Guild Wars 2

Defense phases sometimes fail because you don’t have enough people spread out or you have players who fight mobs on top of what they’re trying to protect.

MyriadStars.5679:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

Don’t get scared, non-elite players. We tried the raid as a pug group and had lot’s of fun. It wasn’t like: BOOM, all bads die. We made progress each try.

Even though it’s brutal hard to kill the boss, it’s decently designed to feel rewarding even for pugs, when dealing with certain mechanics. You’ll die a lot, but you’ll also learn a lot.

Don’t get discouraged! Pug up and learn. Then come back with a more organised group.

If each raid wing contains one boss only plus some mini bosses, then sure, there is no need to fear. However, if a raid wing contains 5+ bosses and your progress is reset every week, then raids = time sinks, which are typical MMO traps which GW2 was advertised to avoid when it was released.

Progress is not reset.

Dual.8953:

Ayrilana.1396:

nekretaal.6485:

What’s wrong with winning by attrition?

Serious question.

God I hate timers.

Anet should design more bosses like the molten duo who can be holy hell if your DPS is too low if it intends to enforce DPS checks.

Because it requires little skill.

Not necessarily. If the enemy can apply mounting pressure too it becomes an endurance game which could require just as much skill, just in different areas.

I don’t equate the players who defeated VG in a mix of DPS gear, teamwork, and strategy before the timer ran out as being on the same skill level as players decked out in Soldiers and dire gear auto attacking at their own leisure due to no timer and only putting in enough effort to minimize the impact certain boss abilities have to wipe the group such as stacking for the Lightning.

nekretaal.6485:

What’s wrong with winning by attrition?

Serious question.

God I hate timers.

Anet should design more bosses like the molten duo who can be holy hell if your DPS is too low if it intends to enforce DPS checks.

Because it requires little skill.

FinalPatriot.8034:

I just found the game for $37.90 US. I’m still going to wait for some time until after the xpack is released and we can see what all it contains. I’m concerned that so close to release we’ve not seen anything yet about new armor sets, character customization options, etc.

Anyway, here is the link where I found it for a lower price:

Make sure the place you buy from is legit.

It makes sense for the HoT masteries to only gain progression while in HoT zones because those masteries can only be used there.

uhohhotdog.3598:

I think the mats should be reduced slightly for each type for damask. Reduce the amount of each cloth required to make damask by about 20% each.

Won’t fix one of the primary complaints that people have where light armor costs more than medium and heavy.

Conncept.7638:

Ayrilana.1396:

Varonth.5830:

There is alot of things wrong with ascended crafting, but as many system which were introduced once and didn’t quite work out well, this ascended crafting system is left to collect dust. Instead we will probably get some other way to get ascended armor.

Crafting is not the only source for ascended armor and weapons.

Hardcore gambling is not a ‘source’ by any logic whatsoever, if anything it’s an expenditure, one for the particularly stupid and/or desperate. Anything you can get ascended gear from, you could be doing other content in the same time frame to gain more mats, gold, karma, pretty much everything in fact.

It’s a source whether you agree with it or not. If you disregard that as a source then all items that come from a drop have no source. Final Rest has no source since getting it as a drop is a gamble. Treasure Hunter items that come from the world bosses have no sources as well since it’s a gamble. Shall I go on?

A lot of the sources of ascended weapons/armor you can do from just playing the game. Not everyone farms all the time. Some may do PvP for their dailies and they can get their ascended from the loot containers off the reward tracks. Some may do guild missions and get their ascended there. Others may do Teq and Evolved Wurm. Some may do fractals. There are people that do WvW and get them from rank up chests and others that farm champ bags either from champs or from SW chest farm. You can even get them from doing jumping puzzles.

Of course all of this doesn’t matter because they’re not what you deem a logical source.

MrH.2591:

Ayrilana.1396:

Upgrading DX also will not provide the performance boost that people are hoping for.

I remember when WoW went from DX9 to DX11 and it doubled my frame rate in town, it made a massive difference. Why wouldn’t it do the same for Guild Wars 2?

Do you know what DX does? That would be why.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3ajnso/bad_optimalization_in_gw2/csdnn3n

MashMash.1645:

Ayrilana.1396:

Timer is likely there because they don’t want you to win simply by attrition.

People have often applauded Queen’s Gauntlet (e,g, Liadri) for being great challenges. And yet, they had timers.

Why is a timer any better than other options? Skill over time is not as worthy? An enrage timer is just a lazy mechanic.

How’s winning by attrition skill?

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

Timer is likely there because they don’t want you to win simply by attrition.

People have often applauded Queen’s Gauntlet (e,g, Liadri) for being great challenges. And yet, they had timers.

Actually, I wasn’t fond of the drop-and-die timer. I obviously don’t speak for everyone, and I still agree the Queen’s Gauntlet was probably the best test of skill the game has seen. Not the best it could have been, as it favored (as usual) running Zerk to beat the clock and defense didn’t matter because of excessive damage kills.

/shrug
But that’s still what I expect out of ANet’s lazyish combat design. Run zerk/sinister because defensive stats don’t matter. OHKOs and meatwalls of HP. At least the OHKOs are getting more interesting with the jump rope. :P

The issue with removing the timer is how can you incorporate a way for players to fail?

Upgrading DX also will not provide the performance boost that people are hoping for.

If they ever do Bubbles, we’ll likely see more underwater content.

Timer is likely there because they don’t want you to win simply by attrition.

People have often applauded Queen’s Gauntlet (e,g, Liadri) for being great challenges. And yet, they had timers.

