A few tips:
1) After first entering the map from Auric Basin, you do a little jump puzzle near the start and take a few wind gusts up to the Great Tree. This allows you to fly over to Ogre Camp and bypass the confusing depths entirely.I hate this zone, but this sounds like just the help I need to get a better start on it when I enter. The problem is, I can’t find the “little jump puzzle” mentioned. Any advice?
Sort of straight ahead through the camp, where the path splits several ways and you see your first mordrem. There’s a tree with kitten in the trunk. You glide to the hole from a nearby rocky outcropping. On the other side of the hole you can reach the updraft. There is also a hero point you can glide to when you reach the top of the tree.
Interesting to see a “before and after” perspective. It seems like there was more hate for TD several months ago than there is today, with several people saying they hated it at first but rather enjoy it now that they know their way around.
Count me along with the others who love maps like TD and VB. I do hope they show some love to the people who don’t appreciate these maps, but I would hate to see the next expansion feature only flat maps. I’m hooked on this kind of map design!
I find it hard to believe all these classes just use aa in raiding I mean seriously? That just doesnt make sense.
I’ve only seen a couple of raid bosses, but they seem to be more about the mechanics. You don’t typically stand in place for extended periods teeing off on the boss. For instance, whenever vale guardian spawns his blue teleport rings, I’m forced to evade. So I dodge backward, then immediately vault back into melee range. I also use vault frequently to leap over seekers and stay on the boss in the later phases.
It’s true you aren’t going to get much use out of staff 2, 3, and 4 in raids, though (although your utilities, heal, and elite skill come in plenty handy). But you have to keep in mind that thief doesn’t have cooldowns. They tend to spam attacks because they can. It’s how initiative works.
Wanted to add an explanation on how to fight the bladedancers, and some other things I thought might be helpful to a daredevil struggling in the jungle.
First, you need to be aware that all these guys want to do is stun you, and then wind up an attack that will basically kill you in one shot as a daredevil. Fortunately, they are very slow. If you’re fighting them solo, go ahead and eat the stun if you like. Just be ready on bandit’s defense, kick them in the face, and you should be able to take them down before they can do much to you.
You can also take these guys out with zero effort with a couple of doses of unload if you run p/p for your ranged set.
If paired with a shadowleaper, just get in close to the leaper to force it to leap backward as you would approach a solo leaper. Evade toward it (evade rather than steal in this instance, because if you attempt to steal during the backward leap you’ll miss and eat a face full of arrows for your trouble!) and you will put distance between yourself and the bladedancer. Take the leaper down and it’s back to an easy 1v1 against the slow and predictable bladedancer.
They also like to stealth at times. If you don’t have stealth detection unlocked, you won’t be able to see them coming. Just keep on the move and evading until they reveal themselves. The arrows will miss and you can take them down. You have endurance for days. Don’t forget to use it! It’s the cornerstone of your defensive strategy as a daredevil.
Other recommendations:
- Use staff because it deals the best damage to the most targets.
- Take crit strikes for invigorating precision because the more damage you deal, the more you heal.
- Take unhindered combat in the daredevil line for mobility.
- Use berserker or marauder gear.
Here’s what I usually run in open world HoT, if you’d like a template of a build that (at least for me) does extremely well in the jungle.
Hope it helps, and again feel free to hit me up if you want to run around the jungle some time. I’m always down to beat up some frogs!
Thank you all for the cogent responses. After reading the comments to date, I would like to make a few small clarifications. My primary concern is not one of difficulty. Well conceived challenging content is a good thing. I don’t want additional nerfs. What I ineffectively articulated was that the design choices in the expansion diminish population access, and when people express their frustration, it is not productive to engage in ad hominem attacks about their skill or understanding of what an MMO is.
Consider the first HOT map zone for example. Run out of endurance while gliding and fall to your death in pulsing vine twitch. This insta-kill feature is not present on later maps. Seems like an upside down design choice. Consider all of the character trapping map features in the wrecked ship canopy areas in the first zone. I typed in /stuck many many times. Consider all of the locked waypoints on all of the HOT maps (there has been improvement with this). Consider how movement becomes easier as you become more experienced – (an upside down player skill progression imo) when accessing areas. (Doesn’t it make more sense to need to develop skills to access the most challenging areas on later maps rather than the first map!) Consider how the terrain mesh and the 2d layered maps / minimap are purposefully obscure to make pathing difficult. Compound those concerns with convoluted 3d maps, group timer meta events, megaserver and lfg challenges, and it feels – that by design – HOT does not invite casual player drop in, play, drop out experiences.
Mob attack mechanics,placement and strength will always need to be tinkered with, so that’s not what I consider a HOT specific design issue. People are frustrated to some degree with that, I get it, but I think the underlying source of frustrations are about design choices and not difficulty.
I think the idea they were trying to go for with HoT maps was a “Metroidvania”-style progression with the masteries. The first time through the maps, you’re supposed to take your time and see what they have to offer, with a few things locked behind higher-level masteries to allow for re-exploration, and other upgrades making the maps easier to navigate to reduce the tedium of backtracking through the massive maps, once you’ve already explored the new details.
There’s a lot of fun to be had in opening and learning maps, and truly exploring them and how they fit together (instead of just “Go here to hit Point A”)
You know that makes sense after doing HoT but the thing to remember is this is an MMO which had its direction planned for in Core, changing the whole game into a Metroid type experience is jarring to be polite.
As a customer i personally hate Metroid and all the clones it made, i just dislike those style of games and i’m not interested in playing them..
Which probably explains why i hate Heart of Thorns with a passion.
Honestly, I just wonder how people fail.
It is a legitimate question. I see topics/posts with this content all the time:
“This stuff is too hard! I watched a video guide on what to do, but it didn’t work! I watched a build video, but it didn’t work! I got a group together and we still couldn’t do it! Nerf the content!”
And yet, each one of those things is a great asset to me. The biggest disadvantage to these threads is that, I don’t actually get to see the person who makes the claim play. I can’t critique them, and give them specific advice on how to help them deal with problems. I am expected to accept the notion that this player has reached some type of personal skill ceiling of which there will never be any improvement, and thus the game needs to cave to their demands.
And yet here I am, walking through hot in 8 out of 9 different classes, all in full glass cannon gear, and I’m not having a problem on any of them. I’m not exactly a “skilled player” either. In skill I’m rather average. I don’t encounter the problems that other people have. So, to give meaningful advice, I have to actually see the problem that someone is having.
If HoT is too hard, provide some type of evidence. A video of some kind, showing HoT being too hard.. That way, we can actually see the specific problems.
For me personally as a Daredevil the frog things are almost unbeatable, they are teleporting, unhittable and do incredible damage solo, in a pack i am dead.. i may as well stand still and let them kill me because even if i attempt to fight them the end is the same.
I tried to pass two on a vine in VB and was killed 10 times in a row didn’t even drop one of them in the 10 tries, that to me is broken mechanics and i move on, its no longer fun after 10 frustrating tries so i logout, i did not go back since.
Say what ever you like “l2p” “git gud” if you cannot pass something in 10 goes no amount of “git gud” will help.
I’m not trying top insult you, but I main daredevil. This is a skill issue. You need to understand how these enemies work and how to counter them.
First, they passively evade ranged attacks. So you want to keep on top of them. The first thing they’ll do when you close range is leap backward, evade, and fire a volley of arrows.
Counter this by dodging toward them so they land on top of you. The arrows will miss and you’ll be at melee range with the frog evade on cooldown.
If your damage isn’t good enough to take them down quickly enough, use stealth to avoid damage or stuns like impact strike to lock them down.
You can also bypass them completely by simply evading or stealthing past them.
Again, this isn’t a l2p post. Just a good faith attempt to help. If you’d like to see this demonstrated some time, hit me up in game.
Ddaredevil is honestly my most powerful open world class hands down. It totally dominates in the jungle.
The problem is a video won’t show the why of the failure.
I believe videos are the way to go here. You don’t have to make your own, just watch someone else’s. I’m too old to let myself be frustrated because I didn’t see someone else doing it first to get an idea of what I’m meant to do. This has saved me from several of the “adventures”, I took one look at someone doing them and was like.. naaah.. I’m not even going to bother attempting to do that.
