Guild Wars 2

Doam.8305:

Ashen.2907:

Elyssandariel.2679:

For me, GW2 HAS lost it’s identity. This used to be a game to play when you wanted to, and put down when you wanted to, with no real consequences to your characters. If you wanted to take a month off, you could still go back and do all the stuff that you missed later. You didn’t need a certain gear. You didn’t need a certain weapon. If other people played longer, they’d just have more gold to play with.

NOW, you NEED ascended to do fractals. You cannot do upper level fractals without agony resistance, and that goes in ascended gear. In order to get ascended gear, you have to have a maxed out crafting on one or more category. You also need a ton of materials to make this gear, and some of the things you are crafting is time-gated to one a day, which will take a while, or is expensive to buy. Now there will be Legendary armor coming out, with better stats than ascended.

That doesn’t sound like the start of a gear treadmill to anyone else? Because it does to me. What happens when we’ve had Legendary out for a while and they require it somehow for some other game mode? And then once “everyone” has that, will they put something else out, that’s got more stats than Legendary armor, so the players have something else to reach for? I’m thinking they will. It hasn’t started with weapons yet, but it is a matter of time.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t have anything to work for ever, or that there shouldn’t be more challenging content! Far from it! When they first revamped Teq, it was simply to increase hitpoints so it was almost unkillable and then dusted off their hands like “Our job here is done!!” Teq is one of the most popular world bosses there is, along with Karka Queen. Player dissatisfaction was LOUD and CLEAR that just upping the hitpoints was not the way to go. The new Shatterer design is a lot better, and more in line with the “improvements” that should be made. Before the revamp, we stood on a hill in a group and just fired stuff at it. That was all.

HoT was a dramatic increase in skill needed. I still haven’t completed it all, because you need masteries and you have to kill things for masteries. Story is gated behind these masteries and if you don’t have them, you can’t do the story! I HATE STORY GATING!! I hate it with a passion! Story is what I enjoy most about this game, and they gated story behind not only masteries, but they did the lead-in to Living Story Season 3 behind raids! How many people knew what was going on in the story, without looking at you-tube? Be honest with yourselves. The majority of players did not know, because the lead-in story was gated behind raiding, which the majority of players do not do!

I am not saying to not have raids. I am not saying to not have challenging content. I am saying that this started as a more casual and relaxed atmosphere, and now it is turning into a grindfest, either for masteries, or for gear. Leveling is easy, thank goodness. The real grind begins at level 80 for most people!

TLDR: Yeah, GW2 has definitely lost it’s vision.

Did Anet change their stance on Legendary vs Ascended gear recently? I aek because they have stated for years now that Legendary will NOT have better stats than ascended. Legendary armor is essentially a matter of cosmetics. Cosmetic differences do not constitute the beginning of a gear treadmill.

That said, the addition of ascended tier is why I cut my spending on the game.

Pretty much yeah you never look at anything for face value and thus have to take in prefixes into consideration. A legendary can change into any prefix and that includes new ones. The legendary weapon is a straight up advantage when new prefixes are added. Ascended gear can be changed but it takes time and with roles the weapon must change as well. We don’t have templates but certain builds work better on certain raid bosses and thus changing things per boss/situation can be required.

Legend isn’t a stat increase but you are at a disadvantage without the legend. It’s a 1 to 1 comparison in which legends have the advantage but thing balance out when you compare the one legend to multiple easily swapped out ascended weapons.

A ranger/Druid swapping builds bewtween condi/heal is either going to need multiple ascended or a single legend with stat swap. We can no longer say that ascended/legends are 1to1 equal aside cosmetic differences.

How effective is it for a character to switch from condi to heal stats on his armor and weapon prefixes without changing runes and sigils though?

Elyssandariel.2679:

There are not multiple fallacies there, or at least not blatant ones. I never said that HoT changed whether we needed ascended or not for fractals. And yes, for high level fractals you NEED ascended gear with AR. Yes, there is tier 1 that you can do, but most people do higher level fractals for achievements and rewards. When they are not running fractals for dailies, a lot of the people in my guilds do upper level ones.

As for story, no, I haven’t finished it. I have time constraints in RL that don’t let me play as often as I’d like. I still have no idea what is going on and why it is happening, and I do not skip cutscenes, so, there’s something somewhere that I have missed.

People choosing to do higher tier fractals for the challenge or the reward are not facing content gated by difficult to acquire gear as you claimed. Its the same Fractals, just, essentially, a different difficulty setting.

Ayrilana.1396:

scrumsome.7198:

Vayne.8563:

Of course before HOT many people were complaining the game was too easy. And yes, HoT is not friendly to new players…because it’s not meant to be new player content. It’s meant to be end game content.

You may be 100% correct, yet the “problem” persists!

Some customers (however few) leave – Even fewer joins: This is a VERY real problem for any entity outside the non-profit realm!

edit: Heck, even non-profit org’s offer less with fewer followers ;-)

Do you have sources to back this up? I don’t remember Anet public ally releasing active players counts on a regular basis and especially not with it segregated by new va old players. In fact, have they ever released any numbers since the infographic from 2012?

Does he really need to support a statement that essentially says that in general the player base declines as a game ages?