You can get just the expansion. The core game is a free bonus when you apply the HoT code against a new account.

The price of HoT will likely drop sometime in the future. It could be as early as the holidays this year or further into next year.

Cyninja.2954:

Sizer.3987:

Cyninja.2954:

Finaly people are realising what “the end of zerker meta” means.

Have fun collecting multiple ascended sets now until you’ve gathered the mats for legendary armor.

Not to mention that certain classes (ranger aka druid aka healbot) will now get to use only 1 type of set and build specific to each boss in raids.

This is so much better than being slightly less efficient in custom gear than full zerker gear, as was up till now. /sarcasm

The one case where I really hate having been right. O well, 2-3 more ascended equips isn’t that hard to get for me.

Well fortunately you arent right, as ascended is in no way required for raids, so no need to keep hating.

Sure, keep telling yourself that. True, it’s not required for the first couple of bosses but only recommended. It’s near required for the last/final bosses.

Now how many casual players with subpar equipment do you expect to perform adequately in a raid enviroment and clear the content in exotics? Refering to casual players is not ment derogatory in this case (I rarely think being casual in a game is a bad thing, on the contrary). It’s more refering to players who neither had the time or intent of getting ascended gear due to different constraints (time, family, w/e).

Not saying it won’t happen, but let’s be honest. It’s not like games haven’t been down this road before. Every little bit up helps, especially when content is not on farm status.

And how well would the hardcore players perform in exotics compared to the casuals? Skill/coordination will play a far larger part in the DPS output of a group than the difference between exotic and ascended.

SkiTz.4590:

Ayrilana.1396:

SkiTz.4590:

Ayrilana.1396:

Kevan.8912:

Ayrilana.1396:

La Goanna.8142:

Ayrilana.1396:

Here’s s perfect solution.

Anet makes there be two modes for raids: normal mode and hard mode.

The hard mode will be what is currently intended for raids.

Normal mode will exist solely for those players that want to experience the story within the raids. The enemies and bosses have minimal mechanics and can be killed like how current bosses are killed (i.e. Just auto attack until they die). They will also not get any rewards as that’s reserved for hard mode only.

Everyone wins.

What about the ones who don’t want to grind for ludicrously expensive gear, but still want a greater challenge other than pressing 1?

Also, good luck getting casuals interested if there’s zero rewards of any sort involved; that’s not good for the long term. I’ll feel bad for new players who want to try out the raids but can’t because the LFG panel is constantly empty, sans for core elitists who’ll kick those out who’re aren’t in full ascended everything.

Ok. Drop rates are 10% of whatever the levels are in hard mode and subjected to the same weekly lockout. If ascended chests have a 10% drop rate in hard mode then they’ll have a 1% drop rate in normal.

So that who is already decently geared, only gets better gear..while the others get..nothing. A very good example of skill-oriented game.

And what if: everyone drop ascended..but only in hardmode raid you can get legendary skins?
It seems more fair play to me.

People have yet to prove that raids will require ascended. How much of the difficulty players had was due to the lack of skill to that specific raid and proper team configuration/coordination?

The raid vendor was giving out full ascended only sets…..
Will some of the highly skilled guilds be able to do it in full exotic? probably…

The timer left on this first boss between all the guilds finishing in full ascended was 1-2 mins….that DPS loss going from ascended to exotic would probably have stopped some of those successful runs…..

This is the first boss… i fully expect this too be the easiest and it only gets harder…exotics probably won’t cut it in future bosses…

Most of the runs ppl did, they figured out the mechanics quickly enough…. what got them messed up was the enrage timers…. and enrage timers are purely a DPS check…and the fact remains…ascended applies more pressure/DPS than exotics…

It doesn’t matter what the vendor was giving out. The issue people were having was the lack of skill in regards to the mechanics (it was everyone’s first time doing these) and the lack of proper set up and coordination. These are meant to be difficult so I don’t see why the first boss should be a freebie because it happens to be the first.

If you have watched any of the videos of guilds beating the boss, you would notice lack of skill,coordination and proper setup was a non issue….those guys have ran raid MULTIPLE times and understood the mechanics very well and coordinated it on their voice chats very well…they had very few ppl getting downed throughout the whole fight…and they were able to beat the enrage timer by roughly 1-2 minutes AT BEST…

If those guys switched their ascended to exotics… they would probably still have beat it but with mere seconds to spare probably…. I doubt the avg group completes it easily in exotics until they have ran it a bajillion times to never die and to learn how to constantly be applying DPS/pressure

And they will get much better as they play it more and fine tune their strategies. Just look at Teq. When it was first revamped, people were barely able to chip of 10% of its health. People learned the mechanics and progressively got better. I’ve seen some guilds kill it with over 10 min left in the timer. Don’t assume that what some players were able to do was the epitome of what could be accomplished and that there’s no room for improvement.

If you truly believe that ascended gear then take a group of random players and a group like DnT or rT. Make everyone have the same build, classes, and so on except the highly coordinated group is in full exotic while the randoms are in full ascended. Which group will out-DPS the other? It’s safe to assume that it wouldn’t be the group of ransoms because gear is not everything.

I’m very curious to how groups like DnT and rT did compared to everyone else. If they did much better than everyone else, and everyone was in full ascended because of that vendor, it shows that there’s still a margin of improvement that pkayers can make that isn’t attributed to the tier of armor that you’re wearing.

Never mind that ascended trinkets are relatively easy to get nowadays compared to when they were first introduced and that them and weapons account for about 80% of the DPS increase that you would get by wearing full ascended. From a soreadsheet made earlier this year’s, full ascended without infusions provided a little over 10% in damage increase. About a little under 2% of that is attributed to armor.