Some of us are just not that good at the game. I look at builds and the rotations just go right over my head.
This is true. For various reasons. But what are rotations? My toons have that gathering tool that spins you around whilst gathering.. those? I jest.. I jest..
Get on metabattle and get a build. Then we can talk. Ready? Press 1. Sometimes 2. Often not 4. Because it’s PvE, walking into range, killing mob, aggroing the next mob and turning around and running away are all the rotation you need.I can’t get movement and combat at the same time down, so there goes kiting if I’m alone.
My wife can just about move and steer – movement controls and mouse. I haven’t tried to get her to shoot anything yet. She is currently parked in Rata Sum at a bank and last time I stood over her to get her to move from one side of the room to the other, she laughed hysterically for about five minutes. I have no idea why, moving isn’t that funny. She then spent five minutes seeing how far away from her pet and mini she could get before they’d follow her. What can I say.. I didn’t marry her for her gaming skills.
Most mobs can be shot stationary from range. Most mobs can be chopped to bits stationary. They’re not that smrt. Alternatively the other take away from this is stop doing it alone. Or if you have to do it alone AND can’t walk and move, play a ranger and let your pet tank.I could very likely L2P may way out of my issues. But the frustration that it would cause would remove all of the fun from the game for me
You 100% could. Some of them anyway. I play with arrow keys on my left hand, mouse for pointing with and firing in my right. If you can’t do this or anything resembling this kind of movement and have to essentially walk OR fire because of a really good reason (you only have one hand for instance) then I don’t think you can really learn from anything I could show you, you need specialist devices. Otherwise learning to run and gun is something you can learn and should learn for any game, not just this one. Some stuff you can’t learn imho but movement and firing is just keybinding and practice as long as you have functional limbs. Practice outside of HoT first. Don’t learn to fight in HoT cos smokescales, frogs, arrowheads, raptors.. they’ll all kill you whilst you’re learning.
I haven’t really played much in HoT maps so I can’t really say if they are too hard. My frustration level required for me to rage quit is not that high.
They are and they aren’t. If you can jump and move, you can glide. If you can run and gun, you can either shoot stuff or run past stuff. If you can figure out the basics of the new maps then they’re a lot of fun. Watch videos of each map. Watch them in chunks because the maps can be done in sections. Don’t have to memorise a 40 minute run. But those 40 minute runs… they’re being done by kids with glass cannon builds, you don’t have to fight your way round the map unless you want to.
Find a zerg. You don’t have to join the squad or party or even talk to anyone. Soloing with people is an excellent way to add some defence to your playtime and will give you loot and event completion rewards that you wouldn’t have got otherwise. Look for people in LFG to see where the zerg is. Once on a map, look in chat for people doing something you want to do, hero and mastery points are always best done in groups, even when marked as solo.
Watching does nothing for me. The only way it would be remotely useful for me is if they did a dual with the game and the keyboard/mouse. Seeing the effects on the screen or the keyboard/mouse by itself will not tell me how to better play. And how one person plays is the worst for someone else. Because people have different reaction times and internet connection speeds. I’m very very hands on learning. I have to actually DO it to learn it.
That’s the thing, that’s what I do and I still die. So it’s obviously not as easy as that. Please find me and link me a build that literally says do whatever skills you want for the rotation. All of the ones I’ve seen, dictate which skill when and when to switch attunement/weapon.
One on one I can typically handle stationary in HoT, it’s just when I do dodge out of the way I end up aggroing something else. I only have issues in the areas where the enemies are close together where it’s easy to get multiple enemies aggroed. And I’ve got a stubborn streak. I want to do 100% map completion and story completion on my first character. Which is an elementalist. I don’t want to get through the maps and go this is easy because my pet tanked it and then be worse off on my other characters that don’t have a ready made tank.
I don’t have an aversion to doing it alone and I don’t typically do so. It’s just I don’t want to have to group to do my personal story. That’s when I get into the most trouble. I have maybe one or two of the hero challenges on the first map because I stumbled upon them.
The problem with learning outside of HoT to move and fight is I’ve gotten good enough to not need to move and fight at the same time for 99.9% of core Tyria. And the only way I’ll ever learn it is if I need to do it at the same time. Which means HoT maps. And a mouse with numbers on the side.
That’s the thing, my frustration gets to rage quit levels insanely quickly. I can die maybe once or twice before I rage quit, especially if it takes me 10 minutes to get back to where I was because I can’t remember how I got there in the first place.
But I also don’t feel ANet needs to make the maps any easier. I realize I’ve got a L2P issue that’s mental (no physical disability and no internet issues). Mostly I currently don’t want to put forth the time to do so (doesn’t sound appealing and games are supposed to be fun) and between work and minor cold/allergies I haven’t had the right mindset to do so.
It also doesn’t help that I’ll play for an hour a so for a few weeks and then go a few weeks with just logging in to get the daily log in rewards. Because I’ve found something else to play (I hop from game to game or from game to Netflix).
I don’t know if this will help you, but one issue unique to elementalists is their inability to weapon swap. So if you’re using d/x, you’re locked into melee to deal damage. This is a big handicap in HoT as there are some enemies which are far more dangerous at melee range. It’s not impossible to fight them at close range, but it increases the chances of having problems significantly and likely contributes to that uncomfortable feeling that the jungle masters you rather than the other way around!
If that is an issue for you, try using the staff more in open world. I think it’s a lot easier to work with due to the range.
I am an experienced casual player. 13K APs, 950 WVW rank, Closer to the Stars, done dungeons, raids, crafted ascended gear etc, etc. I’ve read quite a few honest postings about frustrations with HOT, and the trend in responses has been to respond to the OP by saying “learn to play better” or “I did it just fine, there is something the matter with you.”
I personally find HOT uninviting as a solo PVE player. It lacks the difficulty progression structure present in most games. It demands group (zerg) participation for individual rewards. It requires the development of mobility masteries to effectively access map areas efficiently. It loads the player with an ocean of inventory filling currencies or keys. It creates an unprecedented level of grind for goals.
I’ve completed the HOT personal story with a rev, and moved partially through with 4 other characters.
I’ve completed the new specializations with all classes. I find them fun and interesting additions to the game (imo the best part of the expansion) – getting HOT HPs pretty annoying of course. I must admit, I turned in some WVW credits to unlock some HOT HPs.
I was really looking forward to HOT, but am truly ambivalent about the expansion maps at this point – even with the nerfs.
I find myself now checking in, hitting the daily and getting out.
Pretty sure I won’t buy another GW2 expansion – especially if it follows the map design and skill progression structure HOT model. It’s a shame – I am a long time dedicated GW player – sorry to see the franchise pick this path.
My core point is, telling an OP that is frustrated with HOT to “L2P” or “I did it, what is the matter with you?” is missing the mark. There are authentic design departures here, and they are not friendly to the casual player.
I agree with you on players telling others L2P. It’s unnecessary and I think there are some tweaks they could make that would make the jungle maps more palatable to players who find the difficulty a bit much and unlocking HPs/Masteries tedious.
Having said that, I really feel players who become immediately impatient with the jungle maps are missing out. Maybe it isn’t your cup of tea, and I wholly encourage ANet to take that into account in the future by producing content for everyone (flat maps and non-flat maps for all tastes, please!). But personally, I was extremely impressed with the exploration aspect of HoT. TD and VB in particular are works of art that I’d love to see more of in the future.
I suppose if you’re immediately frustrated upon entering these maps and don’t much like the idea of taking your time learning your way around and unlocking the required masteries, but I thought this was a “casual” game? What’s the rush?
The core game features map completion which, as a former WoW player I can’t fathom why anyone would be interested in slogging through. After all, there is no challenge in core map completion for the most part. It’s just a massive grind. Why is that “good” while TD et al are “bad”?
I also agree with others who point out that, since the last major patch the jungle maps are far more solo-friendly. Most of the events can be done solo or in a small group of 2-3 players. Only a handful of events aren’t like this, including the big event at the end of the cycle. But those events are hardly a “zerg”. They require a fair amount of coordination.
