Guild Wars 2

Blaeys.3102:

The more I see, the more that I think that Anet just needs to back up and get back to the vision they had when the game launched. They know how to make a great game. I know people criticized season one for the temporary nature of much of the content, but the content itself was fun and entertaining. Just as importantly, the developers continually let us know how passionate they were about that content. Think back to some of the lead in (videos, in game hints, etc) activities for things like Southsun, Molten Facility, Tower of Nightmares, etc.

We’ve lost that sense of developer passion – and we have lost the unique and fun content we were getting then.

IMO, I would rather they scrapped the idea of expansions and moved to a “season pass” business model. Put the entire team back on making a living breathing world and, every 2-3 years, ask us to pay a one time cost to access the new region you have added (are in the process of adding) to the game.

Two to three years ago, we considered this a great game. Today, it feels off track. It’s time to look at the difference between now and then and get this train heading in the right direction again.

I loved this and I miss it so much. I haven’t signed into GW2 since end of November when I had my fill of HoT. I get that a lot of effort went into the expansion, and while yes, there does seem to be a big chunk of additional new features such as gliding, masteries, and specializations, I can only have so much fun with these new features if I’m just repeating the same content over and over again.

ANet needs to get back into living world, and make DYNAMIC content again that changes and gets people excited about playing. HoT introduced a lot of new “living” maps, and I like that idea, but the problem now is that everyone has experienced it ten times over and nothing has changed.

I can only think how successful they would be if they combined dynamic living world changes with the “living” maps they have for HoT. My favorite times were when I signed on and saw something new and exciting, like the Tower of Nightmares, Twisted Marionette, and other equally EPIC and exciting events. I get that living world content might not generate money, so find a way of making money off of it. I think players will pay if the quality of content is there.

Part of me is disheartened by this.

I understand the decision. Designing legendaries is obviously a time consuming task, and it is a lot of effort to spend when only a small population of the player-base will get 1 or 2. I’ve played since Early Release back in August 2012 and I still do not have a legendary, and I probably wont make the effort to get one any time soon, if ever. And I know this is the case for many of my friends, with just a few of them having acquired one.

I’m not so much salty about there not being any new legendary weapons, but its more so the principle of it that has me concerned. It is unfortunate that ANet will not be able to deliver on the amount of new legendary weapons that they implied would be releasing throughout the year. It can be a slippery slope from here on out. What is next to be terminated? Legendary backpeices? Legendary Armor? Fractals? WvWvW? Hopefully that wont be the case.

Hopefully, as these teams are shifted toward new objectives, we will finally see a resurgence in content being released (other than Raids and Outfits in the cash-shop) with the return of living story. It has been 5 months since the release of HoT, without any real major story development or living world content, so hopefully its just around the corner.

Oh wow, really? That’s good to hear! I’ll probably just go with the 6400 then! I’m still considering the r9 just because I also would like to play some Dark Souls, and I’m hoping it’ll be able to run the new one when it comes out, but it might not.

So I am trying to build a PC that will play GW2 well. I don’t need ultra-high settings or anything, but I’d like to try to keep it around 60fps at 1080, on mid-high settings if possible.

I’m thinking about the r9 380 for the GPU, and either the i5-6400 or the i5-6500. Anyone familiar enough with these processors to know how well they will handle Guild Wars 2? Is the 6500 worth the extra $50 or so? I don’t see a huge increase when looking at benchmarks but I’m pretty new to this. I haven’t seen anyone talk about playing GW2 with either of these so that has me kind of nervous.

Soleil.1304:

I’m sure humans will have a chance against the centaurs if they had mounts. The tactical advantage is obvious and yet the humans don’t have a cavalry?

How about….CENTAUR MOUNTS?! Kill two birds with one stone! Why defeat the centaurs when you can break them in and tame them into being ridable mounts?! And they would be way more intelligent than a silly normal horse!

Guild Wars would most likely lose money doing a subscription. It is no longer a successful business model (see Secret World, ESO, TERA, ect.). Only a few veteran games (WoW, Eve) were able to suck a player base in because there were no other payment methods available at the time.

A-Net can attract more players with a free-to-play model, which also increases the traffic of their gemstore. Sure, with a subscription they get a more steady, reliable source of income, but a large portion of the playerbase would stop playing. With the playerbase crippled, the game would inevitably die. So much of the content is dependent on having servers full of people to contribute.

The thing with being F2P means that people are free to leave and join as they please. When playing WoW, I got burned out and I never went back because I didn’t want to have to continue paying for it when I knew I’d only get on casually. For Guild Wars, I might take a break but I always come back and am willing to spend money on the new cosmetics that I missed out on while I was away.

What is better? Having a small group of players willing to spend money every month? Or potentially millions of people willing to drop $5 here and there?