SkiTz.4590:

Ayrilana.1396:

Kevan.8912:

Ayrilana.1396:

La Goanna.8142:

Ayrilana.1396:

Here’s s perfect solution.

Anet makes there be two modes for raids: normal mode and hard mode.

The hard mode will be what is currently intended for raids.

Normal mode will exist solely for those players that want to experience the story within the raids. The enemies and bosses have minimal mechanics and can be killed like how current bosses are killed (i.e. Just auto attack until they die). They will also not get any rewards as that’s reserved for hard mode only.

Everyone wins.

What about the ones who don’t want to grind for ludicrously expensive gear, but still want a greater challenge other than pressing 1?

Also, good luck getting casuals interested if there’s zero rewards of any sort involved; that’s not good for the long term. I’ll feel bad for new players who want to try out the raids but can’t because the LFG panel is constantly empty, sans for core elitists who’ll kick those out who’re aren’t in full ascended everything.

Ok. Drop rates are 10% of whatever the levels are in hard mode and subjected to the same weekly lockout. If ascended chests have a 10% drop rate in hard mode then they’ll have a 1% drop rate in normal.

So that who is already decently geared, only gets better gear..while the others get..nothing. A very good example of skill-oriented game.

And what if: everyone drop ascended..but only in hardmode raid you can get legendary skins?
It seems more fair play to me.

People have yet to prove that raids will require ascended. How much of the difficulty players had was due to the lack of skill to that specific raid and proper team configuration/coordination?

The raid vendor was giving out full ascended only sets…..
Will some of the highly skilled guilds be able to do it in full exotic? probably…

The timer left on this first boss between all the guilds finishing in full ascended was 1-2 mins….that DPS loss going from ascended to exotic would probably have stopped some of those successful runs…..

This is the first boss… i fully expect this too be the easiest and it only gets harder…exotics probably won’t cut it in future bosses…

Most of the runs ppl did, they figured out the mechanics quickly enough…. what got them messed up was the enrage timers…. and enrage timers are purely a DPS check…and the fact remains…ascended applies more pressure/DPS than exotics…

It doesn’t matter what the vendor was giving out. The issue people were having was the lack of skill in regards to the mechanics (it was everyone’s first time doing these) and the lack of proper set up and coordination. These are meant to be difficult so I don’t see why the first boss should be a freebie because it happens to be the first.

Kevan.8912:

Ayrilana.1396:

La Goanna.8142:

Ayrilana.1396:

Here’s s perfect solution.

Anet makes there be two modes for raids: normal mode and hard mode.

The hard mode will be what is currently intended for raids.

Normal mode will exist solely for those players that want to experience the story within the raids. The enemies and bosses have minimal mechanics and can be killed like how current bosses are killed (i.e. Just auto attack until they die). They will also not get any rewards as that’s reserved for hard mode only.

Everyone wins.

What about the ones who don’t want to grind for ludicrously expensive gear, but still want a greater challenge other than pressing 1?

Also, good luck getting casuals interested if there’s zero rewards of any sort involved; that’s not good for the long term. I’ll feel bad for new players who want to try out the raids but can’t because the LFG panel is constantly empty, sans for core elitists who’ll kick those out who’re aren’t in full ascended everything.

Ok. Drop rates are 10% of whatever the levels are in hard mode and subjected to the same weekly lockout. If ascended chests have a 10% drop rate in hard mode then they’ll have a 1% drop rate in normal.

So that who is already decently geared, only gets better gear..while the others get..nothing. A very good example of skill-oriented game.

And what if: everyone drop ascended..but only in hardmode raid you can get legendary skins?
It seems more fair play to me.

People have yet to prove that raids will require ascended. How much of the difficulty players had was due to the lack of skill to that specific raid and proper team configuration/coordination?

Habib Loew.6239:

The North American and European data centers are different in one important respect: they are located on different continents. North American players connecting to the NA data center (and European Union players connecting to the EU data center) will generally experience lower latency and a higher likelihood of playing with larger groups of other players, as those in the same data center tend to operate during similar times of the day. So there are real distinctions between the data centers which their EU/NA affiliations make clear and for that reason we will not be removing their continent designations.

We don’t match up worlds from multiple data centers for similar reasons. Ultimately, the server that runs a WvW map must live somewhere in the world and the players who connect from that same continent will have a distinct advantage over those connecting from another continent due to lower latency. In order to keep things as fair as possible to all involved we keep the matchups within each data center.

Of course it is always possible for an EU player to choose to play on an NA server, or vice-versa, but in doing so that player is choosing to take on the burden of additional latency. That situation is vastly different from our matching system placing an entire team at a latency disadvantage without their knowledge or consent.

tl;dr: data centers are on different continents, latency is an issue with inter-continental connections, data center distinctions are here to stay.

La Goanna.8142:

Ayrilana.1396:

Here’s s perfect solution.

Anet makes there be two modes for raids: normal mode and hard mode.

The hard mode will be what is currently intended for raids.

Normal mode will exist solely for those players that want to experience the story within the raids. The enemies and bosses have minimal mechanics and can be killed like how current bosses are killed (i.e. Just auto attack until they die). They will also not get any rewards as that’s reserved for hard mode only.

Everyone wins.

What about the ones who don’t want to grind for ludicrously expensive gear, but still want a greater challenge other than pressing 1?