But to each their own. You don’t like the maze-like vertical maps and more difficult event-based content. I love it. I wasn’t here pre-HoT, but I got through the core game as quickly as possible and spend most of my time in HoT open world. I wish there were more to do there, but the events are a lot of fun, the rewards are decent, and navigating what used to be an impossible maze like it’s nothing feels rewarding, too.
2. Timed maps. Dragons stand I think was the worse design I personally ever saw any game developer come up with. 2 hour meta event? Any adult does not have time for things like that after getting home from work yet alone getting into a map. Silverwastes was designed wonderfully to the fact you can taxi people in easier, the idea was more simple and could complete the meta with in a playable duration for most people.
I thought this at first too. But I’ve successfully done the meta from complete start to finish in about an hour. Plus sometimes I’ll zone into a map with no one on it, check Open World LFG, see people asking for bodies in an active map, join up, and already be at the Tower event right before the Mordremoth fight. That’s exactly what happened last night, in fact. Was easy loot and XP.
DS is one of my favorite maps quite honestly. If I can’t get into one with an active meta, I go to Auric Basin, my 2nd favorite.
I’m the opposite. My favorite maps are TD and VB. I dislike DS most of all. The rush to the boss seems to take forever, and there are too many people involved. I feel like my contribution is minimal. It’s just a long, boring run for me.
I also enjoy the exploration aspects of all of these maps, but again find VB and TD the more interesting maps to explore. Learning the tricks to getting around in these maps felt very rewarding.
On difficulty, I’m pleased with it overall. I think it could be toned down a bit in places, but not too much. I’ve found some classes that I enjoyed leveling were less enjoyable in HoT because the difficulty forced me out of a preferred playstyle. This was a particular problem with classes that I didn’t like the ranged option for, as it seems essential to be able to drop back and deal damage from range at times.
Scaling? They did fix most of the more obnoxious instances of poor event scaling, I think. But I suppose if they could get the scaling down perfect, you could have most events be solo and then scale up as more players arrive.
All in all, I’m enjoying HoT. And if I could get a new map or two like VB and TD now and then, I think I’d be a happy camper. But it’s obvious that not everyone agrees that maps like VB and TD are a good thing. So why not mix it up a bit and offer something for everyone? I’m not interested in more flat maps, but there are plenty of players who prefer them.
I just got a mesmer to 80 myself. I wouldn’t say it feels powerful as the damage seems low, especially if you’re using greatsword – which I highly recommend in open world HoT! Self-healing is also fairly limited, but mesmer seems quite survivable anyway.
The illusions are highly effective at distracting enemies and greatsword’s range makes it difficult for them to reach you. You also have plenty of tricks like blink, decoy, etc. to make it that much more difficult when you need to.
I’m still playing around with builds but the illusions + greatsword combo seems effective in pretty much any configuration.
I like daredevil.
^^ Some achievements are able to be done solo so what are you talking about?
The constant referrals to use the LFG tool when it does not help the situation.
The referrals for looking for groups are for meta events. We’ve always had events in the game that require more than one person. Most people can’t solo temples in Orr. No one can solo triple threat or the Silverwastes. No one can get to Tier 6 solo in Dry Top. No one could solo the Marionette.
The only real contention here is achievment point, some of which can be soloed anyway and others an be soloed if you’re really good…but they give ten times the amount of hero points of the easy HPs in the core game. It’s a fair trade off.
The interesting question here is why do almost all of the meta-events in core that require larger numbers not involve taxis (Teq and TriWurm, maybe Shatt now faik being the exceptions, though I’ve not seen Shatt taxis)? Why do all the HoT metas require you to get lucky that there is a taxi offered and that you can actually join in?
My guess is that the meta bosses in core can be done with smaller numbers, so unless there’s only a couple of people there, the players are content to do it with a smaller set, whereas with both HoT and the 2 (maybe 3) in core is that both: having players who know what to do; and having a really large number are both seen as important. I’ve seen Grenth (the current iteration) done with 4 people. I don’t know any of the HoT stuff that scales that low.
Personally, while I understand the taxi phenomenon, I find the whole thing spotty in success, tedious and frustrating. When I zone into a Hot map, it’s 5-out-of-6 that I will need to taxi to have a chance at success, and a 1-in-3 the taxi will work out. I don’t know if it’s my bad luck or what, but I find the process by which we’re supposed to be able to have fun to be arguably the worst implementation of accessibility I’ve seen in an MMO — at least for currently relevant content.
It’s because the mega server doesn’t work right in the new zones and they’re working on it.
My guess is in testing, they have one server and didn’t use a mega server, probably because there aren’t enough testers. The megaserver therefore wouldn’t have gotten properly tested until it went live. They had no reason to believe it wouldn’t behave properly.
There are people working on the issue and they have been for months. It’s not done yet. My guess is that when it’s fixed, it’ll be less of a problem.
Also people do have to use the LFG tool often in SW because very often the map you’re on isn’t doing the meta, they’re running chests. And I’ve often had to use the LFG tool to get a higher tier server in Dry Top.
I’m relatively sure the next expansion will move in a completely different direction since this one didn’t work as well as Anet had hoped.
If what you say is true, I hope they won’t go too far in a different direction. I think the events in HoT are pretty awesome when players participate. If the reason you can’t just zone in and leap right into the action really is due entirely to this megaserver issue you speak of, then if they can fix that these new maps should be really nice!
The other complaints seem to be mostly focused on the group hero points. I wouldn’t be opposed to making them more accessible to solo players, or perhaps just reducing the number of hero points required to unlock the elite spec so that players can more easily pick and choose which hero points they want to go for. As I recall, I had to complete more than half of the hero point challenges in HoT to unlock my elite spec which really made it difficult to avoid group hero challenges.
So yeah, I’m not sure I agree that drastic change is necessary. The maps are good. The events are good. It seems like working out the kinks in the megaserver system and maybe lightening up some of the requirements for unlocking masteries/hero points would go a long way toward fixing the issues most players seem to have with HoT.
I think a lot of people object to playing on the clock. We’ve got enough of that now, I’d be happy to see them go away from that and provide more freedom.
So you’re saying remove the time so events proceed as players complete them rather than at their own pace? That’s how it works in older maps right?
^^ Some achievements are able to be done solo so what are you talking about?
The constant referrals to use the LFG tool when it does not help the situation.
The referrals for looking for groups are for meta events. We’ve always had events in the game that require more than one person. Most people can’t solo temples in Orr. No one can solo triple threat or the Silverwastes. No one can get to Tier 6 solo in Dry Top. No one could solo the Marionette.
The only real contention here is achievment point, some of which can be soloed anyway and others an be soloed if you’re really good…but they give ten times the amount of hero points of the easy HPs in the core game. It’s a fair trade off.
The interesting question here is why do almost all of the meta-events in core that require larger numbers not involve taxis (Teq and TriWurm, maybe Shatt now faik being the exceptions, though I’ve not seen Shatt taxis)? Why do all the HoT metas require you to get lucky that there is a taxi offered and that you can actually join in?
My guess is that the meta bosses in core can be done with smaller numbers, so unless there’s only a couple of people there, the players are content to do it with a smaller set, whereas with both HoT and the 2 (maybe 3) in core is that both: having players who know what to do; and having a really large number are both seen as important. I’ve seen Grenth (the current iteration) done with 4 people. I don’t know any of the HoT stuff that scales that low.
Personally, while I understand the taxi phenomenon, I find the whole thing spotty in success, tedious and frustrating. When I zone into a Hot map, it’s 5-out-of-6 that I will need to taxi to have a chance at success, and a 1-in-3 the taxi will work out. I don’t know if it’s my bad luck or what, but I find the process by which we’re supposed to be able to have fun to be arguably the worst implementation of accessibility I’ve seen in an MMO — at least for currently relevant content.
It’s because the mega server doesn’t work right in the new zones and they’re working on it.
My guess is in testing, they have one server and didn’t use a mega server, probably because there aren’t enough testers. The megaserver therefore wouldn’t have gotten properly tested until it went live. They had no reason to believe it wouldn’t behave properly.