I hope that this gets implemented. You mention this would be helpful for Engineer but I see it being viable for a lot, if not all of the classes. I hardly ever use the snap ground to current target because I don’t like to then be forced into holding down a button in order to manually position my abilities. It just doesn’t make sense why this isn’t a toggle on/off rather than press and hold.

Why are you quitting?

Giving all your stuff away seems pretty extreme. Its almost like selling your account in a way because now you’ll have nothing to come back to…which I know is the point. But what happened that made you want to leave so absolutely?

Thanathos.2063:

Read the last page. Yes, the rewards will get changed on today’s patch.

I didn’t see anything that says it will be in the next patch. What WAS said was:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I just checked with Production, and everything is on track to see the introduction of fractal changes later this month.

And in another post he already said that some changes wont be rolled out in the next patch, but instead throughout the following WEEK. Sadly, there is still the possibility that the fractal changes wont happen until the end of the month.

I am having this issue. I dont see any NPCs in the mist that help with this. Anyone have another possible solution?

It depends on your mindset honestly. My friends and I are enjoying the game and finding plenty to keep us entertained.

Fractals have changed. They now have 5 daily reward options. You get a chest for completing any 3 levels from the 1-20 bracket, any 3 levels from 21-50, and any 3 levels from 51-100. You also will have a random level selected from level 1-20 and level 20-50 as a daily reward as well, totaling 5 chests. Luckily, you are not locked into doing 3 fractals at once in order to get credit. Completing 1 fractal will send you back to the lab, and you can do them in any order. I like this a lot because I get burnt out easily, so I just randomly do them when I get the time. The new system is much more forgiving for people who can’t commit a full hour. Rewards are pretty lack luster, but ANet has confirmed changes are in the works for how people receive rewards from Fractals.

Dungeons do not give as much gold, which has a lot of people upset. If you enjoyed dungeons, this might upset you. I found dungeons boring, and I am now happy that I don’t feel compelled to do them just to get some quick gold. I can focus on getting gold from other things that I enjoy doing more.

A lot of the new events in HoT requires a group to participate in order to be successful. If you like to lone-wolf content, then you might get frustrated with the game. I play with my husband, and we can complete most of the small events and challenges in the game with just the two of us. There are, however, some big “meta” events, which basically requires the entire map to participate in order to win. I usually find the maps to be populated enough for these events to succeed. In the instances that 1-2 people aren’t enough to complete the smaller events, there are usually enough people that help out just in passing through. If not, you can always ask /map for some help.

Guilds got a lot of new content. I am in a small (5-10 man) guild, so we are still at the early stages and so therefore I can’t really speak much about what you get from this.

New Legendaries, and other things to craft if that’s your thing.
The continued personal story is a lot more interesting than the Zhaitan chain, in my opinion. It is also very short, but that is really my only complaint with it. The events are a lot more varied, and you’ll find yourself doing more engaging things than just “kill this mob of enemies” which is a refreshing change.

Raids are fun, and challenging. They require a really coordinated team with good communication, and is definelty meant as end-game content. And by end-game I mean having mostly ascended gear equipped.

The biggest complaint from people is the amount of time and resources it takes to get a lot of the content. Guild Halls requires a LOT of materials in order to unlock new levels, buffs, and content. Ascended gear and Legendries, as per usual, take a lot of dedication, materials, gold, and time. Some items can only be crafted once per day. Specializations take time to unlock because you likely wont have enough Hero Points to unlick all traits/abilities. And some areas in the new maps will not be open to you right away because they require you to level up masteries.

A lot of people are upset about not being able to unlock all the content on day-one of playing the game. If you are impatient, are think you will get bored easily, then I’d say probably save your money.
If you are okay with not being able to experience all the content on day-one, and are okay with taking your time to experience everything, then I’d say get it.

Phy.2913:

The guys making glider skins aren’t the guys fixing bugs and making the game more gamey

This.

The people who fix bugs and balance the game are completely different from the people who design outfits and cosmetic items. Should the art team completely stop working on projects just because the other team is behind on fixing content?

“Hey you, art team! Pencils down! Just sit on your rears until the design/programming team gets caught up! Yes Jim, that means stop brainstorming ideas for armors. In fact, don’t bother coming to work for a few weeks until the other departments get their kitten together. You’ll be fine without a few paychecks, right?”

What was the reason for stopping playing, and what didn’t you like about the core game?

Thanks, I couldn’t find this anywhere.

What is this flame aura? I’ve tried googling “flame aura” but everything I find talks about Guardian Elites, and this isn’t a guardian in the picture.

I think it just goes to show that the majority of the people who come to the forums, do so to complain.