Also, good luck getting casuals interested if there’s zero rewards of any sort involved; that’s not good for the long term. I’ll feel bad for new players who want to try out the raids but can’t because the LFG panel is constantly empty, sans for core elitists who’ll kick those out who’re aren’t in full ascended everything.

Ok. Drop rates are 10% of whatever the levels are in hard mode and subjected to the same weekly lockout. If ascended chests have a 10% drop rate in hard mode then they’ll have a 1% drop rate in normal.

Here’s s perfect solution.

Anet makes there be two modes for raids: normal mode and hard mode.

The hard mode will be what is currently intended for raids.

Normal mode will exist solely for those players that want to experience the story within the raids. The enemies and bosses have minimal mechanics and can be killed like how current bosses are killed (i.e. Just auto attack until they die). Drop rates are 10% of whatever the levels are in hard mode and subjected to the same weekly lockout.

Everyone wins.

Aviate.1376:

“Underwater exploration is a major part of Guild Wars 2.” https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2
“Guild Wars 2 has a significantly larger world than that of Guild Wars.⁵ Underwater explorable areas are a significant part of some zones, some of which have over half of the area underwater. These underwater areas are designed to be easily accessible and fun places to explore for all players so there aren’t any breath meters or time limits. The underwater areas have new friendly races and their own events. "

So what happen with that content?

I don’t see anything that indicated the opposite of what’s in the wiki. What is your issue?

So for those that did the core game beta tests, how smooth were those compared to HoT’s?

I’ve expecting a repeat of last year’s content with maybe a few new rewards. I really don’t want to do the same story line for the 3rd year in a row, but with them working on the expansion, I don’t expect them to come up with something new.

SAB fun in LA just because

Probably just added a new reset timer for Monday and forgot to remove the old one. Those that do it over the weekend got an extra week.

What runes do you have?

There isn’t a way to completely disable them. You can reduce the amount that you see during world bosses by setting the amount of players you see on screen to the lowest setting though. It’s very noticeable when doing shaman (Maw)

E Tan.7385:

Lets laught, and compare what bring HoT for nearly a brand new AAA game price.
HoT will nearly never go over 10%.. xD

That’s if you go solely on quantities which is misleading.

E Tan.7385:

Anyway, GW1 “stand alone / expansion” will ALWAYS deliver WAY more content than what the GW2 Anet could ever deliver with HoT. Especialy when you see that the precursor craft promised there is like 2years ago is now considered as a “expansion feature”

Nightfall it probably does. Factions is debateble. It delivers more than EotN.

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

glaphen.5230:

4 new regions vs 6 base, 124 new quests vs 205 base, going off just monk skills 10 new skills vs 40 base, http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Armor_art, 18 new dungeons vs 0 base, 10 heroes vs 0 base. Totally similar to the 15% of the stuff it actually adds in this but it’s more like 50%+ for all of them.

Let’s see. EotN released for $40 and Prophecies released for $50. So that makes EotN 80% (40/50) of the cost of Prophecies. Since you like to to comparisons using only quantities, that means EotN must contains at least 80% of the content of Prophecies.

Maps
Prophecies – 54
EotN – 15

Result: 28% (15/54) – FAIL

Quests
Prophecies – 205
EotN – 124

Result: 60% (124/205) – FAIL

Professions
Prophecies – 6
EotN – 2

Result: 33% (2/6) – FAIL

Armor Sets
Prophecies – 13
EotN – 5

Result: 39% (5/13) – FAIL

Skills
Prophecies – 204
EotN – 150

Result: 74% (150/204) – FAIL

Zones
Base-29
HoT-4
14%

Classes
Base-8
HoT-1
12.5%

Cosmetics
Base-Who the kitten knows 3000+ at least
HoT-60+
2%

Skills
Base-529
HoT-150 most of all only possible to equip with elite equipped and includes all Revenant skills
Not including multi part skills in either
28%

Dungeons
Base-25 dungeon paths, 15 fractals, 9 epic world bosses
HoT-3? 10 man raids
6%

So that’s a great comparison with the expansion you claim added the least content.

See. Expansions don’t ever contain as much content as their core game. Of course this is going solely on quantity which is misleading. All that someone needs to do is determine if the content that they see within the expansion is worth the $50 to them. What other games have or don’t have doesn’t matter. All that matters is what that particular expansion is worth to them.

So while you’re playing the core game, or some other game, I’ll be enjoying all of the content that HoT has to offer including all future living story content which you will not have access to. But don’t worry, you can wait until the next expansion and purchase both for $50 which will come down to $25 each.

Guardian Of Tyria.6397:

Redenaz.8631:

Varonth.5830:

And then there is the massiv difference in cost between different armor types.
A light armor set cost more than twice of a medium armor set in ascended materials.

…Does it really? I made my light ascended armor back in July, and here are the numbers I used:

Light
393damask+12leather= 405g

Medium
262damask+40leather= 302g

Heavy
273damask+56steel= 329g

While I agree that light armor shouldn’t cost so much more, let’s not overstate the case.

It’s possible the numbers have changed since then, or that someone could get different numbers depending on what mix of buy order / sell order / craft they use to calculate values, but I won’t believe it’s double unless someone can show me their numbers.

As of right now (rounding to the nearest number for price of mats), the cost of ascended armor with just ascended mats is:

Light
(18 bolts of damask x 17g each) + (6 elonian leather x 3.5g each) = 327g

Medium
(6 bolts of damask x 17g each) + (18 elonian leather x 3.5g each) = 165g

Heavy
(7 bolts of damask x 17g each) + (16 deldrimor steel x 5g each) = 199g

Prices for mats were taken off GW2 wiki under the “trading post” section of the mat summary on the right upper part of the mat page.