There are people working on the issue and they have been for months. It’s not done yet. My guess is that when it’s fixed, it’ll be less of a problem.
Also people do have to use the LFG tool often in SW because very often the map you’re on isn’t doing the meta, they’re running chests. And I’ve often had to use the LFG tool to get a higher tier server in Dry Top.
I’m relatively sure the next expansion will move in a completely different direction since this one didn’t work as well as Anet had hoped.
If what you say is true, I hope they won’t go too far in a different direction. I think the events in HoT are pretty awesome when players participate. If the reason you can’t just zone in and leap right into the action really is due entirely to this megaserver issue you speak of, then if they can fix that these new maps should be really nice!
The other complaints seem to be mostly focused on the group hero points. I wouldn’t be opposed to making them more accessible to solo players, or perhaps just reducing the number of hero points required to unlock the elite spec so that players can more easily pick and choose which hero points they want to go for. As I recall, I had to complete more than half of the hero point challenges in HoT to unlock my elite spec which really made it difficult to avoid group hero challenges.
So yeah, I’m not sure I agree that drastic change is necessary. The maps are good. The events are good. It seems like working out the kinks in the megaserver system and maybe lightening up some of the requirements for unlocking masteries/hero points would go a long way toward fixing the issues most players seem to have with HoT.
Check the ratio of crate to crowbar— it’s huge!! Unless you refuse to open crates, you can’t keep crowbars in inventory. And now, of course, you’re “stuck” with an “airship cargo” in your home space—-a crate that can’t be opened UNLESS you continue to repeat the VB events———————and how does that make any sense??
I don’t think that’s accurate. I find when I’m running events in VB, just stopping to hit the airship cargo I find along the way isn’t enough to clear through my crowbars. It’s only when I ignore events that I start to burn through them.
Having said that, I don’t disagree with the request. The others can all be purchased. Why not these as well?
I know it isn’t what you’re asking for, but since you happen to play the same class, I thought I’d post the setup I use in the jungle. I think it works really well. I feel like I can take on almost anything with my thief!
A quick rundown:
Channeled vigor and the agility signet both refill endurance. Paired with daredevil, this translates into essentially endless dodging. Better yet, dodging provides full uptime swiftness and breaks movement impairing effects so nothing can ever pin you down.
The only thing left to defend are stuns. Bandit’s defense is a short cooldown stun break with a nice block following it, giving you time to get to safety. It also doubles as a stun if you manage to block an attack with it!
Impact strike is great for breakbars, does strong damage, and has both an interrupt and a knockdown in the chain. This is great when going up against powerful veterans. You can lock them down for a couple of seconds and chew through their health bar worry-free!
Staff is great area effect damage. Your AA is very effective and the final part of the chain even reflects projectiles! You can use staff 2 to apply weakness with decent damage or staff 4 if you want a blind for less damage. Staff 5 is a huge leaping area effect with partial evade. It’s a very easy weapon set to use and the damage is so high enemies won’t have much of a chance to deal a lot of damage to you.
How to use it? If you’re fighting several enemies, use staff 2 or 4 to reduce the damage you take so you can hang in a little longer. For many enemies you only need a few seconds to take them out and the 15% heal on crit from invigorating precision will allow you the time you need in most cases.
When it isn’t enough and you’re taking heavy damage, dodge backward and vault forward into your enemies. With this setup your vault should crit for a good 8-10k with no boons, which not only deals a lot of damage to up to 5 enemies, but the 15% heal after evading is usually all you need to top off and resume killing.
Anyway, I know it isn’t what you wanted to hear. Just trying to help!
The thing is ascended armor doesn’t really increase your performance much. Your traits, utilities, sigils/runes, and weapon set are far more important. So there’s really no reason you should feel compelled to grind just for ascended. The only activity this gear is strictly necessary for are high level fractals for AR, and from what I’ve heard if you’re interested in running fractals, you can get ascended gear as you move up the fractal tiers. I’m sure they don’t just give it to you, but what’s the rush?
I can understand your frustration with HoT, but you might want to give it a chance. You mentioned you play a thief. That’s my class! I started playing GW2 this year and thief is my favorite so far. So I can relate to the problems you’re having. When I first arrived in the jungle I really hit a wall. I was dying just trying to reach the next waypoint, forget about soloing champions or hero points!
After learning my way around, familiarizing myself with the jungle enemies, and unlocking daredevil, staff, and some of the masteries things started to get a lot easier for me. In fact, now my thief feels downright powerful in HoT!
What you’re asking for: 100% solo play, is not likely to happen. But you don’t need to grind for ascended gear to succeed in HoT. Thief is a very strong class in the jungle. Give it a chance. You’ll see. And you can solo a lot of the hero points, or at least sustain for awhile until others show up (usually doesn’t take long once somebody sees you’re going for a hero point!).
^^ Some achievements are able to be done solo so what are you talking about?
The constant referrals to use the LFG tool when it does not help the situation.
The referrals for looking for groups are for meta events. We’ve always had events in the game that require more than one person. Most people can’t solo temples in Orr. No one can solo triple threat or the Silverwastes. No one can get to Tier 6 solo in Dry Top. No one could solo the Marionette.
The only real contention here is achievment point, some of which can be soloed anyway and others an be soloed if you’re really good…but they give ten times the amount of hero points of the easy HPs in the core game. It’s a fair trade off.
The interesting question here is why do almost all of the meta-events in core that require larger numbers not involve taxis (Teq and TriWurm, maybe Shatt now faik being the exceptions, though I’ve not seen Shatt taxis)? Why do all the HoT metas require you to get lucky that there is a taxi offered and that you can actually join in?
My guess is that the meta bosses in core can be done with smaller numbers, so unless there’s only a couple of people there, the players are content to do it with a smaller set, whereas with both HoT and the 2 (maybe 3) in core is that both: having players who know what to do; and having a really large number are both seen as important. I’ve seen Grenth (the current iteration) done with 4 people. I don’t know any of the HoT stuff that scales that low.
Personally, while I understand the taxi phenomenon, I find the whole thing spotty in success, tedious and frustrating. When I zone into a Hot map, it’s 5-out-of-6 that I will need to taxi to have a chance at success, and a 1-in-3 the taxi will work out. I don’t know if it’s my bad luck or what, but I find the process by which we’re supposed to be able to have fun to be arguably the worst implementation of accessibility I’ve seen in an MMO — at least for currently relevant content.
I think it’s just how the events are constructed. Objectives need to be completed all over the map to achieve the best results. The bosses require map-wide coordination as well. And since they work on a timer, the clock’s ticking to get organized and get moving. I don’t recall that being the case in pre-HoT maps.
It’s a bit of a double-edged sword. I can relate to the frustration of being unable to zone in and jump right in to the events. I do feel HoT does a poor job of delivering that level of convenience. On the other hand, I really enjoy the events when enough players participate.
Cool, thanks for the info everyone, currently I am using D/D for melee I really like the cloak & dagger + backstab its so op.
Yes, I am using shortbow as my swap weapon for easy teleporting and also to get into melee range fast or run away from mobs.
I must say theif feels fun to play wonder how it is after I reach 80.
I suppose it depends on what you’re doing, but for open world HoT daredevil is amazing. Excellent damage, mobility, and damage avoidance. You can take on almost anything. The biggest swarms, even some champions. And when things get a little rough, nothing can stop a thief running unhindered combat from disengaging and escaping to safety.
I think you should try everything, but if you want my advice you can’t go wrong with deadly arts/trickery/crit strikes. I personally like d/p best next to staff. I use p/p as my ranged set in HoT for the damage, but as it isn’t as critical to use range while leveling I think you should use shortbow for the extra mobility. Also, the area effect damage is comparatively more useful with d/p being so limited in that sense.
But honestly, I tried all sorts of things while leveling.
“I remember your face from my dream!”
“Have you been able to determine the age of the city?”
“I don’t see why we should have to take orders from mice and talking cabbages.”
Don’t get me wrong. I do love the voices in this game. But the frequency that the above lines are fired off by their respective NPCs is obnoxious. I always mute my speakers when standing near them.