Elyssandariel.2679:

I am not sure. I had heard that Legendary would have better stats than ascended armor, probably on these forums somewhere. If this is wrong, then I apologize, and disregard that part of my post. The rest still stands, though. Story gating sucks, gating content behind hard to get gear sucks.

The community is more toxic now too. Someone in our group at Vinewrath told a new person asking for guidance “Google is your friend!” as if they were supposed to suddenly open google in the middle of the champion fight. A quick “Stand on the flowers when X happens” or whatever it was would have gone a long way. I would’ve told the new person but I couldn’t remember when to do it, it had been so long since I had done Vinewrath. NO ONE knew what to do, except a couple of people, and Vinewrath failed because they wouldn’t tell the rest what to do. When I said that we might have had a chance had someone rezzed the first few people that went down, so they could rez others, the response was “We can’t rez. Just stand where you’re supposed to.” Uhh…rezzing is pretty necessary at almost all world bosses, to complete it. Claw of Jormag, I’m looking at you. Most of what I do at world bosses is actually just running around rezzing people, unless I am down myself. There is just a very unhelpful and “every man for themselves!” vibe with some of the events sometimes and it didn’t used to be that way.

PVE is cooperative! No one is stealing anything from you if you help them back up!

EDIT: It isn’t better stats. But, you can change your stat combos, so this is what would make it more appealing to people! Sorry for the confusion! I knew that I had heard it would be “better” somehow.

No content, that I am aware of, is gated behind hard to get gear. Even fractals is playable without ascended (higher tiers are essentially the same content as lower, which is accessible without ascended).

Changeable stats, as is the case for legendary weapons, is largely useless due to the importance of, fairly expensive, sigils.

Elyssandariel.2679:

For me, GW2 HAS lost it’s identity. This used to be a game to play when you wanted to, and put down when you wanted to, with no real consequences to your characters. If you wanted to take a month off, you could still go back and do all the stuff that you missed later. You didn’t need a certain gear. You didn’t need a certain weapon. If other people played longer, they’d just have more gold to play with.

NOW, you NEED ascended to do fractals. You cannot do upper level fractals without agony resistance, and that goes in ascended gear. In order to get ascended gear, you have to have a maxed out crafting on one or more category. You also need a ton of materials to make this gear, and some of the things you are crafting is time-gated to one a day, which will take a while, or is expensive to buy. Now there will be Legendary armor coming out, with better stats than ascended.

That doesn’t sound like the start of a gear treadmill to anyone else? Because it does to me. What happens when we’ve had Legendary out for a while and they require it somehow for some other game mode? And then once “everyone” has that, will they put something else out, that’s got more stats than Legendary armor, so the players have something else to reach for? I’m thinking they will. It hasn’t started with weapons yet, but it is a matter of time.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t have anything to work for ever, or that there shouldn’t be more challenging content! Far from it! When they first revamped Teq, it was simply to increase hitpoints so it was almost unkillable and then dusted off their hands like “Our job here is done!!” Teq is one of the most popular world bosses there is, along with Karka Queen. Player dissatisfaction was LOUD and CLEAR that just upping the hitpoints was not the way to go. The new Shatterer design is a lot better, and more in line with the “improvements” that should be made. Before the revamp, we stood on a hill in a group and just fired stuff at it. That was all.

HoT was a dramatic increase in skill needed. I still haven’t completed it all, because you need masteries and you have to kill things for masteries. Story is gated behind these masteries and if you don’t have them, you can’t do the story! I HATE STORY GATING!! I hate it with a passion! Story is what I enjoy most about this game, and they gated story behind not only masteries, but they did the lead-in to Living Story Season 3 behind raids! How many people knew what was going on in the story, without looking at you-tube? Be honest with yourselves. The majority of players did not know, because the lead-in story was gated behind raiding, which the majority of players do not do!

I am not saying to not have raids. I am not saying to not have challenging content. I am saying that this started as a more casual and relaxed atmosphere, and now it is turning into a grindfest, either for masteries, or for gear. Leveling is easy, thank goodness. The real grind begins at level 80 for most people!

TLDR: Yeah, GW2 has definitely lost it’s vision.

Did Anet change their stance on Legendary vs Ascended gear recently? I aek because they have stated for years now that Legendary will NOT have better stats than ascended. Legendary armor is essentially a matter of cosmetics. Cosmetic differences do not constitute the beginning of a gear treadmill.

That said, the addition of ascended tier is why I cut my spending on the game.

Djinn.9245:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

To be fair, at the very least, it says that a vocal minority feel passionately that the new zones are too difficult to solo.

In ANet’s shoes, I would take note and start communicatating more clearly that expansions change the game in all sorts of ways and that people need to be ready to adapt.

Yes: “Be warned that we are going to change the game you love into something completely different!”

For the most part Anet didn’t change the existing game. They expanded the totality of what was available. If I map into Orr today, not only is it not completely different, it is largely the same region that I have loved since first encountering it.

VaLee.5102:

with GW2 now focusing on raids, and the community shifted massively with this change. That old content is still there ofc, but it’s just that, old content, that…it’s there.