So, really, light armor does cost twice as much as medium armor (right now, only considering price of ascended mats).

As of last night, using buy order prices, for the entire set:

Light – 522.33G
Medium – 416.63G
Heavy – 434.44G

glaphen.5230:

4 new regions vs 6 base, 124 new quests vs 205 base, going off just monk skills 10 new skills vs 40 base, http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Armor_art, 18 new dungeons vs 0 base, 10 heroes vs 0 base. Totally similar to the 15% of the stuff it actually adds in this but it’s more like 50%+ for all of them.

Let’s see. EotN released for $40 and Prophecies released for $50. So that makes EotN 80% (40/50) of the cost of Prophecies. Since you like to to comparisons using only quantities, that means EotN must contains at least 80% of the content of Prophecies.

Maps
Prophecies – 54
EotN – 15

Result: 28% (15/54) – FAIL

Quests
Prophecies – 205
EotN – 124

Result: 60% (124/205) – FAIL

Professions
Prophecies – 6
EotN – 2

Result: 33% (2/6) – FAIL

Armor Sets
Prophecies – 13
EotN – 5

Result: 39% (5/13) – FAIL

Skills
Prophecies – 204
EotN – 150

Result: 74% (150/204) – FAIL

Test.8734:

Ayrilana.1396:

Eye of the North cost about $45 and offered much less than Heart of Thorns.

Bzzzzz! Wrong!. It was $39,99, which is the usual price for expansions (as opposed to $50,00, which is the usual price for rip-offs).

Besides, “much less than Heart of Thorns”? It had:

• 4 new regions. HoT has 4 new maps.

• 150 new skills. HoT has, what? Half of that?

• 18 dungeons. Meanwhile, HoT will be released with the promise of one third of a single raid sometime after release.

• Dozens of new weapon models. HoT will have… 5 new weapon sets. Only 5.

And so on, and so on.

Really, pet, you should learn more about what you’re trying to talk about. The kitten images were better.

Yeah I was off by $5 when trying to remember.

Again different games. The maps are different. Compare the walk-able area of the maps to any of GW2 maps. The combat system is different. The 18 dungeons is misleading as quite a lot of the dungeon maps were recycled.

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

glaphen.5230:

Straylight.7529:

glaphen.5230:

29 entire pies of pizza>4, alright 8>1, 5 per class>1. Tell me the stories of the single player games with 1,000s of hours of content besides dwarf fortress. I don’t know how you think those 4 maps are as big as 29 somehow.

They don’t need to be as big as 29 maps. HoT is an expansion and not GW3 afterall. The cost for the expansion is 50$ which is pretty much standard for expansions.

If you think 50$ is too much than that’s your decision but judging from the beta weekends and what we’ve seen so far from the Verdant Brink map you’re gonna miss out big time!

I have never seen an expansion offer so little for the same price as the base game, name me some other expansions like this.

Eye of the North cost about $45 and offered much less than Heart of Thorns. Oh, in case you were not aware, GW2 cost $60 at launch while the expansion costs $50.

$60 /= $50

The expansion introduces:

41 new armor sets, including rare, stand-alone pieces
100 new profession-specific skills (10 per profession, none of which are elite)
50 new PvE only skills including 3 elite skills
10 new heroes
18 Dungeons
124 new quests
The Hall of Monuments, a place which allows you to obtain unique titles, companions, weapons, armor, and miniatures in Guild Wars 2 based on your achievements in the original Guild Wars. The Hall of Monuments does not support the transfer of characters or gold.

Actions have more consequences. For example, if you lose NPCs that help you, you can choose to continue without them (and their help) instead of being forced to try again (although you may start over with a clean slate by going back to town). Similarly, if you rescue NPCs, they may join you and help you.

More than the previous campaigns, Eye of the North is full of easter eggs and “hidden” quests, which are not immediately accessible.
4 new regions

Charr Homelands

The green homeland of the Charr, north of Ascalon and east to the Far Shiverpeaks.

Depths of Tyria

An immense interconnected underground complex of natural caves and excavated areas underneath Tyria.

Far Shiverpeaks

A desolate mountain range to the north of the Shiverpeak Mountains we know. It is home to the Norn and the Ebon Vanguard.

Tarnished Coast

An area of high magical energy, and home to the Asura.

From the wiki. Do I really need to list the amount this adds in comparison?

Congrats. You can copy and paste from the wiki.

Compare what it offered to Prophecies.

MrRuin.9740:

Ayrilana.1396:

You seem to be under the false assumption that all games that cost $60 contain the same amount of content. They don’t and the same goes for the expansions. The amount of content from all of them vary. I paid like $50 for Super Mario Bros 3 and $50 for Mario 64. One contained 90 levels while the other contained 15. Based on your reasoning, the one that I paid that contained the 15 levels was a rip off.

The flaw in your logic is that you rely solely on quantity without considering any of the other factors. I can probably make two identical pizzas but cut one to have 6 slices and the other to have 12 slices. You’d think the one with 12 slices was the better deal.

I dont understand your example here. HoT is not GW3. Its not a new game, just as Mario 3 and Mario 64 were not the same game. A more realistic example would be if you paid $50 for Mario 64, then 3 years later paid $50 again for 3 new levels, a playable Luigi and a new moveset.

The same with the pizza analogy. They are not equal. The core game would be an 18" pizza, while the expansion would be a 12", both with the same price. Only the 12" is cut into larger pieces, and therefore “looks” like more per piece.

