Guild Wars 2

Well its everyones right to voice their opinions, and if people feel passionate about the failures of HoT, then so be it. Not everyone is satisfied with their experience and some people are upset/disappointed so far. Now if you really like HoT or are just tired of reading it, then just take note of it and move on. Considering that right now, there are many game modes that are almost dead or completely dead (dungeons and wvw), its going to make more people outspoken.

Besides, if you don’t let Anet or moderators know you’re disappointed, changes will never be made to make it better and they’ll just assume they’re going in the right direction.

Would it really have killed them to make pre-cursor crafting based on getting account or soul bound items from doing specific quests?

Instead of adding insanely high gold sinks into the equation, they could have easily made a few of the “pre-forms” of the pre-cursor entirely craftable by getting exclusive items from completing either certain dungeons, world bosses, quests they make solely for the hunt, jumping puzzles etc. and then the final form, they could add a few gold sinks where at least it wouldn’t be terribly easy to get. And obviously the Legendary weapons would then still also be difficult to craft.

There should be a focus on exclusive skins if ANet wanted to keep the population high in the entire game, and not just certain maps.

Make each world boss drop exclusive skins you can only get with that boss. Make certain champions drop exclusive skins. Make some bosses in dungeons drop skins. Make super rare enemies that are either hard to find, or don’t always spawn in the same place drop some skins. Then make those specific skins account bound or soul bound.

Something small like that would already give many players a sense of achievement and purpose when trying to make their characters look the way they want. Sure the end is the same if you were to be able to buy that skin for 90 gold as opposed to getting it from a drop on your 20th fight against that boss, but for me, it feels more rewarding to have a shot at getting by defeating an enemy that isn’t necessarily easy.

I don’t think the answer is to go extreme in one direction or another, but i think the reward system is extremely flawed and theres no real reason to do any specific content when trying to get any single item in the game. Right now you just go to whatever train/farm/zone that gets you the most gold and just run around for a few hours or however long you have and see how much gold you get from selling your drops. At least if you had motivation to fight specific bosses or enemies, you might find yourself exploring or going to places you rarely go, and I always found that fun.

I would also like to say that for any person complaining about “bad” players (i.e. people who are not good at this game or at video games), kindly keep your comments to yourself and stop being a tool.

I am hearing a bunch of whining from posters that are belittling other gamers and mad that people are voicing their opinions about something they like. I really don’t care if you’re good or terrible at this game, you shouldn’t have to be criticized for your opinions.

There is nothing wrong with not being good at a game. If you’re having fun, thats all that matters. People being bad at this game do not effect anything that happens (if you honestly think theres nothing you can do to just avoid bad players, you’re lazier than the “bad players” are for not “l2p”). Honestly, your skill level of a game does not qualify or disqualify your opinion.

If some players are struggling with the content and feel they can’t enjoy it, then some skill levels are not going to have enjoyment out of the game.

Valentine.4286:

ChaosCorpse.3046:

His point is not invalid.
You got lucky, good for you. Me and many others didnt have this luck. This encounter can and will most of the time bug out horribly. I wouldnt say anything if i couldnt defeat him in 3 tries, 5 tries, hell not even at 10. But i have done this boss for many hours now and i couldnt beat him because the boss broke everytime one way or another.
That is a good reason for frustration.
And yes, of course we do have to wait for a bugfix. But when and if this problem will be adressed is not known.
For those who were able to beat him, congratulations. But dont look down on those who didnt have that much luck and are stuck with this frustrating situation.

Why is it that people get so sensitive when someone disagree with them? “Dont look down on those..” Who did that? I did not. I am however proof it is possible to do. Cant say its all luck if I do it in 3 times and you not even in 10. Somehow you trigger the bug by doing something differently from me. Like the story chapter 14, It was a spesific way one had to do to not make it bug when finding signs from Rox.
Sayin you regret buying the expac for this reason…

Maybe because you came off like a complete tool? Maybe people “get so sensitive” when you completely insult their intelligence or mock them like they’re a child? you come off very poorly, so I’m not surprised people would be irritated at your comments.

You are “proof” that you didn’t run into a bug. congrats. That doesn’t change the fact that other people have run into a bug. Any bugs that keep people from completing content isn’t some minor deal. A “minor” bug would be something like your gold not properly displaying the correct amount or something like that, which doesn’t directly effect your gameplay.

Algreg.3629:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Kain Francois.4328:

Is casual suddenly a codeword for "bad: or “braindead”?

People often seem to use it that way, but that’s just because they don’t understand what casual actually means. It says more about them than it does about the casual player.

there is unfortunately not a set definition of “casual”. Some cite time, I would bring up investment in a game´s mechanics and the willingness to actually apply your mind to in game problems.

