Guild Wars 2

I agree with you bladezero. I see many familiar faces posting the usual fanboy smackdown on anyone that did not enjoy the supermario jumparound. Just wait till you try out the LS maps with a new mobility mastery over and over and over. I really miss the old game. I guess the platformer crowd needed an mmo space and GW2 became that. Hang in there.

Yay. Platforming. I guess the mario crowd is the player base, so it’s time for me to ride off into the sunset…

HOT maps are by design convoluted noodle piles that demand the use of mobility masteries to efficiently access. Locking mobility masteries behind task walls makes map access even more difficult. I understand and support locking combat skill specializations behind challenge walls, but I do not support locking map access mobility behind such walls. I find the logic somewhat flawed in design – “complete the map so that you can access the map easier”. I have the masteries – I’m just not going back to where I picked them up.

To the OP. If you want the HPs in HOT to unlock your HOT specialization and don’t want to wait for other players to help out (or don’t want to crawl around the canopy to find them), just go to Edge of the Mist WvW and do a bit of mindless zerging. With each gained level in WvW, you’ll get tokens that can be traded in to advance your HOT HPs. If you want map completion, then you’ll either have to lfg or find the HP and wait for someone else to show up if you don’t want to solo the champ.

I apologize for my negative disposition with HOT. I have posted on a few threads over the years about my dissatisfaction with HOT, and I see many familiar defenders of HOT on this thread. I do find resonance with this OP, and many others that have had similar experiences. It feels like the conversation hasn’t really evolved though. Many new players enjoy core Tyria, and run into a wall in HOT. They make their point on the forum, and there’s almost a professional team of posters ready to smack them down with honed arguments of why the OP’s experience isn’t valid. So I will retire for a few months again and see if things have changed. Good luck OP, there are people out there that understand your experience of HOT and support your point of view.

Is the stable player base increasing or decreasing?

NCsoft net plunges 74% on weak game sales.
http://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3033273&cloc=etc%7Cjad%7Cgooglenews
Kind of says it all.

LouWolfskin.3492:

Sadly a lot of people are like this and honestly, if you are at that point you may want to take a break.

You’re probably right. I completed specs on all classes even though I was a little annoyed with the HOT map designs, and I just didn’t find the new legendary construction process to be that intriguing. (I’ve build 4 old school). I’m “casual successful?” I guess, and don’t really have the drive to play in the raids or high end fractals (still fooling around in level 30 or so there). Ranked up in WVW 1k but mainly eotm.

I’ve just had so much fun in the game it’s just hard to let go.

So I have been playing GW and GW 2 for a long time, and I feel a compulsion to log in every day to score that 2gp. I have my favorite spots for harvesting wood, ore and veggies in each major area. I have my speed vistas, my home mining instances, and the guild nodes. I hit wvw for the quickie grabs, and jump on the fast holiday snags.

I average 7-10 minutes then out.

I probably wouldn’t log in at all except for that treat, and for the new LS map openings. Any one else doing this?

I agree completely. Random encounters are definitely a core part of rpgs and mmos, but an often quoted remedy to the random mob placement in HOT is to avoid those encounters entirely using character skills and HOT mobility masteries. My point is that if those mobs are truly to be avoided throughout the maps, that points to a weakness in game design in my opinion. If those mobs are to be fought by players as one move through the maps, not all players are having a positive experience in that process. The stealth detection mastery for example, makes movement and combat significantly easier against stealthed enemies on the early maps, but it is at a higher tier of mastery than basic mobility essentials like updrafts and mushrooms. A player new to the HOT maps, may get turned off with the inability to counter those enemies, and forgo returning. This doesn’t make the player a bad player that needs to L2P in my opinion. I believe the devs should have tiered the experiences with increasing difficulties as the maps progressed. Enemies with short stealth times in earlier maps, and longer stealth times in later maps would increase accessibility, and incentivize learning the mastery.