You’re missing the point. The point was to show him that relying solely on quantity is misleading. The examples were to show that there’s a difference between the content that makes quantity misleading. Just look at his post to this where he lists off all that EotN contained and is STILL only focusing on the quantity.

glaphen.5230:

Straylight.7529:

glaphen.5230:

29 entire pies of pizza>4, alright 8>1, 5 per class>1. Tell me the stories of the single player games with 1,000s of hours of content besides dwarf fortress. I don’t know how you think those 4 maps are as big as 29 somehow.

They don’t need to be as big as 29 maps. HoT is an expansion and not GW3 afterall. The cost for the expansion is 50$ which is pretty much standard for expansions.

If you think 50$ is too much than that’s your decision but judging from the beta weekends and what we’ve seen so far from the Verdant Brink map you’re gonna miss out big time!

I have never seen an expansion offer so little for the same price as the base game, name me some other expansions like this.

Eye of the North cost about $45 and offered much less than Heart of Thorns. Oh, in case you were not aware, GW2 cost $60 at launch while the expansion costs $50.

$60 /= $50

glaphen.5230:

29 entire pies of pizza>4, alright 8>1, 5 per class>1. Tell me the stories of the single player games with 1,000s of hours of content besides dwarf fortress. I don’t know how you think those 4 maps are as big as 29 somehow.

Umm. How about reading what I said. I said PIECES and not pies.

I’m not comparing single player games to MMO’s. Nowhere did I say that the 4 maps were as big as the 29. I really suggest you read my posts.

glaphen.5230:

Pretty basic math 29 maps with 4 new ones, 9 classes with 1 new one, 5 trait lines with 1 new one.

So you have an two identical pizzas.

The amount of pizza you get when it’s cut into 29 slices vs 4 slices is different.
The amount of pizza you get when it’s cut into 9 slices vs the whole pizza is different.

FYI: It’s 8 classes vs 1 new class. It’s also 9 new trait lines and not 5 with 1 new one.

glaphen.5230:

Sequels=/=Expansion

Content is content. If you truly believe you can’t compare then tell that to DistantStatic and anyone else that uses GW1 as a means to compare.

glaphen.5230:

Single player=/=MMO.

Doesn’t matter as the content is ratios between two single player games is similar to that of two MMO games. Especially when the content between the two single player games is being used to address a point that you are failing to understand such as a belief that everything comes down to quantity without any consideration to other factors.

glaphen.5230:

List the other factors please because I already listed everything this expansion has at least twice.

You listed quantities of maps and such. Two identical pizzas cut different ways still contain the same amount of pizza as the other. According to you they are different when in actuality they are the same. The reason why they are the same is but one of the factors that I’ve been trying to get through to you.

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

Again. I’m not solely buying the expansion for the story. I’m buying it for everything that it contains. I don’t see where you made the connection between mean listing one thing that Anet has not revealed yet to it being the reason why I bought the expansion.

Alright if you feel that around a 15% addition to the few things they added in this expansion is worth the same price as the 100% at launch then there is no use arguing with you. That 15% is also only for the things added 29>4, 9>1, 5>1, there are still tons of other things in the base game this thing doesn’t touch on and the only other things it adds is a pointless grind for mastery to do things better in those 4 maps only and a worse version of a vanilla WoW map for PvP. Also I just looked at raids and they are apparently only 10 man dungeons when we already had 100+ man world bosses. Also if we want to add more, it adds 60+ cosmetics but there is 19 weapons and 19 armor slots so what is this 1.5 cosmetics per slot, how many are there normally in game since I already have at least 1,000 unlocked and don’t have even one collectible achievement maxed on my account. So the amount of added content to the total of the game is like what less than 5% of the base game for the same price?

Where are you pulling this 15% from or is that just some percentage you made up?

You seem to be under the false assumption that all games that cost $60 contain the same amount of content. They don’t and the same goes for the expansions. The amount of content from all of them vary. I paid like $50 for Super Mario Bros 3 and $50 for Mario 64. One contained 90 levels while the other contained 15. Based on your reasoning, the one that I paid that contained the 15 levels was a rip off.

The flaw in your logic is that you rely solely on quantity without considering any of the other factors. I can probably make two identical pizzas but cut one to have 6 slices and the other to have 12 slices. You’d think the one with 12 slices was the better deal.

Adry.7512:

ok so i dont receive the physical copy if i buy online?

No. You will not unless the retailer specifically states that they will.

Varonth.5830:

It’s not just Silk. The whole ascended crafting process needs a rework. There is no reliable way of farming any of the materials directly, as they are depending on drops. The low level items which are required are unfarmable by level 80 characters, so you are completely reliant on the randomness of silverwaste chestfarm.

You mean cloth materials. Metal and wood can easily be farmed. Leather can’t be gotten directly but there’s practically very little demand for it so it’s cheap. However, the lower tiered cloth are farmable by level 80 characters although it’s not direct as there are no nodes.

Varonth.5830:

And then there is the massiv difference in cost between different armor types.
A light armor set cost more than twice of a medium armor set in ascended materials.

Light armor does not cost twice as much as medium armor. Light armor costs between 60-90G, at any given time, more than heavy armor. Heavy armor costs about 20G more than medium armor.

Varonth.5830:

There is alot of things wrong with ascended crafting, but as many system which were introduced once and didn’t quite work out well, this ascended crafting system is left to collect dust. Instead we will probably get some other way to get ascended armor.

Crafting is not the only source for ascended armor and weapons.

Adry.7512:

if i buy the game online (not in-game) right now….will it be delivered to my house when HOT comes out officially?

If you buy it from Anet, you’ll get the activation code to immediately apply to your account.