There are probably others, but the guy in the Silverwastes main camp, the banker in Lion’s arch, and that pair of NPCs in Tarir are the most annoying I’ve noticed. I wouldn’t mind limiting their expressions with a timer of some sort.
Solo players cannot advance in the new content, and any decent publisher would disclose such a fundamental change prior to taking your money.
I agree. No doubt this post will be followed by the obligatory ’you’re just inept along with the ‘i solo’d it easily’ posts but you are correct.The day i started the new content it was like running into a brick wall and i am looking for new games to play.
I don’t think you’re inept. I hit the same brick wall. I think I even described it in the same terms! But I asked around in my guild and on the forums and received some advice that helped me. Once I unlocked my elite spec and some of the navigational masteries and straightened my build out my performance improved dramatically.
The result is I went from dying repeatedly just trying to get from point to point to pretty much total mastery of the jungle. My timid thief in his wet paper sack armor is now completely fearless. I can tear right through enemies that used to kill me more often than not as well as take on the biggest swarms the jungle can throw at me.
I don’t think my experience played out the way it did because I’m an especially talented player. I think most players can make that transition, but many don’t because the initial intimidation factor is too much of a barrier. And that’s a shame because the jungle is probably the most beautiful open world design I’ve seen in any game and there’s a sense of accomplishment to be had in making it feel comfortable when it starts out as such a nightmare.
But to each their own.
Just farm some lower level crafting materials for about 3 minutes, sell them on the trading post, and buy like level green or blue items on the trading post. These items sell for next to notHing.
Daredevil, berserker gear.
Thanks for the advice. I’ll give focus and warhorn a try and see if that doesn’t open things up a bit. I think a little bit more defense would let me stay on offense better, instead of dropping back to heal or retreating. And you’re right, those projectile attacks are eating me alive without good access to magnetic aura.
I recently used my level 80 boost to take an elementalist to the cap. Of course, I didn’t have much experience with the class prior to this, so I’m having a little trouble. So far I really like the d/d playstyle and I would like to keep the dagger mainhand at least. Unfortunately, I’m having a tough time due to the lack of range as some enemies seem far more difficult to handle at melee range. On my thief I just weapon swap, but ele doesn’t give me that option.
Any advice? Builds? Weapons? Runes/sigils? Strategies? Like I said, I’d prefer to run a d/x build, probably a fresh air variant as I’ve been enjoying that. Teach me some new tricks!
What do you find most fun on this game?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
I enjoy open world HoT, especially VB. I just wish there were more of it. Also, the raids have been a lot of fun so far, although my guild hasn’t gotten very far into them.
Can do they do decent range and melee? Is pistols better now? I know I hear in pvp they dont do so hot.
If you’re talking solo open world HoT PvE, thief is top notch. I’ve only tried rev, necro, ele, and thief to 80 so far, but the thief feels like a god in open world. He moves faster, kills faster, and avoids damage far better than any of the others, in my experience. And when the going gets tough, thief is also by far the best at disengaging and escaping.
If you’re looking for an easy-to-play open world build, I suggest the following setup:
Daredevil: 3-1-2
Deadly Arts: 2-x-3
Crit Strikes: x-2-3
Heal: channeled vigor
Utilities: agility signet, power signet, and bandit’s defense
Elite: impact strike
With unhindered combat, dodging provides full uptime swiftness and breaks movement impairing effects on demand. You have multiple sources of endurance regen between steal, channeled vigor, and the agility signet (as well as smaller gains on all weapon skills) ensuring that you never run out of evades. In fact, you can dodge so much and for longer distances that dodging becomes a faster way of covering ground both in and out of combat.
Impact strike deals strong damage, can keep tough enemies locked down so you can take them out quickly, and is fantastic for breakbars. And bandit’s defense is all the stun break you could ever need.
Invigorating precision in the crit strikes line is a great help for sustaining your health inbetween heals. But if you need stronger heals, channeled vigor and mug together can restore most of your health in a hurry while also providing mobility in the form of a full endurance bar refill and an enemy targeted teleport.
I recommend staff, although d/p works well also. I prefer staff for the area effect damage. D/P is probably a bit more fun to play, but it takes more time to take down groups of enemies when you have to essentially isolate single targets rather than grouping them up and burning them down. S/P is also a good option – better area effect than d/p and a similar playstyle, but staff is still faster.
You need a ranged weapon set as well. I recommend p/p. In open world, when I drop back to range it’s almost always either a single strong enemy with frequent melee range CC or because standing in fire is bad. Unload spam is fairly strong while you have initiative, which matches up nicely because all I really want to do is deal some damage from safety until I can get back into close range and finish the fight.
Shortbow is good for mobility, but the damage is weak particularly against single targets. And you already have great mobility anyway.
For raids, I hear from the more serious raiders out there that thief is rather limited in terms of team support. They have strong DPS and breakbar capability, but that’s about it. Having said that, as a more casual raider, my guild commented last night that everything goes faster (especially breakbars!) with my thief in the raid. So unless your guild is obsessed with min-maxing their raid, I don’t see why thief can’t contribute sufficiently to justify a spot.
When playing HoT lately, I noticed that players barely use any CC during the relevant phases of a boss fight. Today I witnessed a wyvern matriarch fight that ended with only a minute left on the timer because it wasn’t downed a single time. With 20 people around I felt like I contributed almost half of the CC done. When encouraging players to use more CC someone even asked what that means.
I believe we actually reached a point, where completing bosses has become a lot harder than after the release because people don’t give to kittens about boss mechanics.
Are you experiencing this too? And can we do something about it?
I’m pretty sure this is a scaling issue. I’ve observed that if you go up against a wyvern with 3-5 players the breakbar is never an issue. But the larger the group, the less likely you are to hit the breakbar.
Just a suggestion, though: Instead of spamming “CC!” when a breakbar comes up, it might be a good idea to provide a quick explanation at the outset. As a new player to GW2 coming over from WoW, I am familiar with the definition of “CC”, but breakbars are a new concept. My initial reaction was “Why should I use CC? I can’t stun/interrupt this guy!” I asked my guild about it and they explained how breakbars work.
Mesmer vs Warrior - Solo & Casual Play
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
I haven’t tried warrior to 80 yet, but I have tried rev, necro, thief, and ele. What I’ve noticed is that, no matter what class I play, when I get to the HoT maps it is more or less mandatory that you have a ranged weapon set to fall back on.
So far, I’ve found daredevil to be my strongest class in open world HoT. The thief moves quickly everywhere he goes, deals amazing burst to both single targets and groups, has superior damage avoidance, and can disengage with any number of enemies at will and simply speed away. It makes my other classes feel weak by comparison, although they all have their advantages, too.
Nonsense. Utter garbage. We are the top second highest damage dealer, only below elementalist. I confirmed it personally with the damage golems.
As far as soloing in open world, I run a CS/Acro/DD build and there is nothing I can’t handle. I can solo most of the HoT champions and I play as a commander most of the time in the map metas, even leading the zerg in tower rotation in Dragon Stand, doing most of the runs with zero downs or deaths.
Most people underrate them based on bad personal experience, because their surviability is built into their dodges and evades and that is skill based. Acro + DD has a lot of potential, but if you don’t learn the mechanics of the mobs you are fighting, can’t read telegraphed attacks and can’t time your dodges, you won’t get far.
There is no class in this game I enjoy playing in PvE as much as I enjoy Daredevil, but it can be punishing as a new player. But to say the potential isn’t there or the class is bad on it’s own merits in PvE right now….it’s just not true.
I have to agree with this 100%. Thief is probably my most survivable class in open world. You’re just faster than everything else. You can avoid most incoming damage, never run out of endurance, and if things are looking ugly you can disengage and escape at will. Nothing can catch you.
Don’t listen to those against the nerf the official forums are notorious for thier white knights however the truth is they stated a while back the the spring quartely update would be address the issues that were brought up and bringing HoT back in line with the Core. These knights are the reason the game is in decline and why HoT failed they stifle out any criticism or suggestion and cherish the moves taken to support the Esport as well while the numbers decline.