Sartharina.3542:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Danicus.4952:

So if I understand you correctly Zoltar – the anet game devs created game spaces (map territory), populated those spaces with adversaries for the player, and purposefully intended the players to avoid interacting with those spaces and adversaries using character skills and mobility masteries. From my point of view, that seems flawed. This isn’t a new property of many Guildwars 2 spaces of course. I avoid many mobs in Arah dungeons for example. It does however seem that a much larger percentage of open world HOT is to be avoided than the amount in core Tyria – by design. That is an interesting path for the devs to take.

I remember back when GW2 was still in pre-launch design and ANet was talking it up. One thing said was that when players saw enemies, those enemies would be doing something which the game’s heroes might want to stop. Of course, they were talking about DE’s, and that’s exactly what DE mobs do.

Then you have the random mobs every X feet. These mobs must be paragons of their kind, because they’re out standing in their field (or jungle path, cliffside, etc.). This is the exact opposite of what was talked about. So why does GW2 even have these random mobs every X feet?

I believe they’re a artifact of older MMO’s. GW2 has a lot of genre conventions that are holdovers from the days of the first MMO’s. This includes stats on gear, for one, as well as mobs just standing around. In some of those older games, those mobs served a purpose. Players killed them to level once they ran out of quests.

There is no need for those mobs in GW2 for leveling purposes, except for those who populate heart areas. So, why are they just standing around where there aren’t any hearts? I can think of some possibilities.

• ANet put them in because they thought players would expect mobs standing around in an MMO
• In places like Heart of Maguma, ANet is trying to make the area seem dangerous, as befits the center of enemy territory
• Some of them are hanging out near their homes (like the hostile Itzel)
• ANet wants players to have to work to get where they’re going (Contested WP’s dovetail with that hypothesis)
• Anet didn’t even think about it, they just assumed there should be mobs because MMO’s always have them

The truth is out there.

Random mobs aren’t exclusive to RPGs of the MMO variety#

(Okay, so I just wanted to link that animation somewhere. It’s been too many years, and it’s only tangentially related to the subject.)

But really – random fights have been part of RPGs since Gary Gygax and David Arneson decided to take their Chainmail miniatures off of the wargaming battlefield into a dungeon. They serve purposes 2-3 quite adequately – Challenges to overcome on the way from point A to Point B, while providing ambiance to the game world.

Well said Indigo. It seems that the old mindset of random mobs, coupled within the new map design philosophy may have yielded unintended consequences.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Danicus.4952:

So if I understand you correctly Zoltar – the anet game devs created game spaces (map territory), populated those spaces with adversaries for the player, and purposefully intended the players to avoid interacting with those spaces and adversaries using character skills and mobility masteries. From my point of view, that seems flawed. This isn’t a new property of many Guildwars 2 spaces of course. I avoid many mobs in Arah dungeons for example. It does however seem that a much larger percentage of open world HOT is to be avoided than the amount in core Tyria – by design. That is an interesting path for the devs to take.

I remember back when GW2 was still in pre-launch design and ANet was talking it up. One thing said was that when players saw enemies, those enemies would be doing something which the game’s heroes might want to stop. Of course, they were talking about DE’s, and that’s exactly what DE mobs do.

Then you have the random mobs every X feet. These mobs must be paragons of their kind, because they’re out standing in their field (or jungle path, cliffside, etc.). This is the exact opposite of what was talked about. So why does GW2 even have these random mobs every X feet?

I believe they’re a artifact of older MMO’s. GW2 has a lot of genre conventions that are holdovers from the days of the first MMO’s. This includes stats on gear, for one, as well as mobs just standing around. In some of those older games, those mobs served a purpose. Players killed them to level once they ran out of quests.

There is no need for those mobs in GW2 for leveling purposes, except for those who populate heart areas. So, why are they just standing around where there aren’t any hearts? I can think of some possibilities.

