If you think HoT is grindy then none of you have played a Korean mmo
I play TERA, a Korean MMORPG. It’s very gear-grindy, but its grindwalls are soft grindwalls. You can ignore them with enough combat skill. I’ve seen a few players take on the toughest hard-mode dungeons using only third-rate endgame gear.
Heart of Thorns grindwalls are hard grindwalls. You absolutely cannot access certain areas without grinding. You don’t even get the satisfaction of getting your butt kicked if you try.
Even the grindiest KMMORPGs are adapting to satisfy both the casuals and hardcores. You can play through the story of the latest TERA expansion without much effort, but the tougher hard mode dungeons will chew you up and spit you out if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing.
Why has Guild Wars 2 abandoned its legions of loyal casuals?
He explained something to the effect in sum that…there was more freedom to how you could burst someone. While he was describing it, the only relative thing I could think of were Mesmers who use Mantra of Distraction religiously.
In its most action-packed moments, TERA combat feels less like an MMORPG and more like an ARPG. GW2’s new action camera is a step in that direction, but it doesn’t even come close.
Eir was a tall, busty, conventionally attractive woman who actually took responsibility for her actions. She was way too cliche for the current story direction, as exemplified by the flighty and edgy Caithe.
I hate how most of HoT’s new class lore amounts to “one guy tried it”. World of Warcraft Death Knights broke free from the Lich King. TERA Reapers sought revenge for the destruction of Pora Elinu. A whole new class would be much more believable if it emerged from a behavioral shift in a group, not an individual.
So ArenaNet made the less rewarding content (HoT open world) more challenging, and the more challenging content (fractals and dungeons) less rewarding.
Trahearne had nothing to do with Mordremoth, Caithe did! It would have made so much more sense if she was forced to steal the egg by the jungle dragon. But no. Her new Wyld Hunt just happened out of the blue with an additional lame exuse “I couldn’t trust anybody with it”. Sure. Not your guildmates from DE, not the Commander or Trahearne, not even the Pale Tree. And we’re just like “okay, whatever, I still don’t trust you and all, but let’s go”. So she’s safe and sound, while my favorite character is dead – for nothing but a cheap drama.
Caithe’s plot armor is beyond ascended. She can act as utterly unaccountable and untrustworthy as she wants, and she will never face consequences.
With one exception that Wildstar actually advertised as such.
Good point. The new specs were immediately available during the betas. Suddenly locking them behind hard grindwalls on release was a huge bait-and-switch.
Between that and the pricing bait-and-switch, I don’t know if I can trust ArenaNet with anything anymore.
Two things don’t add up. The Eir we saw die did not go down fighting, and Garm was not by her side. That’s not the Eir we know, and that’s not the Garm we know.
For ArenaNet’s sake, I really hope that was a Mordrem clone we saw go down. Considering how much players love her, the search for Eir would make a really compelling hook for season three.
If the Eir we saw die was actually a Mord clone, finding the real Eir would make a great hook for LS season three — kinda like Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Searching for a beloved character would certainly be more compelling than what we did during the last two seasons: fighting a Mary Sue villain and hunting down an egg McGuffin.
There’s a reason instances and zones are different things. Provide hardcore challenges for those who seek it, when they seek it. Don’t constantly throw hardcore challenges in my face when I feel like casually exploring.
Would be cool if during the living story Eir stumbles out of the jungle and we discover the Eir we saw die was nothing more than a copy made by Mordremoth.
The Eir we saw die did not go down fighting. The Eir we know would have gone down fighting. Any self-respecting Norn would have gone down fighting. Perhaps the Dragon of Mind was pulling some sort of trick.
I do endgame raids in TERA. It’s a mindless geargrind, but the engaging combat puts you in a state of pleasant battlezen for hours on end.
The main story of the latest TERA expansion, however, actually features less grind than the main story at release. Why ArenaNet would introduce more grind into the HoT main story is simply baffling.
Unfortunately, some of these specializations don’t feel so “elite”. The Druid trait line, for instance, has very little synergy with all the other Ranger trait lines. Just calling something “elite” doesn’t make it worth the effort.
Eir Stegalkin, leader of Destiny’s Edge, who bravely battled both Kralkatorrik and Zhaitan, falls to a mere minion with fear on her face and no weapon in her hand.
Go play other mmo’s then come back and say this game has “grind” lol. You have no idea what grind really is.
I do endgame raids in TERA. It’s a totally mindless geargrind, but the engaging combat puts you in a state of battle-zen for hours on end.
GW2 wasn’t designed for grind, and it certainly wasn’t marketed as such. GW2 works best when it lets you play your way. Impose grind in GW2, and it doesn’t induce the zen of soothing repetition. It only induces frustration at being unable to play your way.
Eir Stegalkin, leader of Destiny’s Edge, who bravely battled both Kralkatorrik and Zhaitan, falls to a mere minion with fear on her face and no weapon in her hand.
By deserting our army to investigate Caithe’s and Faolain’s romantic relationship, we’ve essentially traded a war story for a soap opera. How do you feel about that story direction?
I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. I’m just wondering how players feel about it.
While reintroducing the Mursaat might have been lorebreaking, what we got was far worse: a race of glowing floating magical exalted goody-two-shoes Marty Stus.
Excellent points, Jaken and Konig. If I’m going to desert my army and go on a wild goose chase, I want a kitten good reason to do it. We didn’t get that in the narrative.
I think the idea is that if the hatchling is present when an Elder Dragon dies (or is brought to the corpse sufficiently soon afterwards) it can slurp up the magic and “level up” (as you put it) that way. Basically, to continue the RPG metaphor, Glint had a long slow grind of killing rats, while her hatchling may get powerleveled.
That sounds so crazy, it just might work. Heck, it even makes sense mechanically. I hope the writers read your idea.
I just wish the story hinted at our characters’ plans for the egg, and why those plans are important enough to desert our army in their hour of need. It’s hard to stay motivated when your own character takes you on a wild goose chase for reasons unclear.
First, because there are no limits on the potential power of Glint’s egg. In the second half of Season 2, Ogden comments that if Glint hadn’t been killed, she could have risen to Elder Dragon status herself (but without the omnicidal nature).
Glint had centuries to level up to Elder Dragon status while Kralkatorrik slept. She didn’t. Are we willing to wait centuries for her child to do the same while Mordremoth slaughters our army?
Between Glint and the Shatterer, we all know the limits of a Kralkatorrik-aligned dragon champion’s power. Why were we on a wild goose chase for a single dragon champion egg? As cool as taming a juvenile dragon champion might sound, it hardly seems worth deserting the Pact on the eve of a major offensive.
