Guild Wars 2

Vayne.8563:

Frankly I think that anyone who thinks the zone is too difficult, should avoid it and go play in the old zones, which are very very easy.

This is such a lazy man’s argument and gets trotted out blithely any time a discussion of balancing the HoT content comes up.

Many people bought this game based on the content available – core Tyria maps were a huge part of this – so it set the tone for the game, and people based their decisions to buy largely on it. This is simply logical sense.

Then the content and the maps change significantly and people express their concerns about it. And they’re told not to expect to be able to play any of it or even bothering to buy new content or expansions. They’re told to just keep playing content they’ve done over and over without expecting anything new. This is ridiculous.

When you spend your money using the evidence available and see a game and say, “Hey, this game is fun and terrific for my playstyle,” it isn’t exactly surprising if they would like to have some new content in line with what they based their buying decision on in the first place. This doesn’t make them bad people or stupid people.

They certainly deserve some respect and not the cesspool ideology of “go find a real game to play” and “stop being a stupid, worthless noob,” “L2P,” etc. ad nauseum the kind of stupid, pointless things people say because they need to feel superior to anyone disagreeing with them.

It would be cool if they added completion rewards for Southsun, Dry Top, and Silverwastes and then rewarded them retroactively, but I just don’t see it happening.

Draknar.5748:

If they want the most out of the guild experience in Guild Wars 2, they need to not treat their guild like a glorified chatroom.

The point is, can we find a good solution so both guild sizes can participate in the content? Is it truly GW2’s belief that you ought to be in a guild of 500 or screw you?

Maybe it is and this is their way of saying they absolutely don’t support all guild sizes. If so, we’ll have to accept that, but I haven’t yet seen a dev definitely say this is true, so I had hoped it wasn’t. So maybe I’m wrong about them.

Also, sorry, but all the “If you’re in a small guild, you’re a second class citizen but anyone in a large guild is ‘social, non-elitist, and the only valid use of guild chat,’” is completely stupid and patently false.

Sounds like the system needs tweaking, though, overall. Even large guilds are saying that the costs of some things and the requirements for others are prohibitive. If even moderate to large guilds are struggling and it’s a bit discouraging, how much more so is it going to be for the small guild?

Paulytnz.7619:

It is also a great way to earn wealth in a game which is NOT a bad thing. People like to do things in games they can’t so easily do in real life and making vast fortunes in game is one of the big things in that regard.

Players also like to use the wealth earned in games to buy in-game items that they can’t otherwise get or would take a really long time to farm, thus adding to the enjoyment of playing the game in general. And no, that isn’t a bad thing.

Mastery XP gain feels slow to me on the jungle maps, but it feels fairly quick in the Tyria maps. In Tyria, I tome my new characters to 80 and then complete the maps. Seems to give me a lot of XP quickly.

Also, it’s sped up because I don’t wait around at Hero Challenges for help and I don’t have any trouble running around the maps, getting things done without dying or getting confused as to the locations of POIs, etc.

lol I took a long break from GW2 after I crafted my ascended gear, too. I was so burned out, it wasn’t even funny. After a break, I began playing a little here and there and then have been playing more since HoT. It’s been frustrating for me off and on.

The map locations are often confusing, I do a fair amount of waiting around on maps for people, and that one Hero Challenge in Auric Basin that is gated behind the meta event succeeding is REALLY annoying. It takes me repeating that long series of quests and fights many times before I can get one that actually succeeds since it fails A LOT.

Since I have alts, this is going to be tedious in the extreme long term.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Sunday evening at 11:30 PM CST after a few hours of great PvP in the game I decided I wanted to relax a bit and go cap some hero challenges on the second map in HoT. Watching map chat from the time I entered the zone until I attempted to utilize t myself was painful and quite sad. Three questions asked about map sepecifics over the course of about 15 minutes and not a single answer offered up. Aside from that… crickets.

Went to GH and came back. Played some more. Same experience. A few questions asked, no one answering. I realized very few were on the map. The map was highly populated the previous week. I finally realize the swarm of gammers who come tough like locust and consume everything then move on to…. something else. Were mostly gone. Either sleeping after their 200+ hour stint of play or off to some other game having scarfed down the content they needed. One of their friends can tell them when Raids hit and they can come back when things get interesting again.