• ANet put them in because they thought players would expect mobs standing around in an MMO
• In places like Heart of Maguma, ANet is trying to make the area seem dangerous, as befits the center of enemy territory
• Some of them are hanging out near their homes (like the hostile Itzel)
• ANet wants players to have to work to get where they’re going (Contested WP’s dovetail with that hypothesis)
• Anet didn’t even think about it, they just assumed there should be mobs because MMO’s always have them

The truth is out there.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Danicus.4952:

So if I understand you correctly Zoltar – the anet game devs created game spaces (map territory), populated those spaces with adversaries for the player, and purposefully intended the players to avoid interacting with those spaces and adversaries using character skills and mobility masteries. From my point of view, that seems flawed. This isn’t a new property of many Guildwars 2 spaces of course. I avoid many mobs in Arah dungeons for example. It does however seem that a much larger percentage of open world HOT is to be avoided than the amount in core Tyria – by design. That is an interesting path for the devs to take.

I remember back when GW2 was still in pre-launch design and ANet was talking it up. One thing said was that when players saw enemies, those enemies would be doing something which the game’s heroes might want to stop. Of course, they were talking about DE’s, and that’s exactly what DE mobs do.

Then you have the random mobs every X feet. These mobs must be paragons of their kind, because they’re out standing in their field (or jungle path, cliffside, etc.). This is the exact opposite of what was talked about. So why does GW2 even have these random mobs every X feet?

I believe they’re a artifact of older MMO’s. GW2 has a lot of genre conventions that are holdovers from the days of the first MMO’s. This includes stats on gear, for one, as well as mobs just standing around. In some of those older games, those mobs served a purpose. Players killed them to level once they ran out of quests.

There is no need for those mobs in GW2 for leveling purposes, except for those who populate heart areas. So, why are they just standing around where there aren’t any hearts? I can think of some possibilities.

• ANet put them in because they thought players would expect mobs standing around in an MMO
• In places like Heart of Maguma, ANet is trying to make the area seem dangerous, as befits the center of enemy territory
• Some of them are hanging out near their homes (like the hostile Itzel)
• ANet wants players to have to work to get where they’re going (Contested WP’s dovetail with that hypothesis)
• Anet didn’t even think about it, they just assumed there should be mobs because MMO’s always have them

The truth is out there.

So if I understand you correctly Zoltar – the anet game devs created game spaces (map territory), populated those spaces with adversaries for the player, and purposefully intended the players to avoid interacting with those spaces and adversaries using character skills and mobility masteries. From my point of view, that seems flawed. This isn’t a new property of many Guildwars 2 spaces of course. I avoid many mobs in Arah dungeons for example. It does however seem that a much larger percentage of open world HOT is to be avoided than the amount in core Tyria – by design. That is an interesting path for the devs to take.

Hi Martin, my point isn’t about solo play it’s about accessibility for “casual” players. I understand that casual means many things to many people, so I won’t attempt to force a definition for that term. I can say that I am experienced, and that I have been successful within HOT, but that I find the gameplay there uninviting because of map structure, locked wps, mobility mastery requirements, hp design features, keys/currencies, grinds, and dedicated meta cycle structures, etc. etc. I am suggesting that these design choices deter players, and that telling a player to “get good” isn’t the core issue around fun gameplay. I’ve recommended that building in better learning experiences, and evolving map complexities through the maps series may help.

Challenging enemies are fine, but I find my mindset to be, “I’m going to use these mobility masteries and my builds to avoid all the fighting so I can get to my destination where I can get to the fight that matters to me” in HOT. There is something inherently in error about that mindset in my opinion. Perhaps I’m flawed in thinking that the journey and the destination should be “fun”.

Clearly for many people, mushrooming , glding, updrafting, Nurloching, avoiding mobs, etc. etc. is fun. For me, it fundamentally alters the character of the game enough so that it’s not my cup of tea. I still play a little. I really want a challenging expansion built on good traditional map and combat skill progression design elements, but I am put off with this direction.

Great questions annabelle! I was thrilled with EoTN. Vanquished every map multiple times over on all classes. I do feel that Prophecies, Factions, and Nightfall did offer preparation for EoTN, but I do think there was some ramp up even within EoTN. Certainly between basic, HM and dungeons there were built in skill training transitions. Yes, it is true, a great deal of my wvw rank was earned in eotm, but I do spend a fair amount of time in regular wvw maps as well. TS and equivalent comm systems are super supportive ubiquitous learning tools in wvw, so I don’t think its truly fair to compare vanilla HOT (no comms) to wvw. I did mention that I completed the HOT ps with one character, and elite specs with all classes. It is true that I burned through the HOT maps to snag hps for those characters initially, and only occasionally stuck around for full meta cycles. Since then I have completed meta cycles on all maps in HOT.

