I can see both sides, It can be frustrating when you are doing certain content and the general experience level is below average. Especially HoT content and fractals. I blame this mostly on Anet allowing players to start in HoT without playing the rest of the game before progressing to harder areas. Fractals on the other hand, no sympathy, if you join 50+ and dunno what to do, don’t say you don’t know what to do, and then proceed to not contribute then I can understand frustration, there is a point in the game and area of progression where there is a level of presumed knowledge, I don’t approve of salty chat or belittling players though, that’s just weak and poor form, it’s quicker and easier to tell the person what needs to be done than cause aggro, I mean seriously grow the kitten up.
HoT zones tend to produce the most toxic atmosphere in the game. You have a lot of new / returning players in the zone who are trying to unlock elites / masteries. The HoT elitist crowd can and definitely do mock people in chat.
There are also really nice players in the HoT zones running HP trains and other events for newbies / returning players as well thou. You have a crapshoot thou in which type of players on your map you end up with unless you use the lfg tool. But new / returning players do not know that you really should be using lfg to avoid the elitists.
ANet has demonstrated in the past that they track a lot of data (I remember in the one-year anniversary blog seeing that Risen Thralls had caused the most defeats). Whether changes need to be made might be determined by stuff like:
65% of players complete story instance X with no defeats; 25% complete it with 1 defeat; 8% complete it with multiple defeats and 2% fail to complete it after multiple defeats.
or
15% of players complete story instance X with no defeats; 23% complete it with one defeat; 27% complete it with multiple defeats; and 35% fail to complete it after multiple defeats.
I’d be inclined to decide, were I in charge, that the former scenario is acceptable, but the latter isn’t.
You would normally take the completion total across the series of story instances. HoT threw several blocks along the way involving masteries at first. Grinding out masteries is more tedious than hard so does not fit this topic. However, there is a huge difficulty / bug spike at Hearts and Minds as well. I would be interesting in seeing what % of players have completed that one.
And it takes empathy to understand that the VAST majority of people having trouble in any situation are not going to admit it. Look at the running joke about men not asking for directions.
Sure, there will be some people who are too embarrassed to admit they’re having trouble. However, you are VASTly underestimating the fact that people are very likely to squawk if they think a product is cheating them. Ask anyone who works in retail.
Numbers are always hard due to you have a self selecting group doing most activities. Players have to care quite a bit otherwise they just leave. Even Metacritic for HoT which is split 70% positive / 30% negative is not a great indicator for this reason. In regards to toxic players, they exist especially on forums. The easiest path is to just ignore them in regards to real discussions.
The main issue for developers is what groups do they want to attract and how to provide content for those groups. For most games I would expect single player story events to be casual, map meta events to be harder, and finally organized play (fractals / raids) to be the significantly more challenging. With more players, you significantly more safety nets thus higher challenge is required in order to keep a reasonable chance of failure.
Since the OP was from a pvper, I can understand that being forced to do coordinated pve events in order to be viable in pvp was annoying. HoT very much catered to the coordinated pve oriented players from raids to meta events. There really was not much content for other types of players.
HoT is my least favorite MMO expansion for a reason. Arena Net deliberately set out to make moving around the world difficult aka swarms of pocket raptors, multiple smokestacks, etc. Soloing champions is a pain in the behind. The Mordy fight is another example of just how badly designed the expansion is. I just cannot recommend that people pick up Heart of Thorns.
Path of Fire on the other hand looks to be a much better expansion. I hope that Arena Net designed content for all types of players this time.
Loving the game as always, looking forward to the expansion. I am finally playing through Living World season 3 and there is a lot of content there, so congrats and thanks for that! There is one problem, though, which has plagued many missions in Guild Wars 2.
Story missions, especially those with bosses, are way too hard or unfair for solo players.
Yeah, yeah, this is a MMO and blablabla but I bet there are tons of players out there that queue alone and try the story missions. It sucks that a lot of bosses can destroy you so fast. I think that some of them would be okay for 2-3 players but in solo play you just hit your head against the wall, respawn and go at it again. The design is so bad that it doesn´t matter if you die – you can respawn, the boss has the same health as before then you just continue fighting it, dying and repeating.
I think some mobs could be scaled down for single player play and a lot of bosses could do less damage – maybe even as far as 40-50% less damage.
Thanks!
