet will tune HoT to make it as fun and inviting to as many players as possible without diluting the difficulty too much.

At least, that’s what I hope.

Hope I’m right to hope.

It’s interesting because the map bug not giving you enough players is exactly what the maps will look like down the line, god forbid someone isn’t trying to do this content now, it’s going to impossible later without a nerf.

Sicarius.4639:

It’s interesting because the map bug not giving you enough players is exactly what the maps will look like down the line, god forbid someone isn’t trying to do this content now, it’s going to impossible later without a nerf.

Not really, there are MANY community (not even guild) that run constantly world events..withi this thinking one might say “oh god, i’ll never complete Triple Trouble Achiev! Who is running that?” Well, GW2Community runs TT daily…as the HoT metaevents too, Teq, Karka and so on.
Don’t worry ;-)

Gaaroth.2567:

Sicarius.4639:

It’s interesting because the map bug not giving you enough players is exactly what the maps will look like down the line, god forbid someone isn’t trying to do this content now, it’s going to impossible later without a nerf.

Not really, there are MANY community (not even guild) that run constantly world events..withi this thinking one might say “oh god, i’ll never complete Triple Trouble Achiev! Who is running that?” Well, GW2Community runs TT daily…as the HoT metaevents too, Teq, Karka and so on.
Don’t worry ;-)

Well I’ve found the drytop and silverwaste maps completely dead.

Sicarius.4639:

Gaaroth.2567:

Sicarius.4639:

It’s interesting because the map bug not giving you enough players is exactly what the maps will look like down the line, god forbid someone isn’t trying to do this content now, it’s going to impossible later without a nerf.

Not really, there are MANY community (not even guild) that run constantly world events..withi this thinking one might say “oh god, i’ll never complete Triple Trouble Achiev! Who is running that?” Well, GW2Community runs TT daily…as the HoT metaevents too, Teq, Karka and so on.
Don’t worry ;-)

Well I’ve found the drytop and silverwaste maps completely dead.

Sure you have. Because you don’t know how to use the LFG tool. Everyone transfers to the better/busier server, and boom, you’re in a busy map.

Every time I go to the early stages of SW, I look in the LFG tool for one about to pop., and boom, suddenly I’m in a crowded map.

I sort of regret it… i should of preordered fallout 4… I play a warrior and because gear means nothing in pvp i dont pve or do the story mode i just do pvp…. So i brought the xpac for the elite specs basically…. and well lets just say my main is a warrior and i only like gsword and hammer….. from that u would guess my opinion.

Vayne.8563:

Sure you have. Because you don’t know how to use the LFG tool. Everyone transfers to the better/busier server, and boom, you’re in a busy map.

Players should not have to use the LFG tool to do something the game should be doing automatically.

If anything, it illustrates the problem and supports the assertion you are attempting to refute.

Majic.4801:

Vayne.8563:

Sure you have. Because you don’t know how to use the LFG tool. Everyone transfers to the better/busier server, and boom, you’re in a busy map.

Players should not have to use the LFG tool to do something the game should be doing automatically.

If anything, it illustrates the problem and supports the assertion you are attempting to refute.

The LFG tool was added to the game to help players find groups for the content they want. It’s a solution, not a problem.

It’s terribly easy to find a busy server, it takes almost no time to do it, and then you play the game the way you would anyway.

There is no system in the world that’s going to insure people will always find what they want on a server, without locking the population down. That would cause a whole different set of problems.

If the megaserver didn’t allow you to transfer, you couldn’t go where you want, or play with friends.

I’m not sure why using the LFG tool to move to a better map is an issue for you, but it shouldn’t be. It’s fast, easy and solves the problem.

Unless you can think of a way for all servers to be busy all the time, I’m not sure what else there is to say.

Vayne.8563:

Unless you can think of a way for all servers to be busy all the time, I’m not sure what else there is to say.

An explicit purpose of implementing the megaserver model was to prevent players from finding themselves in underpopulated maps. If the system was working as intended, players would not be placed in underpopulated maps, which is something both you and Sicarius agree is happening.

As explained by Colin Johanson:

The biggest benefit of this new system is that you’ll always find other players to adventure with in the open world, no matter what time of day it is. There are some maps in the game that tend to have smaller populations in them on each world; with megaserver technology, these lower-population maps will be full of players from the same global region, so you can always have a great experience and play any of the content in those maps. People online during nonpeak hours will be able to play in populated zones with other players, since they will all be sorted together to create fuller maps.

“Taxiing” is a workaround for the failures of the current system, but is not a solution to the underlying problem, and chiding players for not using it is a direct acknowledgment that the system isn’t working as intended.

The solution is for ArenaNet to fix it.

Majic.4801:

Vayne.8563:

Unless you can think of a way for all servers to be busy all the time, I’m not sure what else there is to say.

An explicit purpose of implementing the megaserver model was to prevent players from finding themselves in underpopulated maps. If the system was working as intended, players would not be placed in underpopulated maps, which is something both you and Sicarius agree is happening.

As explained by Colin Johanson:

The biggest benefit of this new system is that you’ll always find other players to adventure with in the open world, no matter what time of day it is. There are some maps in the game that tend to have smaller populations in them on each world; with megaserver technology, these lower-population maps will be full of players from the same global region, so you can always have a great experience and play any of the content in those maps. People online during nonpeak hours will be able to play in populated zones with other players, since they will all be sorted together to create fuller maps.

“Taxiing” is a workaround for the failures of the current system, but is not a solution to the underlying problem, and chiding players for not using it is a direct acknowledgment that the system isn’t working as intended.

The solution is for ArenaNet to fix it.

Fix it HOW? What is YOUR solution? Stop people from changing maps?

You’re quoting something that was said beforehand. The game has evolved. The solution is there.

It’s like someone being cold in a room and refusing to put on a sweater. This is ridiculous.