You do make a point that Eye of the North was the 3rd expansion in the series, so that players truly did have an ocean of basic PVE opportunities before the final installment. It is fair to say that HOT is not equivalent to Factions or Nightfall or even EotN.

In my opinion, with HOT GW2 did not develop in the same way that GW developed. The design structure, maps, masteries, currencies, keys, grind, mobility, HPs, mob density, etc. etc. are very large leaps. It is fair to say that I find pathing in HOT to be the most annoying feature of the expansion. I have unlocked most mobility masteries, but find that whole traveling to play dimension to the expansion to be a barrier to the core game play which is combat. Gliding in Tyria is great – I get to the fight faster. Gliding in HOT is a requirement – to do pretty much anything. Anet could have ramped up these features within the expansion, and chose not to. In my opinion, that makes HOT less than inviting.

On a side note – I’ve been reflecting on what people have posted here and I finished DS a couple of times over the last few days. The loot was obscene. The game play is very straightforward. So within that event structure, I found the experience very positive. I just wish the process of getting there wasn’t such a PITA.

An interesting point about casuals and not finding the game enjoyable. I would like to reiterate why I suggest why HOT may not be enjoyable for the casual player. Player skill progression is usually tied to built in in-game learning experiences. In my opinion, well-designed in-game learning experiences follow somewhat of a time-linear scaled set of challenges. A casual player (in my opinion), follows this sequence without excessive frustration. The ideal is a sort of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi flow state where consciousness of time playing disappears. I do not believe HOT scales in this way. Yes it is possible, with time effort and motivation to overcome these challenges, but is that what the designers truly intended? I want to thank the posters on this thread for such positive and sincere dialogue.

Thank you all for the cogent responses. After reading the comments to date, I would like to make a few small clarifications. My primary concern is not one of difficulty. Well conceived challenging content is a good thing. I don’t want additional nerfs. What I ineffectively articulated was that the design choices in the expansion diminish population access, and when people express their frustration, it is not productive to engage in ad hominem attacks about their skill or understanding of what an MMO is.

Consider the first HOT map zone for example. Run out of endurance while gliding and fall to your death in pulsing vine twitch. This insta-kill feature is not present on later maps. Seems like an upside down design choice. Consider all of the character trapping map features in the wrecked ship canopy areas in the first zone. I typed in /stuck many many times. Consider all of the locked waypoints on all of the HOT maps (there has been improvement with this). Consider how movement becomes easier as you become more experienced – (an upside down player skill progression imo) when accessing areas. (Doesn’t it make more sense to need to develop skills to access the most challenging areas on later maps rather than the first map!) Consider how the terrain mesh and the 2d layered maps / minimap are purposefully obscure to make pathing difficult. Compound those concerns with convoluted 3d maps, group timer meta events, megaserver and lfg challenges, and it feels – that by design – HOT does not invite casual player drop in, play, drop out experiences.

Mob attack mechanics,placement and strength will always need to be tinkered with, so that’s not what I consider a HOT specific design issue. People are frustrated to some degree with that, I get it, but I think the underlying source of frustrations are about design choices and not difficulty.

I am an experienced casual player. 13K APs, 950 WVW rank, Closer to the Stars, done dungeons, raids, crafted ascended gear etc, etc. I’ve read quite a few honest postings about frustrations with HOT, and the trend in responses has been to respond to the OP by saying “learn to play better” or “I did it just fine, there is something the matter with you.”

I personally find HOT uninviting as a solo PVE player. It lacks the difficulty progression structure present in most games. It demands group (zerg) participation for individual rewards. It requires the development of mobility masteries to effectively access map areas efficiently. It loads the player with an ocean of inventory filling currencies or keys. It creates an unprecedented level of grind for goals.

I’ve completed the HOT personal story with a rev, and moved partially through with 4 other characters.

