Guild Wars 2

Just want to add in my 2 cents, No thank you to gear grind.
The biggest part of this game that’s supposed to give the feeling of progression is leveling and than mastery system. Which despite my own issues with the mastery system I still think it’s leagues better than typical gear progression.

As I’m diving more into HOT I’m realizing more of why people are complaining about difficulty. Don’t get me wrong, I like mobs having interesting mechanics and I like challenging maps. (although, I will admit HOT content is gett’in my sheeze but I think that’s because my gear isn’t that great) What I don’t like is being forced to learn certain things in a certain order in order to travel through the maps when before I didn’t have to. (aka the mastery system) I had choices on how I could do things in the other maps in the base game. While in these maps I don’t + if I want to learn certain mastery’s I HAVE to do them in HOT maps.

So far I feel like HOT stripped away a lot of the freedoms that the base game gave. So the difficulty and challenge isn’t really in the players hands anymore but game’s. Like before, if I wanted to do a dungeon, or a jumping puzzle (which I love). Those where challenges that are there and I can chose if I want to do them or not. If I didn’t want to, well, I wasn’t missing anything in terms of personal progression or story. Now, if I don’t do HOT maps. I’m missing not only personal story but also mastery points & features attached to those mastery points.

Idk, I think if they made it to where there wasn’t mastery points that you HAD the learn in HOT. I don’t think there would be as many complaints. ’cause than people can learn in other maps and than apply those skills in the HOT maps. Which would possibly make them easier to process for the player.

So I just finished the main story a few days ago and tried to jump right into Heart of Thorns. What threw me off wasn’t the mob mechanics or the difficulty. It was the way they went about story telling.

I actually liked the simple way they did the story telling in the base game. I liked having a personal story where I went into the instances. Now it just rolls out the dialogue while I’m awkwardly wondering when it’s done and if other players are hearing it. I know to some it’s not a big deal but it just kind of breaks the immersion factor for me.

Idk, I wish they kind of just expanded on things instead of trying to just reinvent them entirely. Like instead of the weird language thing they did for HOT. Maybe something where you can get to know characters and the more you talk with them they give you certain items or information or maybe even unique skills and or emotes.

Edit: Just, more options in general to make the story feel more personal to the player. To clarify the point I’m getting at.

I’d love player housing or, maybe just expansion on the current home instance so you can customize it aesthetically.