I haven’t bought a single outfit. It is a shame because a lot of them look very interesting.
On the other hand, I have bought Aetherblade, Prime, Celestial, Phoenix, Tricksters, and Magitech armorsets from the gemstore. I like to mix and match. I know its petty, but I like trying to make something unique. My issue with outfits isn’t that I think they are ugly, its that everyone looks the same.

xbutcherx.3861:

Ayrilana.1396:

xbutcherx.3861:

Ayrilana.1396:

Labjax.2465:

PopeUrban.2578:

“Peer review” sites are inherantly biased toward negative reviews because those with nothing bad to say don’t want to burn bridges, risk their career, or alienate future employers.

Wait, what? Don’t you have this backwards? Why would someone who has only good things to say be afraid to say them?

It’s not that they are afraid to. People that are disappointed with anything for whatever reason are more likely to go on and review something to vent than someone whose expectations were met or exceeded.

You know you are the only one defending Anet’s position right now, if 1 person is happy with the game’s direction and 99 more are not; there is something wrong about it, keep defending all you want and argue all you want, at the end the numbers and the reviews says everything.

I’m the only one? Not really. It’s just that the negative people are more vocal at the moment. I dare say that you should provide your source that it’s 99 percent of players. People who are disappointed are more likely to post about it than those that are not.

ROFL, you want me to bring the CEO of NCsoft to show you numbers? read the THREAD, you’re the only one defending this!! This thread has 104 replies, how many are defending (only you) and how many are there stating something is wrong with the game and the company (the other 99%), you don’t need glassdoor to know that.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Who-else-is-enjoying-HoT/first#post5820903

Ayrilana is not the only one that has nice things to say about HoT. Does the game have issues that need to be fixed? Sure. But there are a lot of people playing the game right now and having a blast. And if you look at the NEWER reviews on glassdoor, the vast MAJORITY of them have good things to say about the company.

Daharahj.1325:

You don’t have to look far

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ArenaNet-Reviews-E255820_P2.htm?filter.employmentStatus=REGULAR&filter.employmentStatus=PART_TIME&filter.employmentStatus=UNKNOWN

Now you know why they aren’t doing so good and are so reluctant to give answers.

For some reason, this link brings me to the second page of reviews. Admittedly, the second page has a lot of low ratings, but when you go to the first page, a lot of the ratings (which are newer) are much much higher and speak better of the company. Maybe management changed how they approached the business and listened to feedback: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/ArenaNet-Reviews-E255820.htm?filter.employmentStatus=REGULAR&filter.employmentStatus=UNKNOWN

Everyone on the first page speaks highly of the company, where the biggest complaints seem to be about what to eat for lunch, and having to pay for parking. Those are pretty mediocre

“The environment is very open and transparent which is something you don’t get at many companies. The CEO is insanely smart, humble and has solid goals and plans for the business. Everyone is very warm and welcoming. It is seriously the nicest group of people I’ve had the pleasure of working with in my fairly long career in games.”

and another one that I liked to hear:

“* Excellent tech and decent tools * Very enthusiastic, smart and knowledgeable team * Emphasis on sane work-life balance * Projects reflect forward thinking in design and planning * Highly collaborative environment * Strong business analytics support * Nice office with good road access * Reasonable core hours with flexible work schedules * Good communication channels available with fans”

So all in all, it seems the company wasn’t the best place to work for, but I am glad to see that overall, people are now enjoying it and things seem to have changed for the better.

kuritsutian.2987:

What are you most looking forward to now?
– I am not a PvP fan but I need to try outpost, in the short future Ill be hitting WvW and try to specialize on it… tempest support has proven to be very effective in small group fights, yeah tested different builds and am having so much fun

I never really got into WvW, but now is as good a time as any. My friend said that the remade maps are gorgeous and fun to explore, but that they might be too big. Anet seems to acknowledge it needs some additional tweaking though, so hopefully they’ll make the maps a bit tighter.

Nausicca.6038:

Spec: I unlocked scrapper, dragonhunter and druid. Have a lot of fun with scrapper and DH.

All in all, I only enjoy the new specs from HoT. Gliding could be amazing if it was added to the new wvw borderlands.

I am disappointed because I really want to see what a good hammer scrapper looks like. My friends all run kits still, even with the scrapper spec. Any good build ideas for DH?

And I hope they add gliding! Every time I go back to the original Tyria, I keep double-tapping my spacebar thinking I’ll glide away

Scandi.5693:

I do not like mastery points locked behind adventures which are insulting and idiotic. I have issues with raid timers forcing zerk gear on people even though they released such nice new gear stats. Other than those two things I love HoT. The maps are fun and engaging, the events also fun. The new class specializations are way cool and all my Baby’sura are very happy with their new skills. Overall I give HoT 7/10. Fix raid timers, remove mastery from silly mario style adventures and it goes to 10/10.

Are you talking about the adventure games that require you to have gliding mastery, or jumping mushrooms? I was kind of disappointed when I went to do one and realized I couldn’t even complete it because I didn’t have the necessary masteries. But I still find them fun, and it didn’t take that long to get a few of the required masteries.