As far as from other stores, that’s something you’ll have to ask them. Some ship it so it arrives on the day of release while others don’t ship until the day of release.

TEX LOGAN.7830:

Do I think its unfair that existing players cannot buy the expansion for cheaper? Everyone does.

False. You cannot speak for everyone. Not everyone lacks the understanding of how things work in video games when it comes to expansions and prices.

TEX LOGAN.7830:

Will it hurt sales of HoT? It already is.

You have access to their sales data?

TEX LOGAN.7830:

Will it damage the developers reputation? It already has

How did you quantify that?

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

I’ve attached something that should aid you in seeing how many maps there will be.

Whoa let me quickly recalculate the value of this. 29 for 50>4 for 50.

No expansion really provides the same amount of content as its core game. If quantity is all that’s important to you then don’t buy the expansion, or any others, until the total amount of maps reaches 29.

Based on the maps that can be vanquished, since I don’t feel like counting them, Prophecies had 54 maps, Factions had 33 maps, Nightfall had 34 maps, EotN had 15 maps. All of those, especially EotN, contained less maps than Prophecies for roughly the same price. Clearly they were all a rip off.

Yes and then other games expansions usually add a fluff level cap increases to restart the grind and put in new skills and still have five times the content this has and are usually cheaper. Yet those games still had far more content than this and far cheaper.

How do you know how much content the expansion has without playing it?

Because if you look at the link you posted you would see what it has.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Heart_of_Thorns/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Features
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Heart_of_Thorns
There’s some more answers. Hiding the contents of a purchase is a bad move so there is no way they have anything left unrevealed.

Anet likes to leave things for players to discover. Not everything in the expansion has been revealed. The story is one example.

If you feel fan fiction tier writing is worth the 50 then be my guest and use that to validate your purchase. Only thing ANet lets players discover are bugs that will never be fixed.

Again. I’m not solely buying the expansion for the story. I’m buying it for everything that it contains. I don’t see where you made the connection between mean listing one thing that Anet has not revealed yet to it being the reason why I bought the expansion.

phys.7689:

do you mean season 1+season2?
because season 2 probably takes like 4-5 hours tops to complete, whereas gw1 factions was more like 4 times that.

Both since you brought up both. Be aware that neither him nor I were talking about the Living Story. I only addressed that because you brought it up.

Season 2 takes much more time to do than 4-5 hours. Factions also does not take over 16-20 hours to beat. There are 14 missions (you only need to do 12) all of which can be done in 20-30 minutes at most. Players can do it in much less time since they often go for the bonuses as they do the story.

That leaves 26 primary quests of which only 22 are required. These take less than 10 hours to do. I will also note that time spent does not equate to story. You can have some things that take up time, such as getting the necessary faction rank or drawn out cut-scene), which offer very little to the story.

phys.7689:

As for levels, at the end of the day, how much content people feel you have is more important than the cost of development. If people get more satisfaction from playing a 1993 final fantasy than a 2015 final fantasy, it means they have went backwards.

Yes, how much content you get is an important factor. However you cannot quantify it as you get ‘X’ number of maps and ‘Y’ number of story episodes while comparing it to another game. All you’ll be doing is misleading yourself.

Just look at Guild Wars Prophecies maps and GW2 maps. Prophecies added 54 maps (that could be vanquished and excluding outposts) while GW2 only added 25 (excluding cities). They both sold for roughly the same price. Based on some people who focus solely on quantity, GW2 was a rip off since GW1 and GW2 maps are the same.

phys.7689:

I will say that gw2 strengths are a more active combat system and a more engaging world map. But those thing existed since release, and it doesn’t appear that Hot has evolved or improved on them much. It definitely has not expanded either one that much.

The enemies in HoT are different from those in core Tyria. In fact, even the enemies in DT and SW are different. They all have mechanics. Unless you equate killing an Orrian Noble as being the same as killing a Smokescale. HoT boss fights, as well as DT and SW boss fights, each have involved mechanics which you will not find in the rest of GW2.

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

I’ve attached something that should aid you in seeing how many maps there will be.

Whoa let me quickly recalculate the value of this. 29 for 50>4 for 50.

No expansion really provides the same amount of content as its core game. If quantity is all that’s important to you then don’t buy the expansion, or any others, until the total amount of maps reaches 29.

Based on the maps that can be vanquished, since I don’t feel like counting them, Prophecies had 54 maps, Factions had 33 maps, Nightfall had 34 maps, EotN had 15 maps. All of those, especially EotN, contained less maps than Prophecies for roughly the same price. Clearly they were all a rip off.

Yes and then other games expansions usually add a fluff level cap increases to restart the grind and put in new skills and still have five times the content this has and are usually cheaper. Yet those games still had far more content than this and far cheaper.

How do you know how much content the expansion has without playing it?

Because if you look at the link you posted you would see what it has.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Heart_of_Thorns/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Features
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_Heart_of_Thorns
There’s some more answers. Hiding the contents of a purchase is a bad move so there is no way they have anything left unrevealed.

Anet likes to leave things for players to discover. Not everything in the expansion has been revealed. The story is one example.

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

I’ve attached something that should aid you in seeing how many maps there will be.

Whoa let me quickly recalculate the value of this. 29 for 50>4 for 50.

No expansion really provides the same amount of content as its core game. If quantity is all that’s important to you then don’t buy the expansion, or any others, until the total amount of maps reaches 29.

