I have recently come back after playing at launch but was busy in a certain other mmo and dropped the game, GW2 has always been installed though and kept updated as I knew I would go back when I was done with raiding etc in wow.
I finally leveled my ranger 80 and have been blown away by the game and sad I did not stick with the game originally, finished the main story and spent a fair bit on gems expanding inventory and buying living season 2 and I also bought HoT before I had finished around level 60, I was about to put down on a second game, my wife loves the original and for a non game player, she has banged some serious hours into the original, she just loves the world completion side of it and the hearts, in turn she has got my daughter interested as well and it has turned into a family affair on a evening which has been great.
My hardcore days are long left behind in wow and this is why I came back, the original game is brilliant for the casual solo player or just playing with my family and we have fun doing it which has been amazing, I cant thank Anet enough for this.
I decided to skip the living story season 2 to get my gliding sorted and then go back and do it, my initial impression of HoT is wtf as it really does flip the game and changes to something totally different.
HoT is just frustration and not fun, you just get on with it the best you can and grind it out, it forces you to change play style but not to one that’s enjoyable or fun and again its just more frustration after playing 80 levels a certain way, a lot of it is also based on the grouping of players which more often and not I find my self in overflow maps with not enough to complete the main events which again is just wasting precious play time, and creating boredom.
I would stick it out if the wife would carry on playing but she has no interest in HoT after seeing me play it and I guess we will all be moving on to a different game or to wow once she hits 80.
For me HoT just removes all the things I love about the original game, it seems rushed and badly thought out, it seems it was designed for the few and not the many.
I thought I would report back now I have now completed HoT, I have full map completion on all 4 maps and have finished the main story line and the world events, just going back now to complete LS2, from this I have 65 mastery points, I cant be bothered with event/race type mastery events as again i find them more frustrating than fun to do.
It is also a bit backwords, why do I have to unlock mastery points to make the maps playable, this just seems wrong to me, and the main reason I no longer play wow after 10 years is I could not face another grind to unlock flying in legion having done just that in wod, its just introduced grind as they can think of nothing else to fill the content gaps.
My wife definitely wont play through it after hearing me shout at the screen so much lol and I do believe a lot of the content designed to be challenging just crosses the line in to frustration far too often, over mobbed and far too many cripple effects, barrage which was my fave skill is pretty much rendered useless due to having to dance around so much the mobs like mushrooms and snipers make even exploring a frustrating experience due to some places being over mobbed, the main issue is its work, you have to be thinking far too much and while some find this fun I find it more like work and not enjoyable after a 10 hour day doing real work.
What I do like about HoT and absolutely love are the world events on all 4 maps, these are incredibly fun to do unless if you are not stuck on a over flow map with a small team.
I really do hope the next expansion is more like gw2 part one, these multi level maze maps I can stand for a experiment/ expansion but if they continue with this style than its not for me, drytop and tangled dephs are just terrible.
They are a lot of things I really love about the game, but equally they are a lot of things I hate, but I might hang about till more information about the expansion comes out, if it is more like the original and nice big open maps to explore I will be there, if its more the same like HoT then I will be moving on.
(edited by April.2468)