There is no focus on raids. They exist, of course, but as a side endeavor. The focus is on the

In addition to the old content you mention there are several new zones, along with associated story arcs, new weapon skins, new armor skins, new game mechanics, new craftables, new minis, new stats, guild halls, etc, etc.

Dismissing all of this and declaring the game to be focused on raids seems a bit odd to me.

Djinn.9245:

In the case of GW2, people have been playing core quite happily and suddenly they give us HoT. In that case, players who are upset by this change are not looking in the wrong place for their gaming amusement. They had it all through GW2 as it was initially presented.

They didn’t give us HoT. We had to choose, in light of its advertised increased level of difficulty, to buy it.

Looking at a product advertised as being unlike core GW2 for an experience like core GW2 might be accurately described as, “looking in the wrong place.”

You are right, though, in that some people had there gaming amusement preference in GW2 as it was initially presented. Still do.

Runiir.6425:

Ashen.2907:

morrolan.9608:

Ashen.2907:

To be honest, you might want to spend some time learning your preferred profession a bit better before moving on to HoT. The content in the core game doesnt really teach you much about playing well. HoT is supposed to be more challenging for play by those who have a better handle on their characters.

If 80 levels doesn’t teach you how to play your class properly then ‘Houston we have a problem’!

I disagree, to an extent.

Pre-endgame leveling, in any game, doesn’t necessarily teach you how to perform at your fullest potential. That comes with practice and experience while operating in the new, more challenging environment.

Living season 2 helps with this learning curve, but most new people won’t ever do it. Or even see it as an option due to how it is tucked away or requires an additional purchase for them.

Agreed.

morrolan.9608:

Ashen.2907:

To be honest, you might want to spend some time learning your preferred profession a bit better before moving on to HoT. The content in the core game doesnt really teach you much about playing well. HoT is supposed to be more challenging for play by those who have a better handle on their characters.

If 80 levels doesn’t teach you how to play your class properly then ‘Houston we have a problem’!

I disagree, to an extent.

Pre-endgame leveling, in any game, doesn’t necessarily teach you how to perform at your fullest potential. That comes with practice and experience while operating in the new, more challenging environment.

TorsoReaper.8530:

Vayne.8563:

Or some of those people started enjoying HOT maps after the April fixes. That’s another possibility.

I noticed a drop in complaints after that update came out.

Unfortunately, if that were true, revenues for GW2 would not be worse than even Aion Online.

I am not so sure about that. I feel that the gem store, for quite some time now, has been truly underwhelming. If there isn’t much, of interest to me at least, to buy, then even the best expac possible, including everything I might ever want, will not encourage me to spend extra cash in the gem store.

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Djinn.9245:

IndigoSundown.5419:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Old fashioned learning through discovery – there was a time that people understood and relished this over dull predictability and dot to dot instructions.

Unfortunately, some gamers seem more interested in convenience than anything else. Having to think and perhaps struggle a bit is inconvenient. I believe that the ubiquity of TV is at least partially the cause. TV only requires that you pay your cable bill and turn on the TV to be entertained. The only struggle might be finding something worth watching.

Some gamers seem to want a similar experience in their games. Buy the game, turn it on, be entertained without any struggle, with no significant effort or investment. Just look at the massive popularity of the mindless Facebook games. While there is nothing inherently wrong with that attitude, those who want that kind of experience in a given game cannot be catered to with the same content that is aimed at players who want something more than minimally active amusement.

Games are for entertainment – you know, fun? I’m not sure why you are trying to say that how anyone PLAYS a game is “wrong”. If I play GW2 by doing nothing but craft and never go out of a city, that would still be a completely reasonable way to play.

he is saying that some people don’t have fun and blame the game when actually the root cause is elsewhere.

That’s not how I interpret what he said, but whatever.

So, when he said that there was nothing wrong with it, you interpreted the statement as meaning that there was?

Nate.3927:

misterman.1530:

Bezerker.2379:

Glass Hand.7306:

Nobody wants to come out and play on it so if you are red it’s going to be a long losing week.

I don’t know who voted for this but it was a really bad idea.

I roam on it nightly. Some of us actually love it, and we often find fights that are interesting due to the land layout.

Please don’t assume everyone thinks like you.

Problem is, it doesn’t appear that many think like you do. I don’t think Anet is in business to appease a minority of people. If these numbers are accurate, they would be well-served, if they even care about WvW, to dump the DBL. People might protest, but you would be in the minority, it seems.

they already did a vote, it wasn’t even close. the people who despise it like you are the ones in the minority

That is not what the poll asked. The poll was specifically implemented to result in keeping DBL.

Fluffball.8307:

zealex.9410:

no reason for unfriendly behaviour the issue is even tho you might talking about a part of the community you are not giving a good feedback suggestion other way or the conz of the existing system (possible highcost etc)

What??? Is that english?

Also I am not being unfriendly, the people that are being unfriendly are the people that think change is bad.

To be fair, the existence of AR is a change from the original state of the game. You are the one stating that you do not care for a change.

On topic, I think that AR is an odd concept. Id much rather see content created to challenge one’s skill than one’s willingness to add infusions to on’s gear.

Vayne.8563:

There definitely needs to be a bigger warning before purchase. When you buy a produce and get the product you expect to be able to use the product fully.