I’ve completed the new specializations with all classes. I find them fun and interesting additions to the game (imo the best part of the expansion) – getting HOT HPs pretty annoying of course. I must admit, I turned in some WVW credits to unlock some HOT HPs.

I was really looking forward to HOT, but am truly ambivalent about the expansion maps at this point – even with the nerfs.

I find myself now checking in, hitting the daily and getting out.

Pretty sure I won’t buy another GW2 expansion – especially if it follows the map design and skill progression structure HOT model. It’s a shame – I am a long time dedicated GW player – sorry to see the franchise pick this path.

My core point is, telling an OP that is frustrated with HOT to “L2P” or “I did it, what is the matter with you?” is missing the mark. There are authentic design departures here, and they are not friendly to the casual player.

I want to thank the OP for starting this thread again. One of the things I was wondering was about zone population math. I absolutely loved the Silverwastes model, the cooperation, the community goals, the loot. I am also guilty of chest farming on many occasions. I do wonder however, what proportion of the GW player base actually devoted most of their game time to that map and model. It seems that population was the target for HOT maps given their design elements. Now that Silverwaste population of players is distributed over all the maps of similar design, and those players that were never Silverwaste oriented were sort of left out. Vayne – you mentioned and instance approach to certain event series – what do you all think about a PVE version of HOT that wasn’t so map-wide coop focused, had small scale events for players like core Tyria that enjoyed the non-Silverwastes model of the game?

I completely agree that exploring HOT (for the first time) was completely unique to this genre, the discovery was rewarding and exciting. Clearly a huge effort was made to create the experience. Will I go back again and again knowing that I have a series of repeated mob avoiding transit tasks to get to a destination? Probably not. I really appreciate the thoughtful discussion though. Thank you.

You make a fair point about Orr, Silverwastes, and Southsun locked wps, but the transit complexity, mob density, mob strength, and required transportation masteries are not the same when comparing HOT to core game maps. In fact, with gliding and launch pads in core game maps it’s even easier than it was before to get around. I could envision a situation where a minor xp reward could be offered to those using the special transportation vehicles within HOT, and open wps for folks that just want access to events or locations previously opened through legitimate gameplay. I would like to play more within HOT areas – I find the events and meta progression fun, but the transits really put me off for casual gameplay.

I appreciate your points about immersion and using gliding and wallows to move about. My point is that map wide wp lockouts are a HOT thing, and noodling through pathing isn’t a gameplay enhancing experience from my point of view. I guess there must be a large community of players that do enjoy the hop here, glide there, wallow here, now updraft there sort of thing -but it feels like a non-play time sink thing. Are you really behind enemy lines, or are you simply following a rehearsed protocol to wp? Do you follow different pathing, or do you optimize to minimize time doing it? Is it really game enhancing? There are fun things to do everywhere on the map, but for me, getting there make HOT less attractive. Thank you for your thoughtful responses.

A basic question about map accessibility… Log in any time of day – what is the likelihood 75% or more of the HOT wps are locked? This isn’t a question about being a better player, or do I want to participate in the meta, it’s just – hey can I go to an area I’ve been to before? Can I enjoy all of this amazing map? 50% of the map? No not really. I don’t think its fair to say map locking = more challenging content. It just means that for the slice of the day I want to chill out and have some fun I will go some where else. Thank you for starting this thread.

Then you overcome the difficulty spike and continue a more skilled player…

If I’ve cleared the maps, but just want to return to a location that’s wp locked, it’s not really about being a better player. I hear you though – challenging content is a good thing, but are locked wps really a form of more challenging content? Probably not.

So I am a casual player, and have played GW and GW2 for years. I enjoyed the new map complexity, but became frustrated with the locked wps. If I have explored the maps, and unlocked the various locations, what is the enrichment in gameplay by locking everything up? If the events are interesting and engaging, people will play them irrespective of wp status. I still play GW but pretty much avoid HOT areas when solo. Such a tragic waste of creative content.

I would like to play through hot using the new specializations for all of my characters, and I am not in a hurry to complete the hot content. So it seems like the best option for me is to score the necessary points in wvw / eotm, complete the specialization line, and then go back to hot content…