Guild Wars 2

NotOverlyCheesy.9427:

It’s good that Mo can make tough decisions but now the true challenge begins. Anet HAS to deliver good content or a big chunk of players will be lost.

They already lost a chunk due to putting all the post-HoT focus on the 1%. Even HoT itself pushed away the more casual players.

This reminds me of what happened to WildStar. They spent all their resources on raiding only to realize that most people played solo, so they immediately cut raiding with the intention of developing other content. Likewise, ArenaNet needs to keep the core audience entertained before it’s too late. The numbers are likely sliding and legendaries probably saw poor results, so they’re rushing to release anything that will appeal to the majority.

Ashen.2907:

The part that continues to puzzle me is the idea that a 5% increase in the size of the live content team will make a significant difference on a release schedule measuring nine months.

Keep in mind that Living World style content can be anything, from dungeons, to events, to story instances. With raids and past content like SAB and live events being made by smaller teams, those 6 devs will certainly be of better use elsewhere. As we’ve heard in the past, the old content is broken, so simply having them fix up those events for re-release would be better than nothing.

Ashen.2907:

In order for intervals to be regular they need to be (relatively) equal.

Don’t worry. It’ll average out.

As long as the contribution system remains as is, it doesn’t matter what ArenaNet does. Simply hit it once, then AFK outside of the area.

They could drop unique character names altogether and let you have whatever you wanted. The display name could simply be used for everything instead.

If you’re having problems finding a name even with a surname, you need to stop copying existing characters or using the most common of names and make one up yourself.

Redenaz.8631:

But it’s very hard to argue that it’s not a broken promise and a loss of credibility.

“in small groups at regular intervals … until the full set … has been added”

As long as the full set is eventually added, there’s really no problem. They could release 2 weapons every few years and that’d still be true.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

There’s not only legal considerations but there’s also loss of trust that comes from reversing promises made after purchases done.

If it is a problem, if people do complain enough, they’re just going to copy/paste and release whatever they have. That’s probably what they should have done in the first place – legendaries all based on the same quest and designed based on the big boss (Mordremoth in this case).

What’s really wrong with legendaries? It’s pretty safe to assume that they appeal to less than 10%, but is that it? Precursor crafting was pushed back for years, only to now push back the legendaries themselves.

Khyan.7039:

SAB will be the next victim.

It already was. SAB originally began as an experiment. It didn’t quite fit into the game, so they released it under the disguise of a joke. It gained an unexpected popularity and as a result, W2 was created. W2 however saw poor results with people complaining of its difficulty and length. With the decline in popularity, the SAB team was moved on to other projects. As said back then, Mo loves numbers. If the numbers aren’t there, resources are shifted elsewhere.

Considering things, I wouldn’t be surprised to see SAB return for April 1st.

William Bradley Knight.2609:

Flights of Fancy achievement

Like most projectiles, the rocks can be easily avoided by simply strafing back and forth. Pick the farthest away updraft and hover over it while rapidly strafing – for example, hold Q, while tapping E to stay in the same spot.

UnitedChaos.8364:

Guild Wars 1: Eye of the North for (whatever the price was… $25?)
Guild Wars 2 for $50

The original prices in USD were $40 for EotN and $60 for GW2.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/Shrug. People have gotten on the forum and declared the game p2w because you can buy cosmetics from the gem store. That didn’t make sense to me either.

The loose definition of P2W is not being able to realistically compete with someone who paid real money. With the endgame being cosmetic, aka Fashion Wars, some people will see the better looks locked behind the gem store as paying to win the fashion contest. However, with gems being easy to acquire through gold imo, one can realistically compete without spending money.

Dinks.2478:

I am saying that in WoW if I am level 70 and a new expansion comes out I can continue playing at level 70 with other people at level 70 and not have to worry about having to pay for an expansion to enjoy content I already own.

Back when I played, which may no longer be a problem due to PvP gear, I could take that 70 into the expansion, get rare or whatever quest gear and be superior to the old level 70s. I remember dominating the old brackets and I wasn’t even min/maxed, just whatever I could easily get.

Even if they gave a discount, it’d only be $5, maybe $10 tops. With HoT pre-purchasing, they did give a free character slot for existing accounts, which is a $10 value.

The problem with offering discounts for 3rd party keys is that the game is already far cheaper through 3rd parties. Within weeks of pre-purchasing going live for example, official retailers already had it down to $34 on sale. Two months after HoT was released, the physical edition was being sold for $25.