Anyway, in my experience the “casual=bad” formula is furthered more by bad players who draw the casual card to change games to their level of competence more than anything else. Either knowingly or because they really don´t realize they are in the lowest bracket of competence.

Its not always just about a “willingness to actually apply your mind to in game problems”. When you say that, you’re just attacking some players you label “casual” because you’re saying they’re just whining and aren’t trying, which i would thoroughly disagree with considering a majority of people I personally know I would describe as casual gamers and do not at all fit that description.

Not everyone who wants to and is currently playing Guild Wars 2, has much experience, if at all, with other games. My sister likes to play Guild Wars 2, just like she did with Guild Wars 1, and she hasn’t played an actual video game since the PS1 era (outside of playing Castlevania for the ps2). My wife loves games but often only play smaybe a few times out of the year. Shes learned the mechanics of GW2 enough to play in dungeons, but she gets intimidated easily because she doesn’t have quick reflexes when it comes to games.

People can’t just assume that gamers saying " this is frustrating to me" or “this is too hard”, are just lazy people who want all the shinies without any work. Some just struggle to do what others do relatively easily.

Also, again, not everyone wants to work to have fun. There are going to be gamers that really don’t want to die when they play a game. They’re no different than the really hardcore crowd that want to have challenge everywhere they play. We can’t belittle gamers for their tastes, considering not everyone has the same sense of fun.

Odokuro.5049:

The more I come to the HoT Forum the more I regret it, and the more it makes my head hurt…

I knew that after they lowered the Hero Point cost for unlocking Elite Specs, that there would be another flood of these, “Salty tear filled posts” about how people feel they where lied to, and how the content is too hard and takes too much time and effort, and they should be given everything upfront because they fill entitled to it because they bought the expansion…

Yes, you bought the expansion, you get to play the game, but, that doesn’t mean you won’t have hardships and aggravating moments during gameplay, it doesn’t mean you won’t have to work for things, and put hours/days/weeks ect. towards achieving something in-game.

I swear it’s this new generation of gamer, or people new to MMOs in general, that they all just feel overly entitled to everything, and believe that if it isn’t obtainable by minimal efforts, that it’s too hard and it’s a grind, and should be made easier.

A lot of people say, “Well if they keep it this challenging, people aren’t going to stick around”. Well guess what, if they water down everything, people are going to blaze through it and leave too, because it’s boring?

ANet needs to keep the challenging content, yet maybe implement shinier carrots?

If I ever hear the term “entitled” referring to gamers who paid full price for a game they didn’t realize would be too challenging for them or too difficult, I’m going to bury my head in my hand. This is a video game. You shouldn’t HAVE to work to have fun.

I repeat. You shouldn’t HAVE to work to have fun. If thats how you DO have fun? Good for you. Thats your personal tastes as a gamer, thats what you look for in content. Not everyone does. Right now you are able to work for your fun and you’re happy, so kindly and politely stop commenting about how others see the game.

Not everyone is going to hate or love the new content and there will be disagreements on what was done well and what was a mistake, but theres no need to start acting like people complaining are “entitled” or whatever word you want to throw around to imply they’re wrong for feeling the way they feel. Grow up.

So far there are a lot of people having issues with the new content. Players paid full price for a paid for expansion, and not all of them were under the assumption that “challenging new content” was meant to describe a majority of the expansion. In fact, just going by ANets history of GW2 in general, it should have been safe to assume that most content would be relatively casual that would ramp up when you go into challenges, Bosses, end game events and eventually Raids. I doubt most people just assumed that typical world events you needed to cross to get to just random parts on the map would be fairly difficult.

Anet most likely should have communicated that better to the playerbase as a whole.

This argument always bugs me and it always boils down to a few players coming into the topic assuming everyone who dislikes people who make lots of money for not participating in game content, are just either “jealous” idiots or people who don’t really understand what flippers are.

Flippers are only needed because of the system ANet has in place. Drops are notoriously awful and if any player is even remotely interested in aesthetic items (and most will be, since there isn’t a gear grind in the game the only thing you can really aim for is something thats cool looking), they then have to look into buying them or in some cases buying materials to craft it.

If ANet wanted to, they could just increase the drop rate of most items, and make all items either craftable with enough materials or droppable from certain monsters, you wouldn’t have this debate. But ANet knows that they can still get money from whales who get bored with trying to make money and are willing to shell out real money for Gems and then buy some off the store or turn it into enough gold to outright buy what they want.