Brinign HoT in line with core will help some but many have already left this wasn’t a game for raiding or hardcore content it was a casual MMO and all the years of QQ for harder content were from people that would never leave the game in the first place or people trying to ferry others into other games. When they listened to these peopel and abandoned their core original audience the core left even SAB was too little too late for many people. There only hope is to revert as many things as possible and hope people return in the future.
So without a doubt the grind in HoT needs to be nerfed, the mobs along the core story paths need to be nerfed so anyone at any skill level can beat the story like any other MMO, timers removed, masteries lessened as many don’t alt they have but one toon, and modified maps to allow for easier traveling to places like upper VD during day or the different levels in TD. Most importantly a better reward system because cosmetic or not the reward system is a massive grind and it’s not the reward that matters but the acquisition. There is no low teir rewards in HoT no monster loot of merit or minor crafted items all massive amounts of RNG and time.
All in all I’m ready to be dissapounted yet still grateful to see what is in this patch
I can agree with toning down the storyline, although honestly I wasn’t aware that it wasn’t considered solo content. If a significant number of people are truly having difficulty with it, then why not nerf it a bit? It’s just a storyline. It’s not like you’re running it every day. Everyone should be able to complete it.
I feel the same way about HPs. I think they should be solo content, but I have no problem with them scaling to group size.
Masteries. These are already solo content as far as I can tell. My issue with mastery points is that there should be far more of them. That way, if adventures or storyline achievements aren’t your cup of tea, you can get yours via open world, raid, or other content. Let people do it their way with regard to masteries, much the same way they decide how they’ll gain experience for the purposes of leveling. That’s essentially what masteries are – leveling for the level capped!
Scaling. This just needs a little oversight in certain areas. Like gathering those airship parts during the Ordnance event chain in VB.
Megaserver. I don’t know the answer to this, but players should be better able to log in to these maps and start playing. The reliance on LFG and RNG is frustrating. Too often you have to waste time before you start contributing to a worthwhile map.
Mob density. Some areas are pretty obnoxious. I think strategically alleviating some of that might help.
Mob difficulty. Don’t go too heavy-handed on this! The HoT mob difficulty is a very good thing! I think if we make some of these other changes, most players will enjoy the challenge. They just don’t enjoy the challenge along with the grind and the other frustrations.
I’ve only tried reaper, Herald, and daredevil. Daredevil wins for me. It feels fast, fun, and powerful at least for open world HoT.
But I am new as off this year, so take that for what it’s worth.
I can see why this divided the community
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
Well. About questions like ‘why do people want hard content?’ I don’t want hardest content where you have to be a group to do stuff. I really like HoT for the fact that I have to be focused when I play it and not just 1111111 all the way through. 2 days ago I did a few vanilla map completions whit a pretty new character and it is so easy so it all just feel repetitive. I didn’t have to use more than two skills all the time and running naked doesn’t really help either it just makes the fights longer not harder.
I hope the HoT nerf that will come won’t make it booking.
I think they should be able to reach a good compromise.
I’m with you in that I enjoy the challenge of HoT. It stopped me short at first as a new player, but this game’s combat system really does give you all the tools you need to succeed in the jungle. I just don’t think the core maps were challenging enough to force the kinds of build choices HoT does. Your traits/weapons really matter in HoT, where in core maps you can sort of do whatever you like without significant consequence.
On the other hand, I don’t think I would be particularly upset if they somewhat reduced the sheer number of enemies in HoT outside of events. I think my preference for highly mobile classes has a lot to do with that. My less mobile classes sometimes have to clear trash that my thief can simply zoom past and it can be pretty tedious when all you’re trying to do is get from point A to point B.
I also wouldn’t mind if HP challenges were more solo-able. It’s not as if I wasn’t able to unlock my elite spec in a day or two of playing anyway, but I don’t feel it added much to my experience requiring a second player to take down the guano HP mini-boss, for instance.
I consider it far more important that they maintain the overall difficulty. I don’t want to see HoT lose the difficulty that forces those build choices that the core maps never did. If there were somewhat fewer mobs, particularly in the more obnoxious sections of the jungle (AB canyons filled with huge packs of pocket raptors and veteran smokescales? I’m looking at you!). And if personal objectives like HPs were geared more toward solo play, I don’t think I would mind.
The jungle could also stand to be more accessible as far as WPs are concerned. Maybe add some better wallows that take you to more convenient places on the map? I may have missed them, but having wallows that connect to Faren’s Flyer and Mellagan’s WP areas would be nice, for instance.
I can see why this divided the community
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
If you’re a capable player (or a player who doesn’t want to wipe every five minutes), you definitely start to adjust to HoT’s difficulty level. It doesn’t make it fun, in my opinion. It just becomes like every other map, only more tedious to traverse. It sucks to settle into doing events or helping people with hero point challenges when you have to run through a gauntlet of hyper-aggressive mobs no matter what direction you go in- slowing you down if you’re on foot and rendering waypointing impossible.
This is my experience is well. IMO, the open world is not where we should see dramatic spikes in difficulty. It goes back to Arena’s bad paradigm of trying to make the open world work for everything when instances are usually a much better wrapper for any kind of non-casual content.
One of the main reasons there’s argument over the difficulty of HoT revolves around the exceptionally poor class balance in the game. Some classes are just way, way easier to solo content with than others. I run Thief and Warrior mainly, and the warrior is far more faceroll-capable than the Thief is. I am flabbergasted at how frequently my Thief is destroyed by the same content that my warrior can just rip through like paper.
I don’t think the HoT maps are bad, per se. They were well designed for what they were trying to accomplish. They just need to be recalibrated a bit.
Alright, going to try posting on these forums again…
Hi! Been playing this game a few months now. I started with HoT, so aside from leveling a few characters up I lack the pre-HoT perspective.
I do observe a lot of differences between the gameplay of my three level 80 characters (thief, necro, rev). But I’m not sure I agree that any of them feel at a particular disadvantage. It feels to me like each has a distinctive playstyle that may lend itself well to one area or another, but invariably has some shortcomings not shared by the others.
The best comparison to illustrate the point is thief/necro. On paper the necro appears superior in just about every way. Double the health pool, death shroud, and capable of strong area effect damage at any range. And there are definitely things my necro can stick around for that my thief has little choice but to bail out on.
However, the thief is mobile on a level my necro can never hope to match. The thief can disengage and escape at will. He almost never dies outside of 1-shots in boss encounters (and the necro still dies during those due to lack of mobility anyway!).
The thief is also very limited to melee range area effect damage. But his burst damage combined with mobility means he can feasibly get in, take enemies out quickly, and escape to range if cornered.
Having said that, initially I had a lot of trouble upon entering HoT. I died A LOT just getting around. But it was my first level 80 and I quickly adapted my build. Now thief is arguably my most survivable character in open world and also by far the fastest at getting around. From my perspective, it’s hard to look at thief and see it as a disadvantaged class compared to necro or rev in open world.
In fact, I leveled up my rev specifically because necro felt so slow compared to thief. Survivable? Sure! But rev has a lot more of the mobility I liked about thief. And both of them are survivable, too! Personal preference I suppose.
I have no idea how they structure their operations and even less of an idea on how to develop or even come up with a development plan for a game like this. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one in this thread that fits that description. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to ask other players what their personal priorities are? What would you like to see more of?
I’m too new to go in-depth. I haven’t experienced everything this game has to offer yet and I lack the historical perspective of established players. But so far I am having a blast, and I particularly enjoy the HoT maps. I’ve spent hardly any time outside of them since I reached level 80 – I haven’t even leveled a second character yet!