Lysander Freeman.4186:

3) What is your favorite event or map in HoT?

Favorite event & map is DS, hands down. It’s fun, it’s a whole map effort with high enough success rate and XP to make it feel like you’re accomplishing something and the final fight makes it feel like you’re on the epic quest you’re supposed to be on.

You are the second or third person on this thread to say they like DS. I haven’t done it yet, but after this post I think I’ll have to check it out!

Coyote.7031:

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)
I haven’t done much story and have little interest. I can say, who da faq are these people and why is my character Turbo McBossyPants? Wasn’t here for LS1 or LS2, none of it makes sense to me.

Yeah, unfortunately you’d have to backtrack with the story. I played both LS1 and LS2. Hopefully you will try and play LS3 when it starts up. It can be a lot of fun. But I definitely noticed that my character was waaaay more bossy than usual.

There are definitely a lot of negative posts on the forums, but the game itself is full of people.

Raids are challenging because they (for now anyway) require a good group composition, and coordination. Having Ascended gear is highly recommended, which takes forever to craft even if you have all the materials. But, they did make Fractals more approachable, and therefore it should be easier to acquire ascended gear from chests. There are 4 dailies for Fractals, +1 more if you unlock the mastery for it. The rewards so far ended up not being as great as ANet intended, so they are working on making them better.

There are so many new things in HoT. I find that the majority of those that have been complaining, are upset over time-gated content. In other words, there are certain materials that the game only lets you craft once per day, forcing people to wait even if they have all the necessary materials. I myself am not bothered by this. Most people who don’t seem to have a specific goal in mind, and instead just play the game and acquire things as they go, seem to be having a much better time.

I created a thread for people to share what they like so far about the new HoT expansion. There is a lot of good feedback. You should read some of the responses, and if you feel like some of those things would interest you, then you have your answer. Just be careful about the questions pertaining to spoilers. I asked everyone to hide their story responses, but there might be some left visible: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Who-else-is-enjoying-HoT/first#post5812829

I would ask yourself why you left in the first place, and if you could see yourself leaving for the same reasons in HoT. I also would say don’t get it JUST for the Raids. Find a handful of things that you are interested in.

hardy.7469:

I reverted back to my casual play.

I haven’t even come close to maxing masteries or anything, but I’ve never been a fan of level grinding… And masteries are level grinding, very very grindy level grind.

Yeah, I suppose they are. I’ve seen people with Mastery Level 159. I admire their focus, but I’d get bored too quickly grinding that out! I think that part of the problem, for me anyway, is that I am approaching it the wrong way. A lot of people think of Masteries as end-game content, which to an extent, it is. You need to be lvl 80 in order to progress them, but it is so easy to get to lvl 80 and not time consuming at all. I think the idea is that you can naturally progress masteries just by doing other things and playing the game. I like Maximus Delion approach to it:

Maximus Delion.8719:

I’ll admit, initially I was not very excited about Heart of Thorns. But I now realize that for the first few days I was “swimming against the current”, so to speak. I was trying to ignore or avoid everything that was going on around me and just do my own thing. And that was a very frustrating experience. Eventually, I learned to jump into whatever events were happening at the time and ride them through the zone – and then things suddenly became much more enjoyable. For example, rather than trying to go all Rambo and solo my way to each hero point all on my own, I would jump into events that were taking place near hero points. Inevitably, when the event completed a good portion of the folks doing the event would head over to any nearby hero points and knock them out together. Once I started to get a feel for each map and had the major waypoints unlocked, I found it much easier to strike out on my own and explore. There are still some places that are too difficult for me to solo, but I like that. The world feels dangerous (as it should).

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?

I’m currently working on unlocking all the precursor crafting masteries. Once I have them unlocked, I’m going to create a new character and try to work building a precursor into all the other world completion activities I do with him, so that acquiring a precursor feels a bit more like it’s part of his journey rather than something that’s done after the fact. Most of the material acquisition will be subsidized by my other characters, but I think I should be able to work all the achievement tasks into his adventures – which will hopefully make it feel more like an epic quest, rather than a checklist of random stuff to do. (We’ll see how that turns out.)

What are you most looking forward to now?

I’m looking forward to seeing where the story goes, especially with what we were shown in the final cut-scene, and what new lands we’ll get to explore next. I’m also looking forward to exploring the jungle more thoroughly now that I’ve finished the story. I passed through many areas very quickly since I was initially focused on following the story. I know there’s many events and activities that I missed the first time through, and entire sections of some maps that I haven’t even uncovered yet. If the Living Story doesn’t pick up until January, I think I’ll still have plenty to keep me busy until then.