I know gamer culture well, but sadly I’m not 14 any more.

At this point I realize I’ve missed the heard and that since HoT is largely no soloable I’ll be reduced to running from mobs most of the time and playing a lot of adventures for XP. I realize getting help with a specific Hero Challenge will be near impossible and require a lot of begging from this point on (or waiting around).

In spite of all this I still love the expansion. I can’t think of much the developer can do to change things to make it better for the more casual players. They can’t control the habits of the swarm or be expected to. As a predominately PvP player my goals with HoT have nothing to do with maxing masteries, legendaries, etc.. I care about finishing the story missions and I care about Elite Specialization unlock. Even at 250 HP the Elite Specialization is going to be much more difficult for the non-heard/swarming “I got their fist nah-na-na-nah-na-na” crowd to obtain, because the resources to help are much more limited at this juncture. That’s why we were pushing so hard for ANet to change it as to not appease the swarm. But of course if the swarm got their way they might stick around another month.

The difference between the average “swarm” player and the more causal PvE types. The “swarm” player is just scarfing down the game to move on. They are generally gamer who player many game.s. The more casual types I’ve met generally player 1 game, GW2 because their time is limited and they’ve chosen GW2 HoT to be the one to devote to. If GW2 were your product which of these two groups do you think is going to give you the highest return on investment over time?

So now the herd is gone (no don’t belching on the GW2 content they scarfed down) the dust can settle. It’s been a bit like moving into a new house only to immediately have a house party the day you move in that last a week. Then finally people leave and you get to enjoy your house. I think we’re transitioning into that phase now as the swarm of “game jumpers” move on to whatever is new and shinny.

After this long rant I’ve decided the best thing I can do at this point is to go back to the first map and just offer to help people. Put my PvE goals ahead and just focus on helping others fullfill their goals. I can at least try to make the game a bit better for someone. I truly believe even with the 250 HP cap that, with the swarm now gone it will take months to obtain all hero challenge points needed. But at least there is still PvP.

I haven’t had quite as bad luck as you with the maps. People still won’t answer most questions asked in map chat (in my experience) but I can still get help with Hero Challenges if I’m willing to camp the locations, usually for a 5-10 minute wait, before some players show up.

Yeah, it’s still annoying to have to do the wait thing at all (I’ve taken to keeping some light reading nearby for the waiting times) but I guess we gotta do what we gotta do if we want to actually get 100% on the new maps.

DarcShriek.5829:

Celtic Lady.3729:

DarcShriek.5829:

Celtic Lady.3729:

DarcShriek.5829:

It’s time for small guilds to stop being so elitist and invite more players to join them.

It shouldn’t have to be explained to anyone that small guilds are not small guilds due to an elitist attitude. But whatever.

Yeah, a lot of them are. If you only open membership to you and a small group of friends, that’s a clear signal that you don’t think anyone else is good enough to play with you..

No, it isn’t. I don’t belong to a small guild because I think I’m better than anyone else or play better than anyone else and nor do my friends feel that way. This makes as much sense as saying everyone that doesn’t do or does do a particular activity only has one reason for doing so.

I play tennis because I belong to a country club. I don’t eat doughnuts because I’m not a cop. I go to the movies so I can have popcorn. I live in Hawaii because I surf.

Newsflash: There is more than one reason for why people do the things they do or don’t do. Most of them not exactly because they think they’re better than anyone else.

Yet you refuse to invite others to your guild. Plus you refuse to join a larger guild. Your refusal to join others is somewhat anti social and elitist, despite your pleas to the contrary.

I never said I refuse to join larger guilds. I’m not nor is anyone in my guild anti-social. You just like to throw meaningless insults around to people that have different goals and preferences than you do.

People keep saying that we can’t have scaling because of cheating…

Yeah, I know. I’m thinking that, too.

Korago.7509:

I anticipated HoT like mad. I counted the days until its release and I was so thrilled when it launched. I played trough the pve on my GS warrior and it’s hasn’t really been an enjoyable experience for me, and I’m not sure how anyone else can enjoy this.