There are some things I dislike about them. Obviously, I would prefer it if I could simply enter the zone and begin running events, but it becomes a bit of a wasted effort if there aren’t enough players running the events. If they could fix that, my personal preference is to see more of that kind of design. The jungle maps are simply incredible to explore and adventure in (except for the “adventures” – ugh!).
first thing i’d do is offer an optional subscription model that offers preferred amenities, – so I don’t have to worry as much about constantly driving myself nuts with figuring out what to sell next….- I’d make it clear that this option is available to those who love guild wars and want to help support the team – in return they get air ship tickets unique sponsorship titles, an insider news letter, all things that have zero impact on pvp – and pve games, but more political about title and cultural status in gw2 – a shareholder! maybe make one area a little more posh for easier farming, and a place where they can do all those mini adventures,
then I’d focus on making a poll of things everyone wants fixed the most, and address each item by it’s poll ratings – in the end it all has to get fixed, but at least i’m addressing this to what the client needs, which is good free pr, and building an organized team strategy between community and developers.
I was thinking of something like this as well, set up even like a gem subscription. So you subscribe for like a monthly gem allotment and you can get price breaks on the gems depending on the subscription length.
Yeah. I was thinking about something similar recently. I’m kind of surprised to see others thinking along the same lines. I sort of figured there must be some reason they aren’t already doing this! But if I’m not the only one who would seriously consider a monthly commitment package (don’t use that dirty word “subscription” right?) if the price is right…
Achiever: 53%
Explorer: 53%
Griefer: 40%
Socializer: 53%
Looks like I’m a little bit of everything!
I love that this game has all sorts of distractions to cater to different playstyles, but I have to agree I really have no interest in the “adventures” and have thus far put off doing any of them. If I ever do them at all it’ll only be to complete some other objective – and only if I really want it badly, because I can’t stand these mini games!
Mordremoth Final Fight Is Frustrating.
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
Did you try using the interact keybind? Worked like a chArm for me, even though it doesn’t show an interact dialogue when you apprOach an updraft.
You are asking me to leave you alone in your sandbox, but it’s you that are unwilling to leave me alone in mine.
Citation needed.
Just look at what you are doing in this very thread and why.
You are arguing agains people that ask for greater accessibility of legendary armor. In this post you clearly seem to think that we shouldn’t ask for it for the content we play in.Though i do admit that i have made a mistake – my original message was a response to someone else (AliamRationem), and i haven’t noticed it because you stripped the history while quoting. Not sure why you felt that first statement was addressed to you specifically and responded as if you were the person i was responding to.
You personally are indeed one of the least combative people in this thread. Even if you do seem to try to tell me what i shouldn’t be rewarded with.One more thing. I’m new around here. I wouldn’t presume to tell you how you should play this game or what you can and cannot have. All I’m saying is that it isn’t fair to provide the same rewards for raid content as are available everywhere else. Equivalent? Sure. But these rewards need to be exclusive. Likewise, non-raiders need their rewards, too. And if we’re to stay true to the spirit of this rather unusual MMO, that means those rewards need to be on par with what raiders receive. They just can’t be the same exact reward! Does that make more sense?
Yes. While i do not agree with some of those points, i can respect them (and even live with them). Too bad that at the moment Anet seems to disagree.
On second thought, maybe this is just me thinking like a WoW player. It’s difficult to drop the “risk vs. reward” paradigm. Perhaps it doesn’t matter so much here? You tell me! Would it be okay to provide raid legendary items via a separate path that does not require raiding?
I suppose in that case, the reason to raid is that you can avoid less desirable content and perhaps get the item in less time or at less expense?
I’m still not sure how I feel about that. But given that ANet clearly can’t provide legendary items for everyone, how else can they be fair to all parties?
Will you pre-order the next expansion? [Poll]
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
I will always want more, but I’ve been impressed with the quality of content in HoT. I’ve already spent enough time enjoying HoT to justify the purchase, in my mind. Absolutely I will preorder the next expansion!
I do not know, i have the feelling that the expansion was not ready.
Maybe it is just me, but:
Just one pvp map, ok we have the leagues…
The WvW disaster, and thats it…
The personal story is too short, and full of “We will explain you later”…
The masterys are useless in WvW…
The Raid was not avaliable at the begging…
No new Fractals…
Even gliding in all Tyria was after HoT…
Just three legendary weapons…
Ok, yes, the first day of Hot was great, no lag, no crashes, amazing.
I know Guild Wars 2 is a game that always is expanding, and i am love it, but i feel like i was cheated when i bougth the expansion.
I do not want a refound, i want to feel like the game is great again.
Or maybe, it is just me…
Sorry bad english, i am from spain.
I’m still trying to figure out how things work in this game, but it’s becoming clear that ANet has a penchant for thinking BIG, but their resources are somewhat limited.
Take the HoT maps, for instance. I know they have their faults, but the complexity of the map designs are incredible! I can only imagine how much work must have gone into developing each one.
Today I learned a little more about the legendary items, and those seem to be the same way. At first I thought they were just fancy skins with the best stats available, but when I heard about the work that goes into designing the story and the journey to acquire these items, I immediately thought of the quality and depth of the HoT maps.
I really hope they can continue to produce that level of quality, but it seems as if they may be overreaching given their available resources. It’s a shame because things like these legendary items and the HoT maps are a huge draw to me – and I’m sure I’m not the only one!
If the complaint is that raids will have legendary armor first, so what? Nobody promised that they would prioritize your specific wants and needs before everyone else in every case.
At this moment, the complaints aren’t about raids getting it first. They are a result of Anet strongly suggesting that other options aren’t even considered.
I don’t see why it should be a requirement that people who participate in content you don’t appreciate must not have access to exclusive rewards simply because you don’t like their attitudes and you don’t feel like participating in raids.
Now think about it. You say the above, but at the same time completely support people that participate in content you don’t appreciate (casuals) not getting access to exclusive rewards you can get. Simply because you don’t like them not finding raids fun.
Seriously, just go play in your own sandbox and leave the raiders alone.
I’d be happy to. As soon as raiders will stop telling me what i can and what i cannot get as rewards in my sandbox.
The only issue I see here is time frame. How long will non-raiders have to wait to see their equivalent legendary armors?
At this moment the answer is “no shorter than it takes to persuade devs that non-raiders should get it too”. Which topics like this one are all about.
I see nothing wrong with providing raiders with legendary armor first, particularly as we’re several years into this game and the first raid has only just arrived. But ANet should take extra care to ensure that non-raiders are prioritized in a timely fashion following this release. Fair enough?
Assuming they won’t wait with this too long, and inform us about their decision as soon as possible. Because until they confirm that this is what’s gonna happen, people will continue complaining. And raids may end up a casualty in a resulting crossfire.
I think I was pretty clear that I agree with exclusive raid legendary rewards, but only if equivalent open-world legendary items are also available to non-raiders. I think it would be a mistake to provide no exclusive rewards to raiders just as I believe ANet is making a mistake in canceling non-raid legendary development. It was promised, right? It goes along with the whole idea of a “casual” MMO, right? That’s what the core playerbase expects.
So even if it isn’t the correct development priority at this point in time (and I agree with ANet that it probably isn’t the right time for it!), they should get it done anyway. Deliver what was promised. Restore the balance to the casual side and give them their own legendary armor sets. Then put legendary development on hold if you can’t figure a way to do these items justice while also prioritizing resources for the betterment of the game.
One more thing. I’m new around here. I wouldn’t presume to tell you how you should play this game or what you can and cannot have. All I’m saying is that it isn’t fair to provide the same rewards for raid content as are available everywhere else. Equivalent? Sure. But these rewards need to be exclusive. Likewise, non-raiders need their rewards, too. And if we’re to stay true to the spirit of this rather unusual MMO, that means those rewards need to be on par with what raiders receive. They just can’t be the same exact reward! Does that make more sense?
“Don’t like raiding and raiders? Don’t raid! It’s pretty simple. You can get your legendary items elsewhere”
Oh?? Really? I can get my legendary armor elsewhere????
By the way, this isn’t WoW….. or it used to not be WoW……
Gw2 was supposed to be an alternative to WoW clones but I guess that is changing too.
Sorry. I just caught the announcement about indefinitely canceling work on legendary sets. As I said, I agree that this is unacceptable. Obviously, various facets of the game compete for resources, so designing a raid comes at the expense of other content. But that doesn’t excuse a failure to deliver what was promised. It seems to me they may have overreached attempting to get players like me into the game at the expense of their core playerbase.