This is how I think I will play. I think it is great that in HoT you can focus on something specifically, or play more broadly. You can work exclusively on Masteries, or crafting, or advancing your Guild, or exploring. My problem is I was overwhelmed by all the things that I felt like I had to do, and I was impatient to get all of them done at once. I want to do Raids, but I should get better gear. I want to acquire a legendary, but there is so much required to craft it. I want to get map completion, but I need more masteries. I have been level 80, and I’ve had all of the content from the base game available and open for so long, that it is almost like I forgot what playing an MMO was like. I’ve forgotten what it is like to have all kinds of new things to do.

I would love to “complete” all of these things eventually, but I like your approach of just playing the game and enjoying the journey. You are right, a lot of these goals will be accomplished along the way.

Rasimir.6239:

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)
Rata Novus! I usually love everything asura-related, and exploring this ancient, ruined asuran city was just great.

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
So far I’ve fully unlocked druid, tempest, and chronomancer (3x). I’ve really fallen in love with the chrono (one of the reasons why I unlocked it on three characters already, the other being the fact that mesmer #2 and #3 were already at 210+ hero points and only needed four extra challenges each ), replacing the “standard” mesmer as my favourite class hands down.

What are you most looking forward to now?
Everything .

No, really, there’s nothing specific I’m looking forward to. I tend to play this game in a “let’s see what will happen today” kind of way, with only a very rough idea of what I want to play, and going with whatever fun turns up. Last weekend for example, I set out to harvest 25 nodes of soft wood (to craft a spiritwood plank), and ended up with all kinds of goodies towards collections (I stumbled upon the Draitor event in Kessex purely by accident ), achievements (jumped into an empty AB map a guildie was commenting on to get the last challenge win I was missing), lots of map boni and different map currencies, map exploration, a good chunk of pact tyria and HoT mastery experience just from playing, and more.

Looking through the achievements, collections, wardrobe, and characters, there’s a lot more days like that ahead of me, and I’m really looking forward to it .

Ronin.7381:

I need 300 Dust to craft, along with Auric Silver (which can be traded so bleh), in order to get 10 ingots.

If you go raid the chests under Tarir, you’ll find not only Auric Dust, but also Slivers and even full ingots in there. I think I’ve got a good handful from only five successful Tarir events already. I seem to average at least one from the five huge chests alone.

I am ashamed to admit I haven’t made an Asura yet. Once I’ve played a bit more through HoT, I will probably make an Asuran Elementalist, because I don’t have either one of those yet.

And it is kind of funny, but I am having a lot more fun by not setting a specific goal that I work on every day. Instead of rushing out and trying to craft one of the new legendaries (and potentially getting burnt out), I’ve just been playing the game and that seems to indirectly be leading me to those goals anyway. I’ve been enjoying it a lot more knowing that mindset.

I need to do that event in Tarir more often! I didn’t realize it was that profitable.

Randulf.7614:

Guild Halls have me excited, but our small guild cannot co e close with 5 or 6 to getting it. We will keep trying though, I want to focus on that. Im also thoroughly enjoying core Tyria, with masteries, collections, precursor mat farming, map rewards. The core game feels alive for me right now.

I too am keen to see where the story will lead, but it needs a lot of substance now. Far too much was missed out the expac story and it was waaaay too short by an enormous amount. Ive seem some exciting theorycrafting for what is next, but we need less mystery and more solid answers and reveals going forward for a bit. Im also excited fir any new maps and masteries they might add, or even possible revamps to zones like Southson – a great map which never hit its potential

I am part of a small guild also. I missed our guild acquiring the guild hall, so I am not really sure whats involved in getting it, but I’d be glad to tag along if it requires more bodies, and I’m sure some of the other people in our guild would be happy to help.

I also hope we get some more answers. It didn’t really conclude much, other than the actual fight, so hopefully the living world will answer some questions.

Boysenberry.1869:

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
The Blighting Towers in Dragon’s Stand. I always follow/lead the zerg and it’s exciting wading into a horde of 30+ Vet/Elite/Champ Mordrem just so you can kill one and run off into the next one. Trying to keep your character alive and keep the cycle going is fun for me.

I haven’t really gotten onto that map yet, other than to finish the story. I’ve done most events on both Verdant Brink and Auric Basin, and am just starting to explore Tangled Depths which probably has me the most confused on whats going on lol but I’ll figure it out. I want to give it a chance before jumping into Dragon’s Stand.

I like HoT, so come at me bro.

I read so many posts on the forums lately about how a lot of people dislike HoT. There seems to be a lot of complaining but with little explanation, or constructive criticism, so it’s been difficult for me to understand where all the negativity is coming from. I almost wouldn’t believe that I was playing the same game, because I happen to really enjoy HoT. I am sure there are good arguments for improvement on certain things, but instead, I just wanted to post what I have been enjoying, and see what other people like so far.