Tequatl? Show up 10-20 minutes early and you shouldn’t have a problem. That’s what I do and I’ve never had a problem doing it at any time, from the daily reset to the middle of the night. (NA)

Volunteering shouldn’t popup unless the event is already over, when people begin leaving the maps in mass.

Yargesh.4965:

If no commander tag is up 5 min before Teq LFG out to another map.

I see it done without commanders a lot. Sometimes chat is even dead up until the last minute.

Bunny ears? Why not cat ears? Throw in a tail for the back slot and the unreleased school uniform. Think of the madness.

There are reoccurring events that happen in between, but they’ve been spotty. They occur whenever they feel like it and some of them, such as the zephyrites, have been killed off.

April 1st will have something. Worst case, it’s a minor joke. The most you could hope for however is SAB.

After that however, there’s really nothing. Assuming nothing new, all that’s really left is the Queen’s Jubilee, so I wouldn’t count on seeing anything until season 3. They could fix up Dragon Bash for the downfall of Mordremoth, but its activity, Dragon Ball, was merged into the Lunar Festival, so I’m guessing Dragon Bash was abandoned.

In short, just assume there’ll be nothing major until August+ when season 3 starts.

Mahaedros.7085:

3) I hear people say you can find authorized retailers that sell HoT for less than $49. Haven’t found any when I looked today. Would be great to get it for $35

It’s been on sale since pre-purchasing began, usually in the range of 20-35% off. DLGamer has had it hovering around 20-25% off for the last few months, despite it always saying it’s about to end:

http://www.dlgamer.us/download-guild_wars_2_heart_of_thorns-pc_games-p-29808.html

I doubt most players even use mystic coins. Most people probably simply deposit them, only bothering to sell them once they overflow.

Forget how they used to be something that you could casually toss around and see them for what they are now, as something like laurels, except tradable. What they’re used for isn’t exactly common stuff, but rather rarities and long term goals.

Explorer’s was the old magic find stat, which was removed a long time ago. The equivalent recipe is now Assassin’s.

There are cases where exploration is blocked by deadly enemies, at least for the intended level. In most cases however, these areas are either entirely optional or you can simply run past them or stealth. There are many hidden areas in the game for example where a champion, elite or veteran pack may be guarding something such as a chest or rich node. In Orr for example, some of the hero challenges are blocked by champions/group events.

Keep in mind that playing an undergeared character at the zone’s intended level is a much different experience than playing while a downscaled 80. In some cases, even regular enemies can be a threat, though not for all professions.

Forcing impassable obstacles is a bad idea. As maps become less active, any obstacles intended for groups will become impossible to pass for the majority of players. Look at any of the mid zones for example where you may only see a handful of players throughout the entire area. In its current state, imagine what HoT’s going to be like in a few years when most have moved on. It’ll be mostly unplayable. That’s why MMOs either end up going back and nerfing that content, or cutting it to begin with.

If they just throw in challenging enemies, all it’ll do is cause people to see it as group content regardless of if it actually is or isn’t. What might be challenging solo isn’t challenging to a group and what’s challenging to a group isn’t challenging to a zerg. That has been a problem for a while now, where people can’t handle the difficulty so they think it’s all zerg content.

You probably have a bad cache, have it blocked or have a browser problem.

As for the https, only the main page is unsecure, which doesn’t matter. Once you move on to the cart, it’s secure.

Missy.7356:

As is stands HoT map can become become explosive due to pitting the Hero Point train against the people wanting to do meta

It really shouldn’t matter either way. You need less than half the map participating to successfully do any of the metas. Bringing more people however of course makes the content easier, allowing for people to play very casually.

Regardless, the need for the hero train will likely be killed off. ArenaNet acknowledged that there was too much focus on group content in HoT, so when they inevitably end up nerfing everything, hero challenges will likely be one of them.

Vayne.8563:

The thing is, I don’t always play HoT just to play the meta and I don’t really love to zerg.

To be clear, the final meta/boss should be split from the maps. The regular maps themselves should be just that, just like the old world maps where events happened not to push a meta, but just because. That feeling of randomness happening in the world with all the minor little stories was lost with HoT.

Using the Shatterer as an example, instead of having it spawn in the regular map, an in-game notice should popup stating that the Shatter is about to attack and asking if you’d like to join the battle. Doing so would put you into a personal story-like sectioned off instance limited to just the Shatterer and maybe its pre-events. There would be no other reason to be there and the event itself should never take longer than 30 minutes. Basically, it would be a boss battle instance.

The secret code was shown to you during the initial setup of the authenticator, both as a string and a QR image. Allowing you to see the code again is a vulnerability, which is why you’re supposed to save it in a secure location if you ever need to recreate your authenticator.

HoT is similar to Orr, except the enemies have half the health, are more annoying and do triple the damage.

Personally, I just leveled a necro and it was far easier than I remembered, but I also used to play without traits while naked, while now it’s just naked. If you want the pre-nerf experience, you’ll need to be in +20 level areas up to around 40, +10 up to around 70, then +5 to 80.

Level 1 takes roughly 15 minutes to solo and it’s fairly easy due to the NPCs tanking for you. Unlike the other fractal dailies, this one is really no different than soloing the event completion daily.

Masteries were designed to simulate traditional leveling. They want you to “level” through HoT for example, hence the location restriction. Mastery points are to ensure that you’re actually playing through the content while experience is to simply make it take longer while also giving you that leveling feeling.

The problem with leveling in GW2 is that people will grind Queensdale for example, then whine about it. There needs to be something to push you forward, which is the requirement of mastery points. In the future, there needs to be a reason for players to play through each expansion in the same way players need to level through each expansion in other MMOs. They may lower the experience requirements, but the basics are going to stay the same.

You appear to be following Dulfy’s guide, which was never updated to follow ArenaNet’s numbers.

If you need #4, you want Dulfy’s #8

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/Updated-DT-Coin-SW-Badge-Locations

Vayne.8563:

Those people felt justified in asking for harder open world content and they got just that.

And yet they continue to spam their 1 button while only playing with the zerg and grouping for solo content. All HoT did was kill off the less populated maps. The increase in difficulty simply made certain people fear playing outside of the zerg. Designing everything to split up the zerg is what killed it. Where you only needed 5+ people in the past, you now need 20+, though people want 50+ and commanders everywhere.

If they want to continue with this zerg design, they need to split the meta from the maps. The meta by itself should happen in its own sectioned off instance where everyone there is only there to participate. Dragon’s Stand is very close to that design.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

What we’ve been told of S3 makes is a conclusion to HoT, not a lead in to expac2 like S2 was for HoT. That role will likely fall to S4 or S5 depending on their set up.

S3 will probably be a transitional phase leading into the next expansion, or maybe they simply won’t have a lead in since it only confuses those who don’t actively play. With seasons taking place over a year, there’s really not much time for any more, assuming an expansion every 2-3 years. With S3 starting nearly a year after, by the time it’s finished, it’ll already be 2 years after HoT. We also already know they’re currently working on the next expansion, and they only took 2 years with HoT, so I wouldn’t count on more than 3 years per.

Participation is simply based on event completion. In-world adventures also count as events.

As for leveling, if you have XP boosters, the special kind that gives a % bonus to any experience gained and not just kills, use them, then run through all of the adventures. Adventures are the fastest source of experience (regardless of boosters) for the time spent, assuming you can efficiently do them, though they are limited to once a day. Their first time reward bonus is the best time to use a booster, and parking an alt to only run through select adventures is the best way to efficiently use a booster.

WildStar foolishly poured most of their resources into raiding whereas ArenaNet only has a few devs working on it. The only mistake they’re making is putting so much focus on it, giving off the illusion that GW2 is just another raid grinder. If they would have released the raid all at once, we would have just had a year of nothing until the living story returned, much like what happened last time. I wouldn’t count on seeing more than 1 raid or season per expansion, with an expansion every 2-3 years.

Amadan.9451:

how do you know people interested in raids are the minority?

Isn’t it common knowledge? Raiding has always been a minority and there’s no reason to expect anything different here.

Amadan.9451:

i guess they have data and if they are increasing raid wings is probably because according to their data enough player are worth the development

They’re trying to tap into the raid/traditional market, a market which they failed to keep back at launch. As in those who complained that GW2 had no endgame – the people who didn’t understand what GW2 was meant to be.

Avarice.2791

Would it bother the casual crowd to have patience, work together, and knock out the HP’s they can’t achieve alone one-by-one?

The majority of people simply want to login and play, and usually solo. They’re not going to bother with taxi’ing/LFG, guides, etc, they’re just wanting to play in their limited time. When they come to a hero challenge, they’re expecting to solo it, much like everything pre-HoT. If no one else was there and they see it’s an event they can’t possibly solo, a lot of them are simply going to walk away. The average difficulty of HoT however is likely going to push them away before that, especially if they’re always joining inactive maps. Keep in mind that most will never complain about it, nor will they visit the forums, they’ll simply stop. There’s a reason why almost every MMO balances open world/solo content for the most casual of players.

From my perspective however, HoT is mostly solo content, it’s just that unlike most MMOs, it was balanced for the gamers rather than the average player. Balancing like that however is bad for business, so I fully expect to see everything nerfed. Expect to see most group events and all hero challenges become regular events for example.

Raiding was needed to attract a certain type of player. Whether they should actually attract that type of player however is another question. All my WoW friends for example quit back at launch due to the lack of an endgame, aka raiding. Without a gear grind however, I doubt raids themselves will be enough and legendary armor, which is obviously meant to fill that role, is only cosmetic. Considering ArenaNet’s track record, raiding will likely end up just like dungeons and fractals.

As for WildStar, they had problems on all fronts. For PvE, they devoted all of their endgame resources to dungeons and raids. Within the first month, they found that 60% of their players played entirely solo, at which point they immediately began to cut raids. From a raiding perspective, a lot of people just didn’t want to bother with attunements, gearing or got discouraged due to gold dungeons, resulting in a collapsing community. On the PvP side, win trading/carrying/exploiting was rampant and the better PvP gear being wanted for raids made it even worse. PuG/undergeared vs premade/overgeared quickly became a problem, discouraging new players.

The endgame zones are actually how it was originally intended. Hearts were added during development after finding that traditional players didn’t know what to do without quests. The purpose of hearts was to attract players towards events.

Avarice.2791:

Anyways, I read an article stating GW2 hit 7 million players at the release of HoT. We’ll guess that 2 million are inactive.

That was total accounts registered, which is a fairly useless number. The professional estimate was 3.1 million active players just after HoT. Judging from what others have said last month based on NCSoft’s earnings report, HoT likely only sold 300-500k copies. Not only was HoT poorly marketed (the focus on minorities, the lack of content, the price, etc), it also came at a bad time (in between other major releases, like FO4), so it’s really not surprising.

sirsquishy.8531:

The ones who say HoT is easy are the ones who are actually playing with others.

The problem with difficulty is that it can vary greatly depending on what and how you’re playing. A pet bunker build is obviously going to be trivial compared to one of the lower defense professions played in melee. Just having a decoy can make a huge difference. Also keep in mind that some people are going to see everything as group content and just skip through it, rather than facing it. Some enemies can easily kill you within seconds for example, but for the most part, you can just skip them. Even then, without a death penalty, some may still think it’s easy because they can just waypoint.

Personally, I don’t really play alts so I’ve only played through HoT 1.5 times. First as a zerker ele and then as a zerker ranger wearing only rares, half accessories and no runes/sigils/upgrades. Although poorly geared, the ranger was easy, simply because of the pet tanking everything, plus I primarily skipped through everything and focused on the story.

lioka qiao.8734:

one permanent instance of the map + a way to choose which shard you’re on is the solution.

The problem is, it’s exploitable, just like guesting before the megaserver. They would have to either change how some things worked or lock you to an instance. The other problem is that it’ll allow you to estimate the game’s active population, which every MMO tries to hide.

From the AMA: No plans for 5 man version of the raid or easier mode of the raid. We are working on solutions for finding raid groups such as adding raids to the LFG tool.

The problem with adding multiple modes is that it’ll cost more, both to implement it and to maintain it. Coming from the perspective of a raiding guild from other MMOs, without raiding, people simply didn’t know what to do back at launch, so they quit within the first month. With only a few devs working on raids, they’re goal was likely to re-attract those players at a low cost, and it did work, but I doubt it’ll stick with legendary armor being the goal, rather than vertical progression.

One day they might add an easy mode or simply nerf it, but for now, those resources are likely much better spent somewhere else.

Swagger.1459:

I sincerely hope that each new LS chapter is included with each xpac

As in season 2 should have been included with HoT? Considering they’re planning on selling a single box by bundling the past expansions for free, giving everything away for free is highly unlikely. After the outrage of including the core game however, maybe they’re not planning on doing that anymore and will instead force you to buy the living story by selling HoT for $20 next expansion with the story included.

Rising Dusk.2408:

So wait, just because players now have the option to raid you are going to quit GW2?

The problem is the focus they’re currently putting on it. It doesn’t matter how little resources they’re spending on raiding, it’s the fact that raiding is all we’re hearing about. It’s making GW2 look like every other generic MMO devoted to raiding, and for everyone that wanted something different, what GW2 used to be, it’s currently looking bad. Even HoT itself was advertised with an emphasis on raids and guilds. Now knowing that the regular releases aren’t coming for nearly a year after HoT’s release, that’s going to be one long stretch of nothing. They could at least bring back the reoccurring monthly events to overshadow it, which will probably happen in April.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Would GW2 be a better game if they went back to the 2 week release cycle, with “click F 150 times for achievement” play and a couple of events that disappeared two weeks later?

Only wanting to play GW2? Having something to look forward to every other week was great. Sometimes the content was a mere distraction, but every few weeks it was something major. Imagine if they continued in season 1’s style, and could swap in episodes whenever they wanted to offer a recycled, but fresh experience while they continued development.

Wanting to play other games? Having extended breaks is great.

Every time I go to TD, I see people whining about not having 15+ per lane. I remember doing it with ~5 the first month. The problem with difficulty is scaling, which isn’t 1:1 because when it is, the zerg fails hard, as seen with the Shatterer’s pre-nerf break bar. Without fair scaling however, you simply bring more people for an easier time. Since people can’t handle the content, everything is seen as zerg or group (solo) content. Personally though, I wouldn’t want fair scaling because I wouldn’t want to fail simply because the zerg showed up, which was the problem with the original Gerent. I’d rather carry them, which is impossible to do fully now that ArenaNet tries to split everyone up.

From my perspective, if HoT was meant to be group content, it’s far too easy. Most of the events simply don’t feel like group events. imo, they were only labeled as such because they knew the average player wouldn’t be able to solo them, which is the rule of regular events.

Avarice.2791:

A solution to this would be the release of a easy-mode raid with massive reward reductions.

Coming from a raiding guild’s perspective from other MMOs, the only purpose of raids in GW2 is to sell the game to that audience. Back at launch, without raids, people simply didn’t know what to do, so they quit. ArenaNet’s trying to tap back into that and it did work for a bit. I doubt making multiple versions is worth the resources, because the goal is to provide that content at a minimal cost. I also wouldn’t count on seeing more than 1 raid per expansion.

Try a different server:

Gw2.exe -assetsrv drwkwiejruot6.cloudfront.net

Just in case, as a simple test, open your GW2 folder and make a copy of Gw2.dat, delete the original, rename the copy to Gw2.dat, then run Gw2.exe -repair

A few months ago, SuperData Research estimated the active monthly population to be at 3.1 million.

Harper.4173:

But now “they are focusing on raids over other things” – sure.

People are going to think that because that’s the illusion ArenaNet’s currently creating. Every week they seem to talk about raiding, the upcoming wings or whatnot. Even HoT itself was marketed with a spotlight on raiding, which was obviously meant to attract the WoW players that quit back at launch, and being in a WoW raiding guild, it did work for a bit, but it was a major turn off for everyone that wanted an MMO that was different. Now after the AMA, knowing that the regular releases are so far away, it’ll be nearly a year of only having raids as new content. GW2’s current release schedule is mimicking that of every other generic MMO, which for everyone that hated it, is going to feel it.

They could at least put out one of the major reoccurring events as a distraction for everyone else, because this is going to be one long stretch of nothing. I wouldn’t be surprised to see SAB next month or the Queen’s Gauntlet, considering those two have been hinted at.

Check the folder C:\Windows.old\

Or just search the entire computer for Gw2.dat or Gw2.exe.

It depends on the situation. If you use auto cast to stay active while your pet tags for you, you will be banned for botting.

As for your case of walking away and coming back to a ban shortly after, that’s very unlikely. Bans take time to processes, so it would have been something you did days, weeks or even months ago. The only exception is if a dev banned you themselves, as in one saw you while they were playing, like if you were AFKing in PvP or something, or you just happened to be with a group of bots when they were handing out bans.

Avarice.2791:

It’s pretty clear you’ve never played WoW, or you’re exaggerating to make some strange point. One button, really?

Some classes are fully capable of playing with a 1 button macro – as in cast sequences, or even easier, “illegal” macros. It might not be min/maxed optimal, but that’s not required. In some cases, 1 button spammers were actually the way to go. I remember arcane mages at one point attaining their highest DPS with a single button, though unsustainable for more than a few minutes. I haven’t played WoW in years, but that comment was from my personal raiding experience. I would have the more casual players /follow me to control their movement, either for ranged or melee. To be clear, this was a mostly geared raid carrying new players, making the content mostly a joke. I did the same thing in Rift at one point, but only played for the first raid. It wasn’t always /follow mind you, I would be marked so they could follow along instead of having to watch their surroundings.

Although my view on group content is somewhat a joke, to make it even more clear, not everyone needs to be good. You could stand in the corner for all I care. That is after all how we made money and gold back in the day, by selling carries.

As for GW1, I played it entirely solo with only henchmen, then heroes. I only played for about a month per campaign on release, only truly playing it once the HoM was announced. It became so easy that I could press c-space (aka target nearest, attack), then AFK while the heroes cleared hard mode trash for me. To be fair, at some points I would manually manage their skills and positioning. HoM

Avarice.2791:

You do realize they buff up new zones to accommodate for the next tier of gear given, right? You don’t scale in that game so eventually content becomes outdated while competitive content remains fresh.

I was referring to the standard play through experience. To make it simpler, let’s only focus on the personal story. If you can’t beat it, all you can do to compensate is bring a group. If GW2 was like every other gear based game however, that same story would have been balanced for questing gear, masterwork in this case, with new rares and exotics obtained through endgame play. If you couldn’t handle the story at first, you would simply need to obtain that better gear. Even when it comes to endgame additions, you would simply need to wait for the next gear cycle to be released. That is the problem with making the player’s skill the only factor. Those who can’t currently handle the raid for example may never be able to. As the difficulty increases with new content, more and more people will find themselves hitting that skill wall, as seen with HoT. To counter that, the content itself will be nerfed, rather than releasing new gear to make you more powerful instead.

maddoctor.2738:

Not quite. Even with low quality gear and items old tyria is still afkable. Just stand still, set your auto attack on skill 1 and go away, when you are back any “normal” mob will be dead and you will be at full health.

As a sample, I was playing a thief in timberline and a dredge’s rifle shot (basic attack), at +4 levels I think, was nearly 1/2 my health. As another, not dodging a fire elemental’s explosion barrage (special attack) is a 1 shot. Of course, I was practically naked with a zerker D/D spec. That is my “normal” leveling experience.

Of course I could just AFK, wait for someone to revive me and call it a win, or simply play the game on easy mode with a group or while downscaled.

Andraus.3874:

It was more expensive when you prepurchased (versus now) but it also came with perks like that.

Through ArenaNet, it’s still the same price. From official 3rd parties, it was on sale for ~$34 nearly every other week as soon as pre-purchasing went live, compared to the ~$38 it is now (dlgamer.us). However, it’s possible to find HoT for $20-$25 at stores clearing out the product, or mistakenly selling it under the price tag of GW2 (core), but that’s entirely up to where you live.

Your settings, as in your keybinds and UI options, are stored by the server. Your hardware-related settings are stored under %appdata%/Guild Wars 2/. Deleting the game will have no affect on either.

The only way to remove data from Gw2.dat is by deleting it. If you’re sure you want to delete it over a few GB, right click your GW2 shortcut and select open file location. In the same folder as Gw2.exe, delete Gw2.dat. On your next launch of Gw2.exe, Gw2.dat will be redownloaded.

Blude.6812:

Have to call them out on the dungeon comment.
Funny how they bring up no dungeon dev team. Funny, they could Nerf dungeons with no team, but can’t restore the rewards. Why won’t they just restore them to their previous state?

The dungeon team was disbanded early on, yet they still made dungeons after that with the living world team. The problem ArenaNet is facing is that they don’t actually want to spend the resources to fix that old content and with the various and potentially future exploits, it’s not safe to leave them with high rewards. They could put like 1 guy on it, but from their perspective, that 1 dev is probably better used working on new content.

Personally, I recently started soloing AC and CM for a few skins after not doing dungeons since launch. The rewards for barely any effort is still too high imo, at least for those two.

The AMA basically confirmed that HoT will be nerfed. Too much focus on group content, for example. Most of the current group events will likely be rebalanced to be regular events.

They