If I bought a car and the AC didn’t work for 4 days I’d be livid.

I understand why the restrictions are in place and I agree on the need for them, but that needs to be spelled out and sold to people who are buying the game.

Agreed.

Healix.5819:

Ashen.2907:

I can imagine walking up to the checkout counter at the grocery store, having the cashier ring up my purchase, take my money, and then tell me that the store would hold hold on to my selected items for a few days before allowing me to take them. A bit off putting IMO.

(that is how it works, when you place an order online and expect it to be delivered)

Yes. And products being delivered will generally have some form of disclaimer, at the point of purchase, indicating that it needs to be delivered, and how long that will take. It is also pretty clear that delivering a physical product takes time.

Neither of those points apply here.

Djinn.9245:

I agree that if you purchase a game, you are probably excited to play it. You might set aside a weekend to really dive in and do a lot. Then you are hampered by not being able to fully play the game.

For those saying its not a big deal, imagine if you did a Silverwastes run, filled up your inventory, and then could not sell anything on the TP. That would be a huge deal to me. Yes I understand that there are things you can do to get stuff out of your inventory, but you can’t do what you WANT to do.

I understand WHY Anet put the restrictions on, but they should have a bigger warning so people aren’t disappointed right after purchasing the game.

This.

Charging a customer for a product and then telling him, after taking his money, that he cannot have the product now is a bit off in my opinion.

I can imagine walking up to the checkout counter at the grocery store, having the cashier ring up my purchase, take my money, and then tell me that the store would hold hold on to my selected items for a few days before allowing me to take them. A bit off putting IMO.

OriOri.8724:

Paying for a second account is not a reasonable way to go about acquiring MC. I can’t comprehend how people are ok with having multiple accounts being the only viable way to acquire enough MC in a reasonable time to craft anything with them barring the TP.

It seems odd, to me, to say, “barring,” the main intended means of acquiring MC quickly.

Barring reward tracks and doing the dungeon, Ascalonian Catacombs exclusive skins are pretty hard to come by.

Hopefully the next xpac will have a greater variety of content in terms of both difficulty and type. I dont care for HoT maps but I enjoy the fights. My biggest concern is that the next xpac will have the variety I mentioned, but partnered up opposite my own tastes. I would love core style maps with HoT combat, but would be disappointed by a locking more challenging combat behind HoT style maps and navigation.

I do think that the transition from core game difficulty to HoT was too abrupt. I think that is as much an issue with the core game challenge progression as it is with HoT.

I believe that Anet had expected silverwastes to prepare people for HoT, but, I wouldnt be surprised to find, many people had long since moved on from SW, back into core content for alts, AP hunting, etc. And of course newer players might not have ventured into DT and SW.

All told, I dont feel the transition was handled as well as could have been.

Moonyeti.3296:

Djinn.9245:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Djinn.9245:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Once a Zone is full enough for the meta (or world boss etc)…
-> It attracts taxi-using players.
-> It reaches the soft cap.
-> New players entering the zone are dropped in new instances.
-> The taxi-using among them move to the first map, which becomes hard capped.
-> Players who don’t taxi are extremely like to end up in seemingly-empty zones.

So regardless of whether we prefer LFG or prefer to find our events more organically, in this game, it’s an essential tool. Those who use it will be playing a different sort of game than those who don’t, which is why we end up having some of these “there’s no one there” | “yes, there are people there” conversations.

Why is it that Anet doesn’t seem to care about this? Why didn’t they predict this and build some kind of notification so that new players know why the map is empty and how to find maps that have other people? The fact that so many people ask about empty maps, un-completeable events, and being pushed out of maps when they are just about to complete something should have prompted Anet to do something a year ago.

Because the underlying issue is math, not tech. Getting people to Taxis is a social problem, which also cannot be resolved by tech.

…

There’s only a problem if the people who ask aren’t willing or able to use the tools at hand.

IMO, it isn’t that people are not willing or able to use the tools. It is that they don’t understand the situation. When we first got the megaserver, I would see references to “taxi” in chat and I had zero idea what that was. I have played almost every single AAA MMO since Everquest and never had to deal with this issue.

Anyone who has come to GW2 from almost any other MMO and likes PvE expects to just go to a map and play. How can they know there are more than 1 instance of the same map? And if they find out, how could they figure out how to get there? The LFG tool is for looking for a group, not for travel between instances. If a person was simply running around a map doing PvE, why would they look there to change to a more populated map?

This is what I am talking about Anet making more obvious.

This I agree with. I have no problems with using the LFG tool to organize the maps, but it should be way more obvious. Half the time I forget until I get the dead map warning, then I remember the LFG tool and check for active taxis. Now if I am on the hunt for something specific I know to use it but it was not intuitive in the least to get used to it.

Also agreed.

Djinn.9245:

Vayne.8563:

The real point to me is that this thread is called hot is unsoloable, which is very very different from saying I can’t solo HoT. That’s a very different statement.

You need to have knowledge of your class and some small degree of skill (yes, small) to solo HoT. Again not every hero point, but to get around solo and to get to where people are doing things. And it’s not intuitive, it takes time to learn.