What is your favorite part in the HoT Personal Story? (Spoiler tags please!)

What Specialization have you tried so far? Which is your favorite? What one will you try next?
I am playing my Guardian right now, but I haven’t unlocked all the new traits/abilities for Dragon Hunter, and I refuse to play it until I do so! It is taking me a long time to get enough points, but I know if I just made it my focus to acquire hero points, I’d have it in no time. I am most interested in trying Reaper or Scrapper.

What is your favorite event or map in HoT?
I was very overwhelmed at first, and didn’t really know what I was doing. After a while, I just stopped questioning it and jumped into the events. I love how each map is bursting with activity, and it is fun to see how each mission contributes to the overall progression of the map. I enjoyed following Lord Faren in his underwear while trying to help the Nobles. I also think the new little adventure games are a blast! I waste so much time trying to get the highest score so I can walk away with a gold chest.

Are there any other areas you are excited by? PvP? Fractals? WvW? Guild Halls? Masteries? Raids?
I am really glad they changed the fractals. Doing 3 at once was time consuming, and it felt frustrating whenever we got a map I didn’t enjoy. As someone who doesn’t have a lot of time, it’s nice to be able to just play one map at a time.

What are you most looking forward to now?
I can’t wait for living story to pick up! I am so eager to see what will happen next, but I am also in no real rush. I still have so much to do with the masteries, specializations, and it might be nice to start gearing for Raids.

I am all about free stuff, but Anet need to make money some how. They offer sales frequently, and there is already a way of obtaining items for free: use in-game currency. Sure, gems are expensive now, but that’s to be expected by the influx of players. Save up some gold, and wait for the population to go quiet, and in turn, the prices of gems will go down as well.

EDIT: Also, lets not forget that GW2 rewards you just for logging in every day. every WEEK you get a free Black Lion Goods Chest. Sure, getting outfits or make-over kits is very rare, but it still provides a lot of commonly used consumables. I have never bought transmutation charges (I have 80 stockpiled just from the daily), or mystic forge stones, or instant bank access, ect. All of those I have PLENTY of just from signing in every day.

I do feel the ending was a bit lackluster. The fight was at least more engaging, and it felt much more polished to me than the Zhaitan story. I really only enjoyed pre-lvl 30ish personal story missions, the ones that pertained specifically to the character.

Once the undead and Orr and Zhaitan got involved, I found it tedious, drawn out, and boring. I have only completed the personal story twice because its soooo long. I kind of appreciated that the story in HoT was shorter. I’d rather have quality of quantity. That said, I still can’t help but wonder if they cut a lot of ideas because of time constraint.

Mordremoth sent out a call that would corrupt the weak willed. Keep in mind that for Logan and Zoja, and Trahearn, he encapsulated them in some sort of plant, because he seemingly couldn’t break their will the normal way. He also did this with several of the other Pact Fleat who didn’t initially turn to his side by taking them prisoner and starving them and breaking their will.

I am assuming this thread was meant for BEFORE Anet fixed the empty map issue. When I first played HoT, I kept getting put into empty instances, and it was admittedly frustrating. It was a ghost town and every event I would come across, it was up to myself and only myself to try and complete it. It was not a fun experience. But since Anet rebalanced the map population, I haven’t run into this issue. I haven’t once had to ask for help in /map chat because there are always people around to participate. So far I’m having a blast.

Angus.5961:

What Black Friday sale? They didn’t bother.

They will probably wait for Cyber Monday, because that is the more appropriate thing for online transactions.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

To those argueing about it be changed or not becouse people will be angry.

First of all some outfits has actually got changed after that they have been available in the store, the monks outfit for example so it is perfectly possible that the skin will get a better glow.

On the other hand with the monks outfit still as an example, people raged at the forums becouse they changed it and people had spent real money for the old look.

Does it matter that Just a flesh wound.3589 does not think that the change will happen? No.

I will probably never get the skin for myself but I agree with OP it looks alot better with the glow and it fits the icon immage alot better too.

The Monk outfit was changed because the legs were clipping through the dress, so it was a bug fix. It was not a change to make it prettier after people had already purchased it and liked the look.

In addition, I didn’t say that the change would not happen. I said it was too late for them to do it for a reason that is not to fix a problem.

What I’m getting from this thread is, “if I like it then that’s too bad for the people who already bought it and who wouldnt like the change. What I want is more important.”

I understand what you are saying, and I would probably agree if OP was suggesting a more drastic change, like making the beam shorter, or changing the color to pink. What OP is suggesting is simply adding more particle effects that arguably seem to enhance the design, and matches the icon art for the weapon more accurately. It might be too bold of me to say this, but I find it very unlikely that many (if any) would dislike this “change.”