Based on the maps that can be vanquished, since I don’t feel like counting them, Prophecies had 54 maps, Factions had 33 maps, Nightfall had 34 maps, EotN had 15 maps. All of those, especially EotN, contained less maps than Prophecies for roughly the same price. Clearly they were all a rip off.

Yes and then other games expansions usually add a fluff level cap increases to restart the grind and put in new skills and still have five times the content this has and are usually cheaper. Yet those games still had far more content than this and far cheaper.

How do you know how much content the expansion has without playing it?

glaphen.5230:

Ayrilana.1396:

I’ve attached something that should aid you in seeing how many maps there will be.

Whoa let me quickly recalculate the value of this. 29 for 50>4 for 50.

No expansion really provides the same amount of content as its core game. If quantity is all that’s important to you then don’t buy the expansion, or any others, until the total amount of maps reaches 29.

Based on the maps that can be vanquished, since I don’t feel like counting them, Prophecies had 54 maps, Factions had 33 maps, Nightfall had 34 maps, EotN had 15 maps. All of those, especially EotN, contained less maps than Prophecies for roughly the same price. Clearly they were all a rip off.

Oh. Oh. Wait! Super Mario Bros 3 had 90 levels and Mario 64 only had 15. Wow! All of those that bought Mario 64 got ripped off!

DistantStatic.6098:

>I’ve got legendary cartographer, vanquisher, and skill hunter. Now that I have gotten those, I have zero reason to go to any of the maps again.

Yeah, I mean hoelbrak is definitely brimming with activity. So’s the citidel. Oh wait, those are entire cities not even maps. Rata Sum? Wasn’t there since Adventure box ended. Divinities reach? Story purposes, then never went there again. Oh those are entire cities not meant just for exploration purposes which are entirely breezed over by most people?

Is there even a point to this or are you just throwing in random comments?

DistantStatic.6098:

I see you’re glazing over my point on the abundance of side quests (see? you’re ignoring things ). There is literally no reason to go into any map anymore other than for World bosses and… yeah that’s about it. The equivalent of farming bosses in GW1 for boss weapons. At least you had to venture through the map in GW1 not just waypoint onto the boss, kill it and leave. Yeah, you’re right, we use that 1/20th of the map for background scenery while killing the World Boss.

I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t important. All the quests did was have you go to a specific map, do something, and then report back to the NPC. They didn’t really add anything and the majority were not worth doing.

Bosses possessing certain drops have no relevance to the difference between GW1 and GW2 maps which was what I stated a page or so back. Both games have this so bringing it up is rather pointless.

The point is that GW2 maps are much more active as they have much for area to explore, there’s vertical space, and plenty of events to do. When you look at the HoT maps, they’re just like this but with much more. GW1 maps did not have this as they were much simpler.

DistantStatic.6098:

>Anet is adding depth to content through elite specializations and enemies with more involving mechanics. We seen them doing this so far with LS2 and the beta content.

Heeyyy look at you glazing over things I’ve mentioned!

Nope. You’re just cherry picking what the expansion contains to fit your argument. According to you it only contains a single map and a few pets. Completely wrong.

DistantStatic.6098:

>You’ll be very surprised about what it contains if you truly believe it only has a single map and a few pets.

It can contain 6 kitten maps; it still wont match the base game content. Speaking of research since you seem to be oblivious of life: http://heartofthorns.guildwars2.com/game/maguuma Theres only one map. “Oh but 3 floooorrrss brrroooooooooo” Lol, ok “3” maps.

You have reading issues then since that very link points to there being four maps and not the one map you are still claiming. Good job!

DistantStatic.6098:

>So everyone who bought the expansion, feeling that it was worth the cost to them

Well, you can go browse the HoT threads and see all the negative response to the content in the beta.

Reading comprehension check. Read the above that I bolded. I wasn’t talking about those that haven’t yet.

DistantStatic.6098:

> People have bought console games with less information. How many people do you think went and pre-ordered Fallout 4 based solely on what was announced? I guess they’re all irresponsible too…

OH MAN ANOTHER GLAZING IM BECOMING A DONUT WITH GLAZE. A GLAZED DONUT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. Clearly you missed the first post where certain games have a good “history” and reputation and how I mentioned that if they had said this was Guild Wars 1 type of expansion I would have this pre-pre-ordered (persay). But no. Judging on how their definition of what “new areas” has been over the end of the living story, and given the current information, this is not one of those buy-it-now situations.

Guild Wars 1 had good history. There’s no reason to assume GW2 was any different considering this was there first expansion. I could also use the argument that Factions and Nightfall do not count for comparison since they’re campaigns but I won’t.

DistantStatic.6098:

You can say whatever you want to make yourself feel better about putting down the cash and try to convince yourself that you made a good purchase all you want. I ain’t gonna stop you anymore. You clearly need the therapeutic benefits.

Or you need to quit telling people what they should believe the expansion is worth when it’s something entirely up to them to decide.

I’ve attached something that should aid you in seeing how many maps there will be.

At the top of the screen, towards the center, it states that no progress on beta characters are saved.

What this means that anything you do on your beta character will have no impact on your regular characters. Earning the AP to get the next achievement chest will on a beta character will have no impact on your regular character.

Ohoni.6057:

Make sure that’s fixed, credit should be awarded the instant the bomb goes off.

I agree.

The only other suggestion I would add for them is to scale down the collection event before the tree. It takes so much time to do it when it’s scaled up and it being scaled doesn’t really add any challenge to it. Maybe require 40 items at most to be turned in and then give it as 60 second countdown until completion. The previous beta I turned in maybe 6 of them, saw no progress being made, and then joined the other meta chain for another 15 minutes before the collection event completed.