Guild Wars 2

Well, if the LW3 maps are in fact accessible without having played the story, that definitely changes things. I interpreted what the wiki called ‘unlocked’ meaning ‘played’, probably because I couldn’t get into Bitterfrost Frontier myself until I entered it as part of the story. If TP to friend does allow people to get into LW3 (while having the episode and HoT, but not having played any LW3 yet), then we can do those maps together.

The thing is, when you don’t have much time, taking the long way around isn’t great. The Golem HP on AB can’t be reached with just Updrafts and Bouncing Mushrooms, for example. (At least not according to the wiki.) I’ve been trying to find ways to put in effort on my side to find the right way to play together, but the frustration is already there with my guildies. Since I just enjoy messing around, I gather XP slowly, but for those who do not have time to mess around, the lack of progress at the end of the evening is frustrating. I’m not saying they expect to get a new mastery every three hours, but seeing the bar go from start to maybe a fifth in can be terribly frustrating if you know you the next time you play will be two weeks from now for the same amount of time, especially if you also want to things that don’t give you HoT XP.

However, some more of these tips are very useful. Like I said, I do it all slowly, so I don’t really noticed where the real XP is to be had that is fun to get too. I know about the HP, but moving around slowly on the map does make those less attractive, since they aren’t in very easy to reach places. If you don’t have the closest WP, it can take forever. The adventures are a good tip though (they tend to be close to WPs, and we should put some effort into getting those, like on any other map), so thanks all who suggested that!

I think it would be nice if gliding masteries took less XP. It’s not needed for crafting legendaries, but it does make HoT so much more enjoyable. It’s ironic: the grindiness is meant to make people play the maps more, but it’s only driving some people away. Now that I have finished most masteries (especially gliding), I enjoy my time on the HoT maps much more, so I’m more likely to be in AB, TD or DS. Constantly running into something you can’t do is not fun, IMO. Getting to ‘FINALLY’ use that leyline that I already knew was there for forever was far less exciting than discovering leylines for the first time in LW3 when I already knew I could use them.

I love GW2. I love it even more when I play with my guildies. But playing with my guildies has become problematic, because we do not share the same HoT masteries. I’ve grinded to get nearly all masteries completed, but I also have guildies who just do not have the time to play enough to earn even close to that kind of XP. (To illustrate just how little time they have: one of them runs permanently with a birthday booster on. He has only three characters.) This results in them barely having Updrafts and Bouncing Mushrooms. One has more progress in the Itzel tree, another in the Gliding tree, a third in… well, you get the picture. This significantly limits our chances to enjoy the HoT maps together; several HP are just not reachable for at least one of us and map navigation on the new maps is cool if you have the masteries, but terribly confusing or even a drag if you do not. (Everyone remembers how problematic gliding could be in VB before they had Updrafts, right? Especially if you’re trying to play in a party. Or how bothersome it was to walk around a cliff instead of using Bouncing Mushrooms…)

We feel like we are forced apart. VB might be completed with limited masteries, but after having grinded forever on that map (because I didn’t have the XP to get the masteries to enjoy the other maps on my own; I mostly enjoy exploring), I don’t really want to play there anymore, but my guildies do not get very much further than that. In return, my guildies do not really feel like grinding on their own during the limited time they have to play the game, they’d prefer to play with the group.

I myself took a long break after Wintersday because I got tired from how long it took to get my HoT XP. LW3 helped me a lot to get more XP faster. (It’s also great how little XP it costs to master the new ways of movement compared to in HoT.) I’d love to show these new maps to my guildies, but I cannot until they have completed the story episodes. They all have the episodes unlocked, but as long as they have not played the story, they cannot join me there.

Currently we are limited to doing dungeons together, and as fun as they are, we feel sad for being split up and unable to enjoy HoT and LW3 together. I’m not sure what the solution is, but the problem is how complex navigation on the HoT maps is without the appropriate masteries, and to a lesser extend the limited access to the LW3 maps. If Tomes of Knowledge could be used to gain some HoT XP, this problem would be a lot smaller already, since most of my friends have played enough GW2 before HoT to have earned at least a 100 of them each.