I do think that games benefit from having different challenge levels for different sets of players. There are players who have very busy lives that limits playtime. On the other hand, you have players who play constantly and base their self worth on beating game challenges. The base game tilted towards the former while Heart of Thorns tilts towards the latter.
I am interested in seeing how Arena Net handles Path of Fire. The new elites look fun and the new areas look nice. Is there content for both types of players, I am not sure.
GW2 will never be able to match the depth, complexity, and agency of CRPGS like Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, Baulder’s Gate, etc. I’m not slamming the writers, either: it’s just too much for an MMO to take in unless it is centered on roleplaying (Ultima Online). I liken the story to watching the Power Rangers show while the game is buying the toys and hanging with your friends.
I do partly agree with this, although Secret World has done it exceptionally well. That is partly because it tells a story indirectly, which builds towards a greater narrative and partly because horror works better that way.
What GW2 does exceptionally well, is in the open world stories. Verdant Brink is a great example as are most of the LS3 maps. There are also some brilliant map stories throughout the core maps as well. Here the writers are able to let themselves go a lot more and fantasy is much better suited to short, concise stories as well, rather than the bloated episodic, serial style it has (as a genre) devolved sadly into.
Whilst the writers get a huge amount of flak for the central story, often justifiably, they get nowhere near enough credit for the vastly superior map stories they create.
I fall a little in between. I have enjoyed both the main story line in Vanilla GW2 (still bitter over Sieran being replaced thou) and HoT as well as the map stories in LW3. The story telling is what has brought me back to playing GW2 and I definitely want Arena Net to continue.
Yeah, I would like my longbow to be viable in pve again. I made a ranger to have “range” capabilities not to be a melee / healer with a pet. Rangers having such poor power scaling is an issue.
Fair enough if you didn’t enjoy HoT because you didn’t like navigation with bouncing shrooms / gliding, difficulty of mobs etc. That’s all subjective stuff, some people like me enjoyed all that, and of course some people didn’t.
But this part
(soloing hero points because nobody plays this game anymore).
Don’t really see how you’ve reached the conclusion that “nobody plays this game anymore”. Maps still have regular HP trains, the LFG always has several groups listed for active meta maps, and even a simple call for help in map chat (long as it’s asked nicely) get’s players together.
edit – one thing worth pointing out as well, is with the whole context of the story of HoT, it makes perfect sense why the maps aren’t as relaxing to explore as the core ones. The whole place is an inhospitable jungle that’s effectively alive/being controlled, where everything is corrupted and trying to kill you. So the atmosphere of relaxing exploration wouldn’t really fit with the story or environment, a jungle should be a labyrinth that’s easy to get lost in if you don’t know the way. (not saying people should enjoy that, but just that it makes sense why it is the way it is)
I can understand where he is coming with the comment. I have been on a couple of very active maps trying to get HPs on my alts. People are busy following the meta train so I was left to solo champions. One mistake and you get to start over. The process can be very frustrating. So while the map is actually pretty full, you are pretty much by yourself. This is very different from the beginning of the xpac when everyone was doing the HPs.
Yeah, I just returned as well. The HoT maps are pretty punishing and not that fun for me as well. I like the elite specs from HoT thou so I get the chore of trying to get my alts from one champion spawning HP to another champion spawning HP in the HoT maps.
My advice is to skip as many mobs as possible. HoT mobs are just not worth fighting unless they are part of an event. I make sure to run some type of condi cleansing ability as well.
Having returned just recently, I truly dislike the HoT maps as well. They are very tedious and painful especially on an alt that you are trying to get the HP on. Who thought soloing champions was a good idea? My favorite has to be the mastery point where the mobs spawned so fast I spent several cycles just killing them over and over to get the point. Moving from place to place feels more like a chore than fun. I can understand that some people like grinding but for me this is just bad design.
I have enjoyed the HoT elite specs but the HoT maps are extremely tedious. I would like to recommend this to friends but I cannot due to the poor map quality. I have liked what I have seen of PoF a lot more so far. I am looking forward to that expansion.
This is the wrong question.
YOU NEED TO ASK:
WHY DO YOU REGRET BUYING HO?.
I have regretted buying Heart of Thorns many times. The HoT maps are very anti casual and focused on the elitist style of play. I play irregularly so I am mostly a solo player. Trying to get skill points and mastery points is like beating your head against a desk. The story being gated behind mastery acquisition grinding. My breaking point came when I had to kill the same mobs over and over again to try and get the mastery point due to their ridiculous respawn timer.