I’ve always hated the system and hated how little reward you actually get from playing content, but thats how GW2 works and its not going to change so you might as well just try and find the best way for you to make in game money while still having fun. Although with some examples in recent past, ANet might be moving to less tradeable items and more earned items through tokens, which would eventually end the debate as well if they make a majority of items in game actually earnable, instead of RNG based.

I pray for the day game companies quit banking on making money off RNG.

Calling gamers “spoiled” for expecting quality in a product for your money is naive and symbolic of a problem involving gamers and just throwing money desperately at any gaming company willing to make a game at all close to your already low expectations.

ProtoGunner.4953:

Fred Fagone, don’t force it, really. You try to be right on a dialectic level: just to be right.

- In fact Mr. Ahkaskar’s arguments are here: The traits are now sometimes 2 or even 3 old traits in one.

- Having a huge freedom of choice can be counter productive as a lot of the old build combinations were useless and the new trait system is trying to prevent this.

The very problem with this argument is general, the idea that a build is “useless”, is faulty for one very big reason: Not every player is going to be playing in PUGs, in groups at all, or participating in events where they have to min-max or even be a viable build to succeed.

You know, some people play games to experiment and have fun. No different than say playing Castlevania and trying to beat it with starter gear. Some people will enjoy having unique builds that are available with high customization. To say that something “was useless and thus is no longer needed” its a farce and only applies if you’re playing the game to be competitive, which not everyone will do.

I’m really tired of seeing arguments like that being used.

Yeah the warhorn is overall rather disappointing to me as well.

I also don’t care at all for the idea of overloads, so everything involving the ele in HoT has been rather ho-hum for me.

Well the idea would be for them to make Healers and Tanks more useful than they are now, but not make it necessary to have one.

One solution IMO would be to A) increase the effectiveness of gearing into healing, i.e. maybe increase the modifiers of healing abilities so that someone with healing gear would heal a lot more than someone without it, unlike how it is now, thus making someone in heal gear actually better at what they do. they could also add traits for classes geared towards healers, such as a trait that gives stacks of might for X seconds or some other buff, whenever you heal that player or something similar so that not only would you be healing them, you’d also be support and adding in stacks of might or something. C) they could also look into stackable levels of regen, which obviously would make abilities that give regen more useful (more stacks, more hp per tick).

Obviously, the biggest problem with really tweaking healing though is that while it would most likely not change a lot in PvE, outside of casual players being more successful if they choose to be a healer or tank in private parties etc., it would become very close to pushing a trinity in PvP. The moment healing can overcome DPS, teambased PvP will push for healers and eventually you’d see a trinity pop up there, IMO.

So not sure how much they’re really going to tweak healing in the game, but I guess it depends on how much it would change the balance.

I think the idea was that originally they wanted each class to be able to play a certain role in their own way. If every class can bring something to the table and not just one defined role, then likely every player would always be able to play the game and not have to sit around looking for a match. If they never intended healing or tanking to be in the game, I doubt they would have wasted time on healing abilities, healing gear, block abilities or moments of invulnerability. So I doubt they were trying to eliminate them altogether.

I just think as they started balancing the classes, they realized its hard to make 8 different classes be able to fill multiple roles without overlap and making them feel less and less unique. I’m guessing that with HoT and whatever they add on, they’re going to try and increase the chances that players will be able to increase roles they can do with each class while not forcing players into a trinity.

PlatinumMember.5274:

So from now until that mystical expansion whenever arena net coughs your hype changes? That sucks for you and you should learn to not get hype about new products.

Your interpretation of what Colin said is WRONG. Damage will always be emphasized because how else will the mob hp drop? What Colin said was, they don’t forced roles via holy trinity and that gw2 has soft roles. That means support, damage and control. You will always to do require damage, that’s a basic fact. He did say that current system heavily favors damage while control gets screwed via defiance, but in HOT that gets fixed. Support has always been there via buffs, regen, protect etc. in hot if boss mechanics improve players will have to time their control and hopefully boss will not allow themselves to get burst down quickly, whether by the boss based on the AI video running away to reposition itself to avoid getting melee to death.

The truth is a lot of people like yourself don’t understand the combat system very well. Zerker will probably still be the best armor set in PvE unless the content is so tough that heavily punishes mistakes and boss mechanics improve significantly from the current lack of any in PvE.

Also there is something you must learn today, roles are not related to armor stats you wear. Roles are built into traits, weapon and ultities, class mechanics. Stats only improve the strength of the soft role you play. So healing power increases regen given to players (support). Depending on the class, good players can do all 3 soft roles, while in zerker gear. Other type of gear like pvt, exist for less skilled players in PvE.