There are always people that will start a book find it not interesting and close it before the first chapter, but some books are fantastic if you stay with them. Many people have felt that about HOT. The more you play it the better you get.

Generally I’ve found the people who like it least aren’t people who can’t play it. They’re people who can’t play it but don’t want to because all they want to do is get their mastery points so they can play the game, rather than playing the game to get their mastery points.

HoT has entertaining and complex event chains. It has interesting dynamics. It has maps that make you think and not everyone is going to like that. That why AB is so good for most people. It’s less twisted.

But why shouldn’t this game have a couple of zones that are more complex?

“This chicken is too hot.” Obviously I mean “for me”.

Normally I would agree, but the OP, and some other posters since, have specifically stated that they were not speaking for themselves.

Djinn.9245:

Ashen.2907:

battledrone.8315:

the fact, that you can, and will solo HoT makes you hardcore

I play, generally, less than an hour a day. Often this means logging in for dailies and not much else. I always choose the quickest and easiest dailies. Sometimes I don’t even finish my dailies.

I don’t run meta builds. Ever. I don’t have even one character outfitted in full ascended. Not counting jewelry, earned with laurels, I think I have a grand total of 4 pieces of ascended gear (and one of those is Caladbolg from the current events).

I don’t have my masteries maxed out. I don’t have a single crafting discipline about something like rank 20. I don’t PvP and ALWAYS get killed if I encounter an enemy player in WvW while doing dailies.

If you consider someone who spends more time fiddling around with dyes on their characters than actually playing content “hardcore” then you might want to reconsider your personal definition of the term.

If you consider someone who spends, on average, something like 20-30 minutes a day playing the game “hardcore” then you might want to reconsider your personal definition of the term.

You don’t believe that some people have an inherent “knack” for certain things? Or maybe you have played a similar game or games such as platformers that give you skills that make HoT easier for you even though you don’t spend a lot of time / effort in GW2?

Being able to do something that others find difficult isn’t always because you spent a lot of time / effort at it.

I was responding to someone who claimed that I was a hardcore player. Me, someone who doesnt play dungeons, PvP, raids, doesnt optimize character builds or equipment, doesnt play for extended sessions, or even every day, often only logs in to do dailies…

Having a supposed “knack” for not dying (usually) when playing in a particular area of the game does not make one a hardcore player IMO.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Tristen of Galen.8420:

Not sure if this was mentioned somewhere, but another idea would be to allow us to create/edit/save our own outfits using whatever skins we’ve unlocked. It would ignore the armor type restriction since it’s going over the current armor’s appearance like all other outfits. Depending on how ANET feels about players making “naked outfits”, an outfit might require a skin for each armor piece before it can be created.

The clipping problem would still be there, but it would be up to the player to either deal with it or modify the outfit to select skins that won’t clip (or have less pronounced clipping).

And how do you imagine that they create the tech for creating an outfit stitched together from any other skins, without solving the underlying tech problems?

There was a thread a while back suggesting costume like panels for the 2 other armor weights where you could slot one different armor weight on each “costume” panel and that would appear instead of your regular armor. No mixing and matching between the weights.

So, a light armor would have a heavy armor “costume” panel and a medium armor “costume” panel that they could select wardrobe skins for and wear on top of their armor.

I would certainly not call it a “need” but I would pay for this.

battledrone.8315:

the fact, that you can, and will solo HoT makes you hardcore

I play, generally, less than an hour a day. Often this means logging in for dailies and not much else. I always choose the quickest and easiest dailies. Sometimes I don’t even finish my dailies.

I don’t run meta builds. Ever. I don’t have even one character outfitted in full ascended. Not counting jewelry, earned with laurels, I think I have a grand total of 4 pieces of ascended gear (and one of those is Caladbolg from the current events).

I don’t have my masteries maxed out. I don’t have a single crafting discipline about something like rank 20. I don’t PvP and ALWAYS get killed if I encounter an enemy player in WvW while doing dailies.

If you consider someone who spends more time fiddling around with dyes on their characters than actually playing content “hardcore” then you might want to reconsider your personal definition of the term.

If you consider someone who spends, on average, something like 20-30 minutes a day playing the game “hardcore” then you might want to reconsider your personal definition of the term.

Djinn.9245:

I don’t understand why the same group of people in this thread and other difficulty threads insist over and over that HoT is not actually difficult and that it is solo-able.

Those of us who have trouble know whether we are able to solo the content and know whether or not we are having difficulty with it. BY DEFINITION if players are finding it difficult, it IS IN FACT difficult for those players. No amount of saying that it isn’t actually difficult will change how WE experience it.

Because all too often those claiming that it is not soloable claim to be speaking for “casual” players as a group rather than just themselves.

I dont doubt that some (casual) players cannot solo in HoT, but I also know for a fact that others can.

If someone says, “I cannot solo in HoT,” my inclination is to try to help them.

When someone says that casuals (of which I am one) cannot solo in HoT, I contest their position because they are making claims about me, my friends, and untold numbers of other people that they do not know. If one chooses to claim to speak for me, expect me to respond if the claims are inaccurate.

Zenith.7301:

they’re the same exact item,

No they are not.

Ardid.7203:

Ashen.2907:

If deer can compete in this world then horses should have no problem. Of course they seem to be extinct so something else was a factor.