The only driving point I’ve had in this game so far is the story. I got as far as the last zone (Dragon’s Reach, I think?) and just couldn’t be bothered to finish it. Because the way I look at it is…once I’m done, then what? Do I go back and do it on my alts? Do I go for map completion (which is a -pain- because of the way the maps are laid out)? Do I just run around and do events? None of this sounds fun. Not anymore.

What the hell can I do to make this expansion enjoyable? My friends are upset that I don’t want to play with them, and I feel like I’ve wasted 50 dollars. I just want to like this game again…

Aside from doing the content again on alts, once you’ve finished your maps, completed your masteries (assuming you want to do that), I guess you could focus on pvp (if you do that) or wvw (if it recovers). Not sure what else there is to do. I’ve heard so many stories about how frustrating precursor crafting is and the collections are, that I’m not sure I can recommend that if you’re looking for stress-free gaming.

There aren’t any centaurs in the new maps…

My focus in HoT has been to complete the 4 maps and do DEs so I can get XP for my masteries. Since you can’t skip around in a line of masteries but have to do them in order, I’ve been opening my masteries panel in my hero panel (H) and cueing up the first of each line and then watching my XP bar carefully so I can switch to the next mastery when it’s full.

I also use Dulfy’s online guides to Hero Challenge locations, mastery insight locations (they each give 1 mastery point), and strongbox locations since those each give a mastery point, too.

As for the maps, I wish there were guides online to show me how to get to the POIs. These maps get very confusing very fast for me about where everything is exactly.

If you like certain condition builds, using Sinister stats seems to work really well in HoT.

Blaine Tog.8304:

The best option would probably be to focus on catching the Shatterer during off-hours with less of a zerg, so either late at night or early in the morning for your region.

But most people with work and family responsibilities wouldn’t have this as an option. A better idea would be to have another mechanic trigger the effect, one that isn’t reduced by the large numbers of people playing the content.

Or simply remove this as a part of the process.

Guhracie.3419:

ANET’s economist, John Smith, said that it was to de-incentivize dungeons. In other words, it was to make people not want to play dungeon content. Their dungeon team was disbanded long ago, and now they want people to focus on HoT content. I agree that it’s sad, by the way.

Yeah, it’s sad that new players in the future may never really get to do dungeons or even have a shot at completing those achievements because no one is really playing them. I believe there could have been a better way to handle it than take away the reward. Frankly, giving good rewards and pumping out new fractals would have likely been incentive enough to do other things along with the dungeons.

If you haven’t been playing this game for a significant time already, there is a lot to do in some respects. You can level characters in the core world, and there is a lot of great things to do in the maps. If you like map completion and exploration, there’s a lot of that outside of HoT and it’s all soloable, except for a few things in the Orr maps.

You can do achievements and there’s crafting. You can do dungeons, but I hear that you might have a hard time finding other people to play with since they seem to have been deserted.

You can do fractals, but I heard the rewards are very low without HoT, but at least people are doing them. You can do all the holidays that come up like Halloween, etc. You can do jumping puzzles on the regular non-HoT maps. You can pvp in structured. I don’t know why WvW is dead, honestly, otherwise, you could do that, too.

For a new player, there’s a lot to do. For a vet player without HoT, yeah, there’s not a lot.

I seem to gain levels really quickly for my Tyria masteries, but my Maguuma masteries are coming in much more slowly.

DarcShriek.5829:

Celtic Lady.3729:

DarcShriek.5829:

It’s time for small guilds to stop being so elitist and invite more players to join them.

It shouldn’t have to be explained to anyone that small guilds are not small guilds due to an elitist attitude. But whatever.

Yeah, a lot of them are. If you only open membership to you and a small group of friends, that’s a clear signal that you don’t think anyone else is good enough to play with you..

No, it isn’t. I don’t belong to a small guild because I think I’m better than anyone else or play better than anyone else and nor do my friends feel that way. This makes as much sense as saying everyone that doesn’t do or does do a particular activity only has one reason for doing so.

I play tennis because I belong to a country club. I don’t eat doughnuts because I’m not a cop. I go to the movies so I can have popcorn. I live in Hawaii because I surf.