In any case what Colin said is not brand new information. This was stated 2 years ago. However, thanks to the AI improvements coming in hot this might finally happen, if you want to get easily hyped (since it seems you are) find the video online.

Also that is

This is quite possibly one of the most condescending posts I have read on here in quite awhile, although I must admit I haven’t been on here in a few weeks.

First of all, I would disagree with nearly everything you said, but I’ll start with the fact that you’re basically saying his interpretation of what Colin said was wrong, even though he pretty much nailed exactly what Colin said. GW2 meant to get away from the Trinity, but not completely abandon healing or support roles. Their main goal was to make sure players never had to sit and wait for a healer to play the game.

Secondly, you went on a rant about game mechanics instead of actually addressing what the topic is about, i.e. what Colin actually said. Honestly, judging by your comments, it doesn’t even come off like you listened to the poi or even knew thats what the OP was talking about.

Rauderi.8706:

Juclesia Elcritian.8410:

Walhalla.5473”

Last Boss being killed in the first Week of an MMO Expansion, this isn’t going to end well.

Instead we’ll get a cliffhanger after 4 days in the first Week of an MMO Expansion. And people are still going to complain there’s no content. In fact, that will be worse as it will highlight just how little substance there is to HoT.

For pity’s sake people! You paid $60 for ~30 explorable areas (counting cities) in the base game. And now ANET is asking you to pay $50 for a THIRD of that MAYBE. And you’re perfectly fine with it. I just don’t understand.

Now that I think about it, yeah. YEAH! Going from WoW classic’s 30+ zones to only 6 in Burning Crusade was such a ripoff! The hurt still hasn’t healed!

Or, y’know, maybe that’s just how expansions work. I’m not sure about the original Guild Wars franchise and how much content those added, but looking at normal MMO progression, adding about 6-8 zones is appropriate. Including a cost of 40-60$. Given this trend has been around for well over a decade, I find it surprising people are confused.

Nightfall and Factions, two addons (campaigns/expansions of original content, whatever you want to call them) included nearly as much content as the original core game, including two new classes and new gameplay features. So Anet has bucked that trend in the past.

And just because the trend has been around for a decade, it doesn’t make it good. DLC’s have been around for nearly a decade, and thats just because gamers are becoming increasingly willing to just take whatever a company gives them and doesn’t try and demand more for their money.

Its actually really sad how little people are expecting for their money.

lordkrall.7241:

Because there is plenty of things in-game that actually points towards killing the Elder Dragons actually being a bad thing for the world?

So that would overpower all the obvious events and story points we’ve had until then? The typical player is going to expect to fight and kill the elder dragons just based on Zhaitan, the living story so far and even the 2 in GW2 being a dragon.

lordkrall.7241:

Why are people assuming that we will kill Mordremoth at all?

Why is Heart of Thorns not broadly being advertized as containing a battle with the elder dragon? Because that would be a good selling point. I think we all know the answer.

Why wasn’t original Guild Wars 2 broadly being advertized as containing a battle with the Elder Dragon? Because that would be a good selling point. But clearly we DID fight the Elder Dragon in the original release of GW2.

I assume people think players will get to fight the elder dragons because nearly all of the setup storywise and lorewise point to the player needing to stop a possible “end of the world” scenario brought on by the dragons. That and he is the being responsible for the death of many heroes of the world and has brought minions that are trying to kill your character.

Not really sure why you wouldn’t be able to understand why players would assume that dragons, especially Mordremoth, wouldn’t be killed at the conclusion.

Yeah I’ll be passing on it for awhile just because I really don’t think its worth the money, especially since its not always easy to just put money aside and keep it there when there will always be something that comes up that requires emergency money like car parts or medical bills etc.

And for the people that can afford it but are commenting about people who can not: Kindly stay quiet and don’t even bother commenting to people who can’t. Regardless of “money management” skills, not everyone will be in a place where they can afford to set aside certain amounts of money. Theres no amount of “advice” you can offer that won’t just come off as being condescending or ignorant.

I understand that storytelling wise it probably does make sense to not include Mordremoth, at least in terms of how modern gaming companies release their content.

But this does highlight how little content fans of games come to actually expect to pay for. Its a little saddening to see in my opinion, but everyone is entitled to feel the way they do.

Definitely not a fan of the change. You’re just picking from templates, essentially, and it removes a nice little form of character customization.

Its a terrible change, but seems par the course with Anet decision making. I certainly hope they will tweak it or change it back, but thats most likely not going to happen. I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t really care what the community or veteran players think.

If you pay me money to work on a video game, then sure I’d do it.

Lets not forget these guys are getting paid to do something they likely find really rewarding and/or fun. Criticism is a part of the job and they can handle it, especially since they don’t have to work at some retail store or outdoors doing construction work.