That’s a shame. These legendary items appear to be far more important to players here than the latest set of gear in WoW. After reading the announcement which revealed some of what goes into the design, I recognize that it’s much more than just an item skin and stats. To the developers, and the players who go after these items, it’s also about the journey and the story.
For the same reason, however, it places a heavy burden on the development team. I can’t really disagree with the decision. Resource allocation toward legendary items when customers are screaming for content is a bit of a priority mismatch.
Having said that, I feel that if there’s any possibility of doing so, they should at the very least follow through with legendary armor sets for non-raiders. Because you’re right: This isn’t WoW. I personally think it’s great what they’ve produced with the raid content and those amazing HoT maps, but to introduce unprecedented and exclusive rewards only for raiders doesn’t seem fair to the players who came here to escape raid-centric MMOs like WoW.
Hey! Another new player! Me too! This game is great isn’kitten Wait until you see the HoT maps! They are amazing. …albeit amazingly frustrating at times. But it sounds like your guild is supportive, so if you do find it difficult to tackle on your own, you can bring friends.
Also, feel free to add me to your list and hit me up in game. I’m usually down for running around in the jungle bumping into things!
It’s not like Anet didn’t know that raids would be hated by a portion of its players. When players would create threads on this forum asking Anet to implement raiding there were many posters who were averse to the idea. So for Anet to gate probably one of the biggest “shinies” in the game behind raids was a terrible idea.
Many people don’t like the raiding culture and have left games because of it. The whole “if your not a raider you don’t deserve the good stuff” attitude. People are tired of smug, condescending pricks who happily demean anyone they don’t consider to be their equal. Gear check, ap points, rune set, sigil set etc. etc. I am not saying everyone who does a raid is like this but raids do attract a fair number of these types. Why would Anet want to reward this??? It baffles the mind.
I don’t see why you need to be concerned with the raiding culture at all. Don’t like raiding and raiders? Don’t raid! It’s pretty simple. You can get your legendary items elsewhere.
If the complaint is that raids will have legendary armor first, so what? Nobody promised that they would prioritize your specific wants and needs before everyone else in every case. They simply promised casual content, which it seems they have delivered as defined by the concepts of “horizontal” progression.
Don’t believe me? Go try and craft a legendary item over in WoW without raiding and see how it goes. You can do that here! Not only that, but you have the same stats as the most elite raiders out there!
I don’t see why it should be a requirement that people who participate in content you don’t appreciate must not have access to exclusive rewards simply because you don’t like their attitudes and you don’t feel like participating in raids. Seriously, just go play in your own sandbox and leave the raiders alone.
The only issue I see here is time frame. How long will non-raiders have to wait to see their equivalent legendary armors? I see nothing wrong with providing raiders with legendary armor first, particularly as we’re several years into this game and the first raid has only just arrived. But ANet should take extra care to ensure that non-raiders are prioritized in a timely fashion following this release. Fair enough?
What to do meantime besides Personal Story?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
I find myself in HoT not rushing through the personal story but rather settling back and exploring the zone as fully as possible. But I notice in chat that there’s always groups talking about doing events that I’ve not been made aware of. Unfortunately, I don’t get a sense of what it is they’re doing and it always seems they’re halfway through it and no one wants to take time to answer me about how I can help. In Verdant Brink, I know it’s the daytime prep for supplying the camps and then at night it’s defending everything until the choppers come and then fighting the Matriarch. But Auric Basin meta-event(s) seem a bit harder to follow. And I’m too new to Tangled Depths and the masteries yet to get into that zone’s events. Any guides or references would be helpful.
Hi! I’m a new player as of 2016. The events take some practice before you figure out what’s going on and players are often too busy running the events to take the time to talk you through it.
What worked best for me was to just go out and explore. In time, you not only start to figure out how to navigate the maps, but you run across the same events repeatedly until you become familiar with how they work and where they fit in to the story.
Alternatively, if you’re already done exploring a zone or if you just want to get in on the events from the outset, look for players running commander tags. You can just follow them around and experience the events that way. Players tend to flock to these tags, so you should be able to handle whatever comes your way.
Feel free to add me as a friend and hit me up in game. I love running around in the jungle doing events, and it’s always more fun if you bring people!
Holy kitten. What have I done? lool
Eh don’t feel bad, this is just the state that the game has degenerated to. ANET built a community up that was used to faceroll easy content and now that they put interesting rewards behind content that may require a tiny bit of time investment or skill, they’re up in arms. They’ll nerf it though or provide an alternate, long as heck material Timegated route though. That I have no doubt.
I am getting sick of the attitude that all raids take is a little bit of effort and that if someone can’t beat a raid, it just means that they are unwilling to put in effort.
I have been practicing since the raid came out, and I haven’t beaten VG yet, but I hope to one day. But please don’t tell me that it only takes a tiny bit of time investment or skill because I’ve put in more than that.
Then again, Dark Souls taught me that there isn’t anything that a gamer won’t call easy.
This is my argument. It’s not like any other requirement for anything else in the game, because raids DO take far far more effort than anything else in the game. And if you don’t enjoy them, then Anet is requiring you to not enjoy the game.
If you’re enjoying the raiding you’re doing, that’s fine. If you like that kind of banging your head against the wall until you get something done, good for you.
But I don’t enjoy that style of play. Particularly because my home situation requires me to be on call a lot and I don’t always get to sit and do what I want for an hour at a time, or two.
There are a whole lot of people who work, want to come home and relax who play this game. And none of them should get rewards locked behind raids for what reason.
Keep in mind there really was nothing like this in Guild Wars 1 at all. If you couldn’t get through DOA you could still buy a tormented weapon.
Any of the armors you could work on a bit at a time. You could be ectos or obby shards for the hardest armor to get in the game.
Making this beyond the reach of most of the population is a bad move for the game in general. And don’t tell me everyone can do it. Even though I could do it, and I KNOW I could do it, it would involve me doing something I didnt’ enjoy for hours and hours on end. What kind of game is that? Why would I play it? Why would I want to buy gems in it? Why would I want to buy expansions?
This really makes no sense to me. If I don’t want to participate in certain content such as PvP, or adventures, or open world events, why should I expect to receive the rewards for doing so?
I can certainly understand the argument that mandatory/necessary rewards such as masteries should not be locked behind niche content. In fact, I definitely have a bit of a gripe about masteries being locked behind adventures as I find this content extremely tedious and have no interest in participating.
Having said that, I don’t view legendary armor as mandatory content. There is no justification for making every legendary item attainable by all content pathways. Raids should have exclusive items, as should PvP, as should adventures, open world achievements, and so on. As long as they are all equivalent, ANet stays true to the original intent.
If that means I have to participate in undesirable content if I want to get a specific legendary skin, then so be it. That doesn’t mean I’m being forced to do anything.
Finally, I recognize that the time frame matters. If raids have access to the only legendary armor pieces for a significant period of time, that isn’t really fair to those who don’t raid. But what do you propose we do? It is not acceptable in my mind to grant exclusive raid legendaries for non-raid content just as it would be inappropriate to provide PvP legendaries for open-world content. But they do need to provide reward paths to suit various types of players. Based on what I’ve heard of this game’s history, it’s only fair.
Mordremoth Final Fight Is Frustrating.
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
Given that players report activating the updrafts in different ways, I’m assuming there is some kind of bug. Some seem to be able to activate them by walking through them. Some via interact, but again, there doesn’t appear to be an interact dialogue box indicating that this should work. And others are able to find the few raised areas on the platform, jump and glide through the updrafts to activate them. I was able to confirm that this works, but you have to know where those points are and get to them quickly if you wish to use this method.
For me, walking/jumping was a no go most times, but every once in awhile it would work for some reason. And I’m not sure how or why that should be possible. Either it works or it doesn’t, right? The only 100% success rate method I found was the interact keybind.
Mordremoth Final Fight Is Frustrating.
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: AliamRationem.5172
There was a lengthy thread on this subject. There seems to be some variance in how the updrafts function. I was unable to activate them without using the interact keybind. However there was never anything to indicate that they may be interacted with.
Give that a try and see if it works for you. I was able to hit the updrafts every time by using interact.