I blame the Charr.

They were just normal horses which behaved like simple herd herbivores, eating grass and running for their lifes at the slightest sign of danger.
That survival strategy is ok in our planet, were most animals are slower than horses, and were predators are happy with just hunting when hungry.
But typical animals in Tyria don’t behave that way. They are VICIOUSLY AGGRESIVE and SUICIDAL VENGEFUL.
Most probable reason for the extinction of horses is they were anihilated by those terrifying, jealous, murdering deer.

Solid point…those deer are nasty. I wouldnt even be surprised to discover that they are meat eaters (only pretending to eat grass in order to lure us in close enough to attack).

Knuckle Joe.7408:

I’m guessing, as someone said, they went extinct with the sinking of Orr, or my theory is that simple animal like a horse would not have the means to survive much in a world where even the bees are the size of dogs, they have no means of defense to the more crazy predators around. We still have Does though, which my guess is would be extinct soon enough as well, as you don’t see them that much around.

They’re not something like a Dolyak for example, with big size, herd mentality and huge horns. Rabbits and other small critters are small and can easily hide. That’s what I think at least. We got Cows in Queensdale but they are protected by humans.

If deer can compete in this world then horses should have no problem. Of course they seem to be extinct so something else was a factor.

I blame the Charr.

I rather liked this event.

I disliked Trahearne prior to this quest but it actually lessened my antipathy for the character. He will never be one of my favorites but the interactions here left me feeling better about him and his place in the story.

Plus I got an ascended weapon for an hours play and 2.5 gold (without crafting). Probably the best reward that Ive earned in game to date.

I am very happy with this event.

Most MMOs, even in their core launch game, are pretty much the same stuff over and over.

Biggest, craziest, meatiest, Charr Meatoberfest celebration ever!

Ider.1276:

Ashen.2907:

Pretty cheap to buy them. Ive at least one character of each profession at level 80, outfitted in exotics, without crafting a single piece.

Good luck with buying those viper/commander exotics.

People were able to start playing the game for years before those were released. Unless people now are less competent than they were fojr and a half years ago, they probably still can.

Can one craft exotic gear, viper or commander included, at level 1?

Ider.1276:

Ashen.2907:

Hmm, no. Crafting exotics is not a must to start playing and having fun.

Depends on what your defenition of fun is. If it is core Tiria events/map completion that yes, you can do it in greens. If you find fun in dungeons, fractals, raids and HoT maps then exotic is a minimum to have.

Pretty cheap to buy them. Ive at least one character of each profession at level 80, outfitted in exotics, without crafting a single piece.

Ider.1276:

Ashen.2907:

When were hardened leather squares made into a necessity to start playing and having fun?

Since HoT release when they became a must to craft all exotic armor gear, which is a must to start playing and having fun in PvE.

Hmm, no. Crafting exotics is not a must to start playing and having fun.

Did they say when they would be online?

I could see them giving it a while so players could give feedback based on playing with the changes rather than just reading them.

One of these days someone will make one of these posts where they say, “I am unhappy with…” instead of, “many people are unhappy with…” and, “I hate…” instead of, “everyone hates…”

….But not today apparently.

I wouldn’t mind seeing more hair style options.

AliamRationem.5172:

Healix.5819:

Mabuse.2879:

I am very glad that is it more challenging, because levelling through Central Tyria was trivially easy and got quite dull. I even resorted to doing it in white gear so that I could learn to play my professions better without killing things so fast.

Difference in level is a difficulty modifier. Your target should always be a minimum of 1 level above you, 3 if you actually want to play on normal mode. If you’d prefer hard mode or are simply playing a joke like a necromancer, go up to 10, especially from 1-20 to counteract the nerfs. Gear? Simply equip what’s provided to you, which will likely result in wearing pieces 10-40 levels below. Leveling through core can be far more challenging than HoT if you want it to be.

Yeah, but that’s like telling a mountain climber who lives at sea level to just tie one arm behind his back. People who like HoT want content like HoT, not to be told to handicap themselves so that they can enjoy playing GW2.

Agreed.

Also, someone wanting a challenge may very wish to test his character (and his own ability to play the character) at its best, to see what he can accomplish with the character operating at the very peak of its capability…not to see if he can survive with a handicap.

Ider.1276:

Anet is OK with nearly 1g prices on hardened leather squares, and they are a basic need to gear up a character to start playing and having fun. Do you think they care about mystic coin prices, that are, in fact, a luxiory thing, not basic need?

When were hardened leather squares made into a necessity to start playing and having fun?

Ranger

I like the theme of the stalker, the hunter, capable with blade…but especially bow. Self sufficient, but a welcome addition, as scout or sniper, to a group needing a marksman’s skills.

Combine all of that with growing up camping, backpacking, horseback riding, mountain biking, and generally learning to love the outdoors.

I can imagine that new players have the potential to benefit from selling high value leather drops to build up gold reserves at a point where they are not yet ready to embark on ascended crafting and before they have learned other means of farming gold.

SkullProX.7083:

Don’t cry, it was way too easy before, and other games have an ENORMOUS gear grind, even 70-80g /asc piece is NOTHING for an end game gear compared to other games…

Are you suggesting that players go spend their money and time on other games instead of GW2?