No need to treat them with kid gloves if you disagree with changes.

That being said, they had trouble balancing GW1 for years and its no surprise that fans are still not always thrilled with how they’re balancing GW2.

Yes, because giving a company your money isn’t enough, they need constant praise as well.

gryph.8734:

Sekhmet.6153:

I’ve noticed a lot of fans are still under the assumption that some of the features Anet has announced are only for Heart of Thorns, when in fact they will be added as updates to the core game. That may effect some of the perceived value of the expansion.

That core game is still something I paid for, and still something new players are ostensibly getting for free. If I don’t have to pay for the expansion to get these features, that’s one more reason for me to not buy HoT.

Perception of value may not always make sense in concrete mathematical terms, but economics is not a mathematical science.

That being my point, there are likely going to be fans that thought they could only get certain things with HoT, and then when they learn everyone will get it for free, may feel like HoT is a little less worth it.

fellyn.5083:

Sekhmet.6153:

I doubt they knew so many fans would be angered by it. They likely thought it was a good way to get more people to buy the expansion.

The problem is, Anet now has a problem that they only care about new players and even some of the most loyal GW players are feeling like its now obvious they will never be catered to or even thought of going forward. Anet clearly made it their goal to focus solely on new players and now it even comes off like they don’t care about veterans at all.

Its likely somewhat true, although I do think they care about gemshop purchases.

Having said all that, its truly irritating to hear some fans pretty much insulting ones that are annoyed at Anet for this. Its fans like that that are responsible for gaming companies being as greedy and lazy as they are these days. Pretty soon companies will be able to start charging for patches at this rate, since most gamers are willing to roll over and take anything as long as they get to play what they want.

That is patently false. People giving game publisers and devs money when it’s not deserved via pre orders and early access and dlc are what is responsible for companies being greedy and lazy.

“Well they already gave us our money, we’ll just ship a broken product and fix it after launch. In the meantime lets work on cutting some stuff out of the game to sell as dlc, too”.

You do realize we are discussing the pre-purchase of HoT that includes early access, right? You just said that was part of the problem, which is why I pointed it out. Giving Anet money already even though they haven’t earned it yet is precisely one of the problems with the gaming community as a whole. Too many gamers are so eager to just throw money at a company, that the company hardly has to earn it anymore, and thus they can just release something thats not what it could be, and add on to it later through DLC/Gem shop purchases etc.

Gaming companies rely on good faith of fans and exploiting it by dangling carrots in front of them and constantly getting them to look forward to the next release. If you think there isn’t a problem with companies releasing games that are broken without launch day patches, then Idk. Its a terrible disservice to gamers because it ensures that companies will never have to truly put out their maximum effort, just enough to satisfy diehard fans that will buy it regardless.

I’ve noticed a lot of fans are still under the assumption that some of the features Anet has announced are only for Heart of Thorns, when in fact they will be added as updates to the core game. That may effect some of the perceived value of the expansion.

It may not blow over and I think you’re doing a disservice to fellow gamers by just glossing over their irritation/outrage/anger etc.

The company has overtly exploited some of their consumers and it shouldn’t just “blow over” just because gaming companies are increasingly more willing to bilk gamers since they know some are willing to wait in line to give their money away, whether the products live up to certain standards or not.

And i would disagree that its not a big deal.

People using the word “entitlement” are whats wrong with the gaming community and are the reason so many gamers consistently get screwed by gaming companies.

People that actually think money for a product isn’t enough, that the companies also need never ending praise and stamping out criticism so they won’t be forced to “change” what they love to play.

I doubt they knew so many fans would be angered by it. They likely thought it was a good way to get more people to buy the expansion.

The problem is, Anet now has a problem that they only care about new players and even some of the most loyal GW players are feeling like its now obvious they will never be catered to or even thought of going forward. Anet clearly made it their goal to focus solely on new players and now it even comes off like they don’t care about veterans at all.

Its likely somewhat true, although I do think they care about gemshop purchases.

Having said all that, its truly irritating to hear some fans pretty much insulting ones that are annoyed at Anet for this. Its fans like that that are responsible for gaming companies being as greedy and lazy as they are these days. Pretty soon companies will be able to start charging for patches at this rate, since most gamers are willing to roll over and take anything as long as they get to play what they want.

So many people in this thread actually anger me.

Its gamers who roll over and take whatever a company gives them while also berating and insulting gamers who do not that ruin things and make it tougher for every gamer.

You’re part of the problem if you blindly look to defend a company for its business practices despite it actually harming loyal players. It angers me because you’re also the ones responsible for rewarding so many gaming companies for releasing unfinished games and squeezing every gamer of as much money as they can get.