Newsflash: There is more than one reason for why people do the things they do or don’t do. Most of them not exactly because they think they’re better than anyone else.

I’m all for incentives. They could extend the original “rez X number of players” achievement to include more numbers.

Since the HoT maps (except for maybe Dragon’s Stand) has next to no WPs for their size, I always rez people. The only time I don’t is if I know doing it would simply mean I would die, too, therefore rendering the attempt pointless.

Neural.1824:

“We’ve provided a way of removing the RNG factor from obtaining precursors by adding collections which rely on RNG”

Yeah, sometimes, I don’t think they think things through very well. lol

dankid.9321:

Celtic Lady.3729:

dankid.9321:

3)Hero points are not soloable. This one may sort of be legitimate, but not everything has to be soloable. C

I still think this was a bad decision on their part because I think months down the road there are going to be a lot of legitimate complaints about people not having enough players on a map to finish these. Having map completions soloable when there is plenty on any given map that is group-oriented doesn’t really seem game-breaking to me.

Initially, when I was frustrated, I felt the same way. But they can always scale them down later when/if the populations drop. I’d rather have that, then have them be too easy now, and everyone just breezes through them.

Also, keep in mind with the lowered amount needed for full unlock, you only need a few Hero Point unlocks from HoT. I think I was only at about 52% world completion, and did all the “Commune” HPs I came across in HoT, and then maybe about 3-5 actual fights.

Yeah, I know I only need, what, 4 HCs in order to max out my elites? But since I do them as map completion items, too, I’ll do them all for that.

Obtena.7952:

Frankly, I haven’t noticed mobs that don’t give XP or loot but I can think of a reason they wouldn’t. You get enough of both through the completion of the events those mobs are in. I don’t really get the complaint .. what does it matter if the XP and loot come from the event or the mobs in them?

For argument’s sake, what would be wrong with receiving loot and XP from both the individual mobs killed and for a reward at the end of completing a given event successfully?

DarcShriek.5829:

It’s time for small guilds to stop being so elitist and invite more players to join them.

It shouldn’t have to be explained to anyone that small guilds are not small guilds due to an elitist attitude. But whatever.

Extreme.8350:

The Guild Wars were a series of military conflicts between the human kingdoms of the northern continent that finally ended in 1070 AE. When considered separately, they are known as the First, Second, and Third Guild Wars.

You’re welcome

The “You’re welcome” snark at the end of this totally pointless post makes it especially cringe worthy.

So, you’ve never seen a person use quotes in something in order to alter the meaning, eh?

All MMOs utilize techniques to slow down consumption of their content. They have to. This often feels like grind to players, mostly because of how they choose to do it. It’s for the most part repetitive-type stuff and so gets boring after a while.

By this logic, why would anything be tradeable? Why isn’t everything account bound so you have to do the work yourself and prove you played the game? We could simply farm everything we need, no currency necessary.

Since, you know, laziness…

deathsclaw.9563:

Sorry that you don’t like gifs, I’ll try to burn them all for you.

The flicking ones. Just remove them and that’ll be good enough. The others you can leave alone.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

So it got me thinking: what if I could pay an npc to farm my home instance nodes for me? It wouldn’t have to count towards a daily and it would provide valuable work for those unemployed npcs just lounging around so they could feed their npc children.

lol I’d pay to have an NPC that mined all my home instance resource nodes everyday. Then I could get the mats without having to make the trip home each day to do it.

Red Queen.7915:

If they scale the costs, big guilds can cheat by giving all the stuff to a few members, leaving the guild, having those who are left upgrade the hall and then get invited back in.

Not being able to cheat is something, I guess, but locking out smaller guilds (as it were) is simply not a good alternative to cheating.

emanueldst.8049:

it sucks , there are so many mobs that dont give exp or loot , it just doesnt make any sense

I don’t understand the point of the lack of XP, other than to artificially slow down mastery acquisition, but the controlled looting in this game is something they do because of their economy.

I play several MMOs and this one gives the least in overall loot of all of them. Just the way it is.

Building masteries into the ability to fully explore the jungle was how they slowed down player consumerism.

And, you know, to give progression.