It seems silly to call for new raiders, who will obviously not be commanding in raids yet, to buy a commander tag as a prerequisite for the content.

Have to love the selective memory, or intentional misrepresentation of facts, going on here.

Rashagar.8349:

Justine.6351:

LinhZeri.6412:

lol I don’t even have a full set of ascended armor on any character I have and ive been playing since the start.

That’s just not possible unless you only farm queensdale and RP in Divinities reach.

It’s obviously possible.

Indeed. I still dont have a full set either.

The announcement for HoT brought me back from a break, and the nature of what was announced encouraged me to buy gems for the first time in a while.

I did not prepurchase, and no longer prepurchase games after doing so with GW2.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’m surprised this debate is still around. Anyway, yes newbies should use glass cannon gear. Berserker, Assassin, Viper, Sinister, etc. if more have been added.

Whether or not a newbie should use glass cannon gear isn’t a question of skill, insomuch as it is a question of efficiency. GW2 was designed PVP first, with close ratios between player stats and gear prefixes. The different stat loadouts you use are all meant to both survive other player’s attacks, and also threaten other players with your attacks. Going full glass or full tank usually means you’re doing twice the damage or talking half the damage of the other. This translates into a roughly equal performance, since either the enemy lives half as long and thus only does half the damage, or you have twice the effective health against an enemy that does full damage.

This translates to PVE as well. Nearly every gear prefix was designed to be wholly self-sufficient, so with the exceptions of Nomad and Minstrel you’ll never build yourself into impotence simply by choosing the wrong gear. The enemies only do 2k per attack, if even that much, so you’ll rarely find yourself in insta-gib territory or overwhelmed by damage. But, with all that said, glass cannon gear still has a set of distinct advantages that other sets don’t give.

#1: GC is faster. Faster means quicker healing, quicker rewards, a greater volume of things done per fixed time, and thus it is more profitable.
#2: Likewise, GC gear is more convenient if you have limited play time.
#3: Things are on time limits. Dynamic events and map wide meta events have a literal clock ticking down.
#4: GC has better peak performance. Assuming terrible play most of the sets balance out. But assuming perfect play, GC enables you to accomplish feats that other sets literally cannot do.
#5: Traits, utilities, and tactics make up the bulk of your defenses. If you find yourself dying too fast, it is really easy to change to a more defense trait setup, utility setup, weapon, and strategy. Owning multiple gear prefixes, however, is expensive and cumbersome to deal with.
#6: New players tend to hang back and kite mobs while using ranged weapons, to which defensive stats matter very little. If they’re going to bearbow, they might as well be the best bearbow possible.
#7: You fully heal after the encounter is over, so there is no long-term concerns. A win is a win, so it doesn’t matter how wide a margin your win is.
#8: There are enemies in the game who are so frail that you can obliterate them before they can counter-attack.

With all that said, you can make a solid case for Maurader gear. It only does slightly less DPS than Berserkers/Assassins, but that additional 5.8k HP actually means a lot on the low and mid HP tiers. Overall, Maurader is an extremely efficient set in its distribution, and also it has 300 more points total. The big problem is whether or not players will accept you into their team. Though maurader is sufficient for raids, it might not be enough for the raid group.

Your numbers 5 and 7 really stand out to me. The entire list is solid but those two points in particular.

Changing to more defensive utilities or traits before going into a particularly rough fight is cheap and easy. And finishing a fight with positive health total is a win, no matter how large the remaining total.

Behellagh.1468:

TorsoReaper.8530:

LinhZeri.6412:

too funny hey it isn’t undervalued now is it?.. it has a purpose now.. before it didn’t. that makes no sense lol. Im sure you so concerned on the economy of a game.. are you hording leather or something? majority of players cannot constantly get the leather they need to make their equipment and other things. I love [sarcasm] the logic of self regulated economy when you got selfish people who game the trading post have full control over everything because the source of leather is low… self regulating economys DO NOT WORK because people are all out for themselves and don’t care for others its simple. It is so crazy how this concept of player regulated economy came to be. Im sure over years it can work but the attention span of players these days is near nothing it is a cute little idea that will cause issues continually and it has since John Smith announced it.

Player regulated economy is fine, it’s the actual regulation by Anet that’s the problem. They’re the ones screwing with drop rates, salvage rates, material refinement ratios. Of course there’s a problem. We never had a leather problem until Anet created a leather problem. If you’re a new player, you wouldn’t know this but if you’re a veteran you can point to all the things Anet did to screw this up.

Yes they over compensated in an attempt to fix another problem which was over supply due to a lack of sinks. It seemed they sat down to brainstorm a fix then and came up with a list of potential fixes and implemented ALL of them when only one or two could likely fix it. At least phase in the changes one at at time and see if that would be enough. But they only seem to understand extreme changes rather than nudges.

The bit about implementing all of the brainstormed fixes rather than try one or two reminds me of MMO development in general.

Jubilant.7280:

Ashen.2907:

Seera.5916:

Klowde.9876:

Astralporing.1957:

Jubilant.7280:

The raiding community is more than willing to help Casuals get into raids, but they have to put in the effort and time to learn in order to become a better gamer.

Yes, that’s the core of the problem. You’re willing to help casuals, but only if that means they will stop being casuals.

You ask casuals to stay away from you, but in the end it’s you that should be kept away from them. Which, in the end, is not what this game should be all about. What you’re talking about is creating a split in the community. Any such split can only poison the game.

In the end, what really needs to happen is the exact opposite. We need to seek ways to make raiders and casuals to be able to coexist together without one side trying to force the other one to change.

I really don’t see that as the core of the problem. You’re saying that just because one is expected to learn something about the game, they are no longer casual? It makes perfect sense that to do raids, people who have no experience still have to learn it.
Raids are supposed to be challenging content, and anyone who walks into a raid and refuses to learn it is wasting everyone’s time or asking to get carried through it.

There’s nothing wrong with helping casual players become better at the game, assuming these casual players want to raid. If you don’t want to become better at the game and challenge yourself, then don’t raid. If you want to raid, you’d be willing to dedicate a certain amount of your time to learning these raids, and there will be resource like raid trainers who would very willingly and kindly help you with becoming a better player so you can finish the raids.

His problem is the OP wants to train others but only if they are willing to stop being casual because according to the OP casuals and raiders can’t be put together.

I dont think that learning how to complete a boss fight as part of a team means that you are not a casual player.

Learning to complete a boss fight means there must be roles you have to fulfill to successfully defeat the boss. But sometimes Casuals who are comfortable playing a profession geared with decent toughness and dps may sometimes become the tank but they are ranged. Using logic, having a ranged tank is fundamentally incompatible as the tank will be constantly moving around as this person incorporates their general PvE playstyle into fighting the boss, effectively messing around with the mechanics of the boss or causing a wipe because there’s not enough time to kill the boss.

That’s why I want to separate Casuals from Raiders. If you want to waste other people’s time testing out various builds with 9 other Casuals while not fully comprehending or maximizing your profession, fine. But don’t waste other people’s time when you have a commander’s tag without knowing what the hell you are doing and aren’t open to criticism and then rage or be toxic to your peers simply because you couldn’t kill the boss.

Thats not a difference between casual and hardcore or raider. Its a matter of being a team player. Casuals can be great team players every bit as much as hardcore or raiders can be bad team players.

I am not, currently, a raider in this game but I do enjoy team based content, PVE and PVP, here and elsewhere. Some of my best experiences have been working with casual players and some of my worst experiences have been with hardcore players. And vice versa of course.

Crinn.7864:

Ashen.2907:

Crinn.7864:

Ashen.2907:

Crinn.7864:

lukejoe.1592:

Crinn.7864:

Ya’ll do realize that HoT had a prepurchase option available months before HoT launched and the sales from those prepurchases would have been on the pre-HoT quarter.

Nope that is not true. GAAP rules don’t allow companies to recognize revenue at PoS unless it’s also the same date a delivery or the date a customer actually takes possession of the goods.

But the customer did take possession of the goods the day they prepurchased HoT.

Remember that GW2 went f2p before Heart of Thorns, and when it did so, purchasing HoT was how you upgraded from f2p to full account. The day a f2p account purchased HoT they take possession of more character slots, unrestricted trading post, and beta weekend access.

For example I came to this game in august of 2015 as f2p, I bought HoT in September of 2015 in order to gain a full account. I took possession of the full account on that same day. HoT launched in late October of 2015.

Even people that had bought the original game before f2p where still possessing their HoT purchase before HoT launch in the form of incentive items.
From the HoT pre-purchase announcement page: “All virtual items will be delivered to your account immediately for instant enjoyment” https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns-is-available-for-pre-purchase/

Did the customer take possession of the HoT expansion at the time of prepurchase?

The took possession of Guild Wars 2. All versions of HoT included vanilla GW2 as part of the purchase.

See the link in previous post. And really HoT pre purchases have to be under the previous quarter since it doesn’t make any sense for the game to have a large revenue spike during a content drought.

But they did not take possession of the highly advertised HoT expansion to GW2. Taking possession of the incentives for prepurchasing HoT is not taking possession of HoT.

They took possession of (most of) the goods because they took possession of a full account.

Please remember that legally and technically Guild Wars 2 is a separate item than Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns However all packages that include Heart of Thorns include Guilds Wars 2.

Besides there is literally no way to make any sense of the quarterly reports if we assume that all HoT purchases including pre purchases where listed in HoT’s release quarter. It would require assuming that players randomly increased their gem purchase by a large amount during the drought, and assuming that of the existing players only a minority bought into HoT, and assuming that the game received little if any new players post HoT, and that gem store purchases dropped to nothing after HoT.

I can honestly say that I dont have sufficient record of what was being offered in the gemstore at the time of the drought in order to state that any spike was random.

I can say that players did not take possession of most of the goods at the time of prepurchase because the expansion itself was most of the goods. Only people who did not previously own GW2 received a full account. Nether of us can prove it, but I hope we both know that the majority, vastly so I am sure, of HoT purchases (pre or post launch) were by existing owners of the core game. ANet (or was it NCSoft?) has even stated that conversions from F2P to HoT were disappointingly low.