Anet does deserve this. In fact, more gaming companies deserve this. Gamers need to get a backbone and start acting like actual consumers making smart decisions instead of being guilted into buying or blindly supporting a company and everything they do.

Right now, the gaming environment is filled with unfinished games being released early and force players to patch in games, adding in DLC late that costs way too much for things that could have been released in the game had they not tried to get more money out of loyal fans and a system where fans call other gamers “entitled” if they ask for more and claim we should be lucky we get to play it at all.

Money is enough praise for the company. Right now, they need criticism or else nothing would change.

A few of the items on your list are actually going to be implemented before the expansion is even released and aren’t really apart of Heart of Thorns, so I wouldn’t lump it in.

Sylent.3165:

olTThreelo.6710:

This thread is so corny it made me cringe. But I’m glad you are happy, you are in the minority I think however.

Lol. You know the majority of the players are just logged into the game and not on the forms right?

I don’t think it would be reported around the net and at gaming sites/magazines if there wasn’t a large portion of the community feeling angry at Anet.

Whether its a majority or a minority isn’t certain. But its definitely a lot.

I’m really glad gamers are finally being vocal about companies screwing over consumers. There is a reason that today you often get half finished products that release patches over the course of a year, a bunch of DLC content they charge at 25% of what you already paid for the game (content that likely should have or could have easily been added to the game before launch), products that pushed out early with sequels in mind before you barely throw your loyalty into the first game, and so on.

Game companies do things like this because they know there will be a legion of people that are “just grateful they get to play it” and are willing to continually pay extra money and get less and less. Gamers aren’t making companies earn their money, rather game companies are making gamers beg for their product.

I hope more and more gamers start holding companies to higher standards. Imagine if your cable company kept coming up with more and more “packages” of channels and reducing the amount you have on your current package every year. Are you just going to be like “well I guess I’ll upgrade and pay 10 more so I can keep ESPN and the food network”? A lot of people will switch companies and get better deals. Likewise, I wish gamers would do the same.

warbignime.4610:

Sekhmet.6153:

warbignime.4610:

Sekhmet.6153:

I totally agree with what you’re saying, and its why I won’t be buying HoT.

First of all, I think its pretty silly to drop $50 on a game we know so little about in the first place. For all we know, these new maps could amount to 3-4 hours of actual content. Thats unlikely, but its possible that they’re not much larger than Silverwastes or Drytop.

Even if it were cheaper, I would wait at least until a release date was announced.

But selling it for $50? I’m not really in a place right now where I want to just spend $50 on a pass time I might play 3-4 hours a week, at most. And to fully enjoy it, I’d have to buy it twice so me and my wife could play together.

Use a program called Tryia 3d to check the collision data of new maps, go see the land masses, Then come back.

It really doesn’t matter how big a map is if there isn’t much to do in it. It all depends on what the events are, so that really doesn’t matter.

There were a close beta which should give you some idea about the new areas. They are pact with events and beautiful structures.

All of it is in a very early Beta, and no one has been given any indication with the scope of the events, how long they will be, how many of them there are or even how long the “story” aspect of HoT is. Yes, it could have quite a lot of content, but its also very possible that HoT started as LS season 3 and just got bigger and wouldn’t contain a ton of events you might expect from a traditional expansion.

warbignime.4610:

Sekhmet.6153:

I totally agree with what you’re saying, and its why I won’t be buying HoT.

First of all, I think its pretty silly to drop $50 on a game we know so little about in the first place. For all we know, these new maps could amount to 3-4 hours of actual content. Thats unlikely, but its possible that they’re not much larger than Silverwastes or Drytop.

Even if it were cheaper, I would wait at least until a release date was announced.

But selling it for $50? I’m not really in a place right now where I want to just spend $50 on a pass time I might play 3-4 hours a week, at most. And to fully enjoy it, I’d have to buy it twice so me and my wife could play together.

Use a program called Tryia 3d to check the collision data of new maps, go see the land masses, Then come back.

It really doesn’t matter how big a map is if there isn’t much to do in it. It all depends on what the events are, so that really doesn’t matter.

Whiners? thats incredibly rude and childish to just call a large group of people whiners because you disagree with them.

No offense, but your $50 is all the thanks they need, since it keeps them employed at a comfy job doing stuff they love doing for a living. Its fine to give it, but don’t act like criticism is going to invalidate the people who “work hard” to make the game. Thats what their pay checks and fans playing the game, are for.

It is good that they’re trying hard to make a good product though.

I totally agree with what you’re saying, and its why I won’t be buying HoT.