Also, they HAVE made cosmetic changes before. The Light Flamekissed Set you could buy from the cash shop used to offer the HUMAN Cultural (sorcerer’s) armor for both Sylvari and Norn. A day later, they removed it from the cash shop and decided to change it so that it is now the Feathered Armor set.

I think ANet has swept Zhaitan under the rug. There are going to be loop holes and inconsistencies in this MMO, especially when comparing year-one content to year-three content. That should have been evident for anyone that did the initial fight that had no ambient or sound effect noises, and basically consisted of mashing the ‘f’ key for a solid 10 mins until Zhaitan fell from the sky.

They had limited resources, funds, and time, and therefore didn’t have the luxury of creating a big flashy ending that ties in all loose ends. Maybe some day ANet will go back and fix the inconsistencies in the Zhaitan story, but for now, lets just be grateful that the end-game content for HoT was actually polished and a little bit more original than “lets just send everything on one big suicide mission.”

I can’t unsee how much better this looks

I think these are the most official-unofficial troll monsters in the game. I laugh every time I see someone get attacked by these guys when they aren’t expecting them. Except when it happens to me. Then its not funny any more.

I agree with some of the things said in this thread, but I would caution statements like “maps aren’t fun because they are dependent on groups/zerg.” This is entirely your own opinion, and many (myself included) might disagree. I rather enjoy the events. The maps are bursting with enough activity that events don’t require any effort on my part to find help. I start a Hero Challenge, and a few seconds later 2-3 people randomly appear to lend a hand. We all work collectively toward progressing the stage of the map, which usually leads to some big final event that everyone can participate in. On occasion, there aren’t enough people on the map and we end up failing, but it wouldn’t be fun if you were guaranteed to win every time. I usually sign in with a goal in mind, and end up getting completely sidetracked because of all the opportunities on the newer maps.

I agree that the rewards for dungeons was a nerf, but since I haven’t done a dungeon in over 6 months, I really can’t comment on this. I have attempted the Raids a few times, all with completely random people. We didn’t win, and I can’t say we came very close to beating the boss, but it was still an enjoyable learning experience. The leaders of the Raids were more than welcoming and patient. I was invited into Teamspeaks/Ventrillo servers by complete strangers in order to have better communication and collaboration. Ideas and guides were shared openly as we strategized with strangers. Sure, I imagine eventually I will want to partner with a pool of more experienced players to win the raid, but I haven’t seen elitism prevent anyone from enjoying the game. There are probably those groups that require you to post all your gear, but there are plenty of groups willing to put a newb raid together for the sake of the experience.

As for specializations, I haven’t unlocked or used a single specialization yet. I main a guardian, and I haven’t even bothered to read any of the new traits/abilities for Dragon Hunter. I am having plenty of fun (and successes) playing my plain old, vanilla guardian. I haven’t run into any road blocks in raids, PvE, or PvP by choosing not to play a Dragon Hunter. This is just my own experience, and I am willing to admit this might not be the case for other classes.

I admit that even I am growing weary of the goldsinks. I loath crafting, and spending hours grinding for materials is my least favorite thing to do. I have succumbed to the realization that I will never own a Legendary, and it is HIGHLY unlikely that I will get even close being fully geared with ascended stats, unless I manage to find an entire set over time through chests because I do not have the patients or mind-frame to spend time crafting. Other people may enjoy it, so I will not go into all the nitty-gritty details of why I loath the crafting system. Until not having full ascended gear or legendaries actually prevents me from participating in certain content in the game, I could care less about acquiring them.

I can understand your pain. My friends and family created a guild when the game first started. It became evident fast that our small band would never be able to achieve a third of the content in Guild Halls for HoT, at least not on our own. We all had lives and work outside of GW2, so none of us had time to dedicate to running events or even recruiting. So we merged with another guild that had about the same number of people as ours.

It was hard to give up our guild and what had been ours for nearly 3 years, but I don’t regret it. Since joining, we’ve made new friends, we can actually do guild missions (which we never had the resources or people to do it before), and we are slowly expanding our GH. We only have about 6-10 people on at a time, but other guilds have been happy to partner with us for doing missions when we are shy a few people. Even with our small group we are now Guild LvL 15, which I know is no where near what a populated guild would would have achieved by now. But still, who is in a rush? I am enjoying the game because I get to do content that I was never able to do before, and it is fun and exciting to see what we can achieve with a tightknit group like ours.

My point is, yes, you might have to expand your horizons a little and venture out to meet new people, and maybe even give up your guild name. But you can still find a way to enjoying the game and it doesn’t require you to pour hours into recruiting and organizing or joining a 100+ member guild.

I haven’t gotten very far into HoT yet (pretty much just started the second map). I am running full zerkers gear and that seems to work just fine for me as it has always done. I know with some of the buffs to conditions and with the addition of other new abilities like taunt, slow, alacrity a lot of people were hopeful that other gearsets would become viable. I was just curious if anyone has found this to be true? Success stories? Failures?