Building a large guild this late in the game’s life can be difficult. After 3 years, most people it seems are already in guilds, join the same guilds their friends are in, or join a large guild that’s been around since launch.

Very few players seem to be looking for guilds or even wanting them, so building a guild may be very difficult now.

It’s a bug and they had better be retroactively rewarding players that have completed their maps already once they fix this.

Divine Flavor.2016:

I don’t really get the point of loot drops at this stage, anyway – this is supposed to be a continuation for level 80 characters, and at this point, most people probably already have exotic or ascended gear. What do you want to do with a greenie, besides sell it on AH for pennies, or salvage it?

Even level 80 characters want loot and crafting items for projects. There’s more than just getting ascended gear for 80s.

Maybe it’s both. lol

I mean, how would we really know if there were decisions being made purely for the x factor of how people would react.

It’s a little kool-aid-ish, but hey, I like the berry blue flavor.

dankid.9321:

3)Hero points are not soloable. This one may sort of be legitimate, but not everything has to be soloable. C

I still think this was a bad decision on their part because I think months down the road there are going to be a lot of legitimate complaints about people not having enough players on a map to finish these. Having map completions soloable when there is plenty on any given map that is group-oriented doesn’t really seem game-breaking to me.

laokoko.7403:

Remember Your body have limitations. Too much video games without sleep can increase your chance of cardiovascular attack such as stroke or heart attack.

Just this past year, I fall unconscious on the ground. When I woke up, I have no memories of what’s going on, or how long have passed. Fortunately when my body collapse, I didn’t suffer from external injuries. Since sometimes when people have strokes, the thing that killed them is actually their head bump in other object. I personally is obese and have some respiratory problem. That is probably the main cause. But just want to remind people resting is important.

Also if you going to play long hours of video games. Make sure to take short break to rest your eyes. I’m only in my 30s and I’m starting to have presbyopia. I notice I can’t use the computer for very long, until I started to have blurred near vision.

Lastly try to maintain a relation with family and friends. I personally is jobless and don’t have much of a social life. Most of my life is spent playing video games.

If you are a game addict, at least try to talk to your family and friend. I regret not doing that younger. Right now, I try to spend a couple hours a day with families. Contacting old friends. There is also this girl, I used to like. I can’t contact her directly, since she’s not too fund of me harassing her back in the days when she had a boyfriend. I’ll try to contact mutual friends and ask how she is doing.

Hope everyone enjoy Heart of Thrones, and keep gaming.

I don’t even know how any human being could play on their computer until they died. I’m not even sure what to say to that. Would therapy even help? And why does everyone keep calling this Heart of Thrones?

Seriously, another thread about non-existent nerfs? And why do you people always phrase your imaginary problem like a demand?

Is Anet going to unquestionably obey you just because you told them to do something? Thinking so goes beyond delusional.

Someone makes a thread like this at least 5 times a day at last count.

Anyone know how to get to the down arrow by Teku Nuhoch? I’m looking to drop directly down into the Subterranean Lake for its POI.

I never base any of my decisions on reviews.

Okay, I tried the one in Rata Novus, but I couldn’t get to the lake from that way. There’s an arrow down on the map right next to Teku Nuhoch. It looks like it leads directly into the lake.

How do I get to that one?

Since I’m not getting an answer in the HoT section, I’d like to ask here.

How do I get down to the Subterranean Lake POI? I’m looking for the easiest place to drop down.

Someone knows how to do this.

How do I get down to the Subterranean Lake POI in Tangled Depths?

They seem fairly rare. I’ve done a fair amount of DEing in Maguuma and I’ve only gotten one of these.

HoT has its good points, but all the “don’t do any more nerfs” threads I see every single day popping up is just….paranoid weird.

People will get bored of showing these things soon enough.

Eponet.4829:

Except the champions at hero points. Those things need better scaling at 1 player, not all of us are online at the same time as a ton of other people.

Yeah, I think the champion Hero Challenges should spawn a vet when there’s only 1-2 people.

The worst encounter I’ve had with these involve a mastery insight where there’s like 3 of them together. I find them hard to kill in threes ( I’m usually using ranged) but my biggest problem is they respawn so fast, I can’t complete the mastery insight without having someone else there to draw aggro while I’m communing.