I am another one that is back to try Path of Fire. I like the connection back to GW1. The mount that I got to try was interesting. I like the idea of learning to get better with your mount.
HoT on the other hand was a very anti casual and elitist focused expansion. I have played a lot of different games and Heart of Thorns is easily my most disliked expansion. After how much I liked the base GW2, HoT was truly a disappointment.
Edit: I am a person who does not have a large amount of time to play. Crossing the HoT maps is extremely tedious and not fun. Mastery points were the mobs respawn faster that my under geared character can kill them really irritated me. Heart of Thorns was like Arena Net statement that casual players just do not count.
Had to do the dance again yesterday:
Show up 10 minutes before.
Pray LFG gets posted.
Yay, LFG posted, join.
Go to map.
“Join” the other map.
…Success. This time.
Wait for timer to run out.
DIE
Get unlucky and end up in a second map. Oh No!
“Join” the other map, AGAIN.
Proceed to moderately successful Dragon Stand run.
Bonus: At no point, out of 40 caches/pods, do I get more than 1 Crystalline Ore. Not a 3-drop, and certainly not a 10-drop.
ANet, I love you, but this needs to be fixed! It’s easier on the code to give ceil(sqrt(rand()*100)) ore than to contrive a 2% drop rate for anything more than 1.
I had forgotten how much I disliked the HoT maps until I came back and attempted to got on one. Of all the games I have played, HoT is my most disliked expansion. HoT still remains very anti casual and elitist focused. For someone who really enjoyed base GW2, HoT was such a huge disappointment.
That being said, I am looking forward to Path of Fire. I like what I have seen so far of PoF. Hopefully, Arena Net included content for everybody this time.
Still no word on the impact of Colin’s leave in the visual nerf matter. Anet I’m begging you, I truly, honestly can’t play my elementalist in this situation, it’s pathetically lackluster without the original effects!
I really, really hate my fire pea shooter animation still. I want the old animation back. I am hoping whoever steps into Colin’s position gets this fixed.
Okay, I am going to say this very plainly. I despise the current trait unlocking system. I will not create any new characters while this terrible system remains in place. Now, normally I would buy the new expansion and create a new character with the new class (ala buying a new slot as well). However, I will not while the current trait system or something that resembles it is in place.
Please note, that I do really like the game. The current trait system is just awful.
I think the original system was fine. Certainly fine enough for the game to be incredibly popular and sell like hot cakes.
Revert to that.
I agree. The original system was so much better. I really want to support Arenanet and pickup the expansion and new character slot for the new class. However, I really, really dislike this trait system. I will not roll a new character till this is fixed. This reduces my desire for the expansion quite a bit.
The main problem I have with the GW2 zerker or burst meta is that makes gearing so boring for pve. There are absolutely no gearing decisions to be made. No real reason to think in 99% of pve, just grab zerker and go zerg. I like the action elements of the game, but there is no reason for the other stat combos in pve.
Okay, let me start by saying I like most of this update. However, I do despise the trait update piece. My non 80 level toons feel heavily nerfed with very little customization to boot. Not to mention, the lack of a reward when gaining a level makes leveling feel kind of worthless. The stacking of traits so heavily towards 80 makes the sub 80 game almost feel like a chore to play. I worry about the impressions of game will make now on new players. GW2 use to be fun from 1 to 80, now the sub 80 game is pretty painful.
Bombs and nades are boring Fun Flamethrower build getting nerfed see no point in trying to continue to lvl my engie
Your suggesting the FT or some specific build of it is getting nerfed? What build? And where is the information about it being nerfed. I generally stay on top of upcoming changes, and I have seen nothing that would nerf the FT. I need a link to evidence of this, or I am going to have ot call shenanigans.
FT builds are really being hit hard by the Incendiary Powder change. The loss of 10% damage from FT 1 while burning is significant.
I do like the personal story. I do the personal story on my alts when I just want to relax. Yes, the personal story is not SWToR level of twists/turns/choices, but the personal story can be fun and relaxing.
Raiding creates a ton of problems on gear balance. If you have increased pve gear then you need increasing pvp gear. Otherwise, your pve players end up dominating pvp which is BS. Eventually, gear becomes greater than skill in pvp which is also BS. The situation turns to junk in a heartbeat. Just say no to raiding.
I really do not want a gear gating mechanism ever put into place. The content needed to challenge those folks leads to a very stale experience for everyone else. Just say no to gear gating!