Add the following in conjunction to the “sell junk” option with merchants:
1. Sell All White Items
2. Sell all Blue Items
3. Sell all Green Items

I don’t know why I am bothering to post in a 35-page-thread when what I’ve said has likely been mentioned but here goes:

World of Warcraft’s latest expansion Warlods of Draenor is 49.99 for just the expansion, and nothing else. For 69.99 you can get a bunch of fluff. If you are an entirely new player, you need to pay another 19.99 to buy the original ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD game, and then continue to pay 14.99 a month.

What are we complaining about again?

Seabreeze.8437:

Tired of “Tired of Outfits” thread showing up every update.

Heart of Thorns will bring armor sets.

Yeah, sorry I chose a poor title. I should have said “Tired of the direction outfits are taking” but that’s a lot longer. I like outfits. I also like armor. I just wish there was a more distinct difference between the aesthetics of the two, the way it used to be.

Conski Deshan.2057:

Going forward all Armors will be rewards from in game content only (recent interview revealed). So outfits are all that will be released until there is a new piece of content that the armor can be a reward for (may be as far away as HOT).

Thanks for the updated info. I am at least glad to know they will be releasing actual armor sets, even if they might be far off. It was a rare treat that we even got the carapace armor, which I was grateful for, but I think the last released armor set before that was what, Ascended gear back in 2013? I know they take a lot more work to make than outfits, but it would be nice to see armor sets released more than once a year. I know ANet generally doesn’t make money off of armor sets either, but I used to buy Outfits back when they were treated more as funny cosmetics.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the outfits look nice and I’ve been impressed with the design and quality, I just don’t like how they work mechanically. I enjoy mixing and matching gear, and every time I see a new outfit released it pains me to not be able and do that. I know there must be a lot of people who enjoy them because I often see people wearing the Balth Outfit and a few others, but I can’t say I understand the purpose of them. I understood their purpose initially. Outfits used to be based off of seasonal or themed ideas that were humorous, like dressing up as a pirate, or a witch, or the Mad King. The more recent outfits no longer fit into these more light-hearted categories, and instead look like real armor you’d find in the game.

I might be alone, but I am having a difficult time understanding the shift in direction for outfits. Again, they look nice, but I don’t understand the direction ANet is taking with outfits. Why not leave the more whimsical ideas for outfits, and then keep designs that actually look like armor as, well, armor that you can mix and match pieces with?

If anything, I think they will just be making other sets more viable, or at least I hope anyway, with the introduction of new mechanics.

Well, I know its not the answer you are necessarily looking for, but I suspect we’ll eventually see a Norn-expansion just like the Sylvari are now getting Heart of Thorns.

I don’t even know why leveling exists in GW2. Really the only purpose it serves is to unlock traits, skills, and armor for PvE. I guess some people really enjoy progression style games? I leveled 2 characters in PvE, but I found it slow so I leveled a few with crafting and then the rest through WvW. I rush to 80 so that I can stop wasting time with throw-away gear, and so that I can do fractals and daily dungeons. I personally am glad that I can level quickly. I think it would be maddening for someone like me to not be able to play all the content in the game. I think leveling one or two characters in PvE is fun, but it soon looses its novelty and starts to feel like a chore.

So I had a handful of things unlocked in HoM. Unfortunately, I forgot to unlock the skins when the new wardrobe patch came out. I was playing around with a new appearance and realized that I didn’t have a lot of the skins in my wardrobe. I was sad to see I couldn’t add them to my wardrobe because HoM was locked. I hope we can get a time frame. It would be nice to know that this will be addressed, if not soon, at lease once HoT is live.

………..Yes.

I agree that people need to stop thinking that the Beta is for them to have an exclusive preview to HoT. But you can’t blame them for having false expectations with the way ANet chose to advertise this event. I think that the random drop was a fine idea, but they should have explained their intentions more clearly. Unfortunately, a lot of assumptions were made from players. The way it was advertised initially made it seem like all you needed to do was participate in the Silverwastes to gain access. We all knew it was a chance but perhaps being a bit more realistic and wording it in such a way that would lower people’s expectations would have been smart, instead of hyping it up and getting everyone out looking for the golden ticket. Once a lot of disappointed players realized that their relentless farming wasn’t enough to guarantee them an in, those who did get a portal began to feel like they had won the lottery only to finally remember that no, it is just a beta test and not an exclusive all-day preview. I just feel a lot of this could have been avoided if ANet was more realistic and upfront about their plans.

I personally like silerwastes. It feels a bit repetitive now that I’ve farmed it 500+ times, but I like the direction they are heading in.

Yes, make it happen!

They are releasing a new weapon for each class with HoT and I can only assume they will continue this trend going forward.