First of all, I think its pretty silly to drop $50 on a game we know so little about in the first place. For all we know, these new maps could amount to 3-4 hours of actual content. Thats unlikely, but its possible that they’re not much larger than Silverwastes or Drytop.

Even if it were cheaper, I would wait at least until a release date was announced.

But selling it for $50? I’m not really in a place right now where I want to just spend $50 on a pass time I might play 3-4 hours a week, at most. And to fully enjoy it, I’d have to buy it twice so me and my wife could play together.

Bearhugger.4326:

OP whatever HoT turns out to be I’m not sure how you could ever call this an overhyped pack. I think it’s actually underhyped right now. Let’s just say that there are two big MMOs that are releasing an expansion this summer, but looking at the gaming media you’d think there’s only one. (And no it’s not Heart of Thorns.)

If anything I think Arenanet should double the marketing effort with Heart of Thorns because I’d like to hear more about it in the gaming media. I think they offer an interesting alternative to the traditional MMOs. For example there’s no other MMOs devs that spend the majority of their PvE working budget on casual content like the Living World. GW2 will probably never ring well for hardcore PvE players but I think they have an interesting product for more casual players.

I see Arenanet’s name on the E3 panel for PC gaming. I hope they’re preparing the coolest trailer they’ve ever made because there’s no better place to hype a game than E3.

Anyway, back to the actual topic, I’m personally more a world PvE and story-junkie kind of player so my expectations is a continuation of the LW season 2 storyline, insteresting world events including group ones, lots of stuff to do with mastery, lots of exploration and jumping puzzles, things like that. I also hope for good elite specializations for the classes I play , obviously. Not super interested in revenant but meh, might try it out a little.

That’s about it.

Considering how little information they have been sharing, its possible they’re still quite a length ways away from releasing Heart of Thorns, and if thats the case, I doubt they’d want to spend a ton of resources and money trying to create hype when it could be months and months before it gets released.

People are just assuming Summer/Fall because it makes “sense” in that its near an anniversary, and most people don’t believe Anet would reveal HoT the way they did and then wait a year or two before releasing it. But, it could always be Winter or even next year before it comes out. If its going to be that long, I doubt they want to focus on building hype yet.

mtpelion.4562:

That which has no subscription cannot die.

There will be a natural population drop thanks to the team taking time off of regular updates to focus on the expansion. That’s the price we pay for expansions (which is why I preferred the living story method).

Thats not true actually. Just because its free doesn’t mean it will exist forever. The moment NCSOFT sees it as being unprofitable, it could get shut down. It still takes resources to run a game, and not every company is going to be committed to just keep a game alive for a small fanbase.

It definitely helps keep it alive much longer, but you can’t just assume it will live forever. They even shut down City of Heroes.

I definitely don’t play as much as i use to, and depending on whether or not the expansion is worth the money, I may not play anymore period. I have definitely noticed that there have been times the game seemed a lot less populated than normal, but different people will have different experiences.

However, I do think it would be a tad foolish to act like there hasn’t been at least some drop in players recently. But only time will tell if its a permanent thing or just players waiting for HoT.

I would say though, that people shouldn’t just assume when HoT comes everything will get better and everyone will flock back to GW2. The expansion still actually has to be substantial enough for each individual and worth the money. If for instance, its just a few maps and looks like a glorified LS season 3, it might be enough to make certain players just give up on the game. Eventually people will always find something new to play, and just because GW1 has lasted a decade doesn’t mean GW2 is fated to last 5+ years itself.

Hopefully HoT will be great and show a real change, but we’ll see.

Hopefully some of the other Legends are a bit more impressive.

So far the Revenant looks okay, but I’m not super excited about it.

I do want to know however, why in this topic there are a lot of very insulting and antagonizing posts from certain people aimed at players who mention they don’t really like the Revenant. There is no need for it.

Vayne.8563:

webtoehobbit.4201:

I’m just tired of ANet’s imaginary hype. If there is nothing “big” for the following week, then be up front with us. But Rubi said there was something really special. Stop trying to hype something that isn’t there. We are all tired of it, stop treating us like kids.

If people would stop acting like kids, maybe they’d stop being treated that way.

Let’s talk about this “hype”. How many Anet employees said this? How many times was it mentioned?

Maybe to Ruby the rebuilding of LA is a huge thing. I know it is to Gaile. Gaile has a deep connection to LA. She used to run conga lines through the old LA back in the day in Guild Wars 1. I understand she was quite upset when it was destroyed.

So one person says one thing because they feel it and now this is like some kind of heavy-handed hyping.

Most of the type when Anet is accused of hyping something, it’s because one person said one thing somewhere. No one would survive in the real world if people treated what they said this way.

People stop acting like kids?

Okay, now I have a problem. And its not just you, but I wanted to quote this to highlight my point.

I really wish gamers would start acting like consumers and voting and speaking with their wallet instead of acting like junkies looking to score their next fix and taking what they’re given because we should “just be grateful we get it at all”. While in this case Anet doesn’t have to release any information, fans of GW2 don’t have to find that to be a good way of doing business. Anet doesn’t need to show us anything about HoT, and fans don’t need to give them praise or say they’re doing a good job.

While the issue with WvW stuff and LA being released this week instead of specs isn’t that big of a deal, I can understand if people are frustrated because this has been a running theme from Anet since the official reveal of HoT months ago. If you decide to tell fans you will be releasing information and will tell them about stuff as the weeks pass by, they’re going to expect some of it and so far the information hasn’t quite matched up to what many people expected. That doesn’t make them kids for thinking that.

Companies need criticism otherwise they will never really know what people want at all. I’m growing tired of so many people feeling they need to defend a company at all costs from any criticism they read as if their fragile egos will break and they’ll stop production. Everyone at Anet is getting paid. Getting paid to work on a video game at that. Our money is the only praise they really need. Add on to us being fans and telling them they do a good job at times is a bonus. But they also need to know when they are alienating a part of a fan base, or going back on their word about something, or making a mistake etc.

This mindset that we should all just be grateful for whatever we get is why gamers are rarely going to be given the best product someone could give us because they aren’t held to that standard anymore. If you buy a car and it dies on you under 100,000 miles, many people will hold that company accountable by either complaining, not buying the same one again or avoiding the company altogether. If a game isn’t quite what you expected, you shouldn’t necessarily feel the need to just shrug it off and throw more money at them to fix the problem.

Hopefully a free slot will be available for any package of HoT.

If not, I’m likely going to pass on it. It already seems a bit sparse in content from what I’ve seen released, and barring them selling it for $10 or $20, I can’t see paying for a quasi-expansion that I’d be forced to buy a character slot to experience one of the biggest features.

I agree with many of the points the OP makes. Much of the fun that they talked about in the beginning is no longer there and was certainly abandoned in favor of other things. No new dungeon content when it seemed like that was a major point in the beginning. Abandoning multiple story paths and even decreasing customization with simple things like focusing new skins on outfits and not armor skins.

Little things like that make me feel like they’re less worried about GW2 being fun and more about GW2 competing with playerbases of other games to be successful. Nothing wrong with that, but it makes me play the game less and less.

kuben.9826:

Mainhand shield is the most riddiculous thing I have seen EVER. Name me any fantasy (book, game whatever) where someone used 2 shields at once, for whole fight ofc.
What warhorn should do in mainhand? Big no.
Focus is focus and fist is fist. If they add fists, it’s fine, I’d like it. But leave focus in offhand.
Spear/trident as land weapons is k. If You rename harpoon gun, You’ll shoot with xbow underwater? It’s better to create whole set of xbows if there would be a need.

The only thing which is k is mainhand torch imo. But for mages only, optionally guardian.

Cao Ren in the Dynasty Warriors games used a main hand Shield.

They will likely spin it and maybe NPE is the reasoning they’ll publicly state, but I’m almost positive this is done to make balancing a lot easier since they now will be using less resources for living story and updates and more on pumping out expansions. Many of these changes the expansion will bring will likely be in part due to Anet knowing that they won’t have as many people working on fixes and balance issues, so they’re going to try and make it easier for them.

I really don’t see how separating stats from traits, which is a great idea, would necessarily have to be done in such a limited and restrictive fashion unless its in part being done to decrease the number of things they’ll have to balance.

Well I’m not trying to be overly critical, but nearly 10% less options is still less customization and is still the point I was making. Thats not an illusion.

The issue you’re commenting on, about this introducing more builds that will likely be competitive, is different. Not every player is interested in being viable since not every player is going to play with someone other than friends. I know quite a few players who will only play with friends or solo. Those players aren’t going to be concerned with making sure their build is considered good or bad.

But I get it. People see some increased stats and damage potential so now there will be a handful of newer builds that might be asked for in dungeons and WvW, and thats a good thing. I just don’t think anyone should continue to try and treat it like its increasing overall customization.

I honestly don’t understand how people can always convince themselves that limiting options actually “increases” choice and customization.

You can say all you want about whether or not the changes will be good for the game, but you can’t claim that limiting a player’s options increases customization.

I’ve definitely noticed less players in certain parts of the game. There are some maps where I’ve barely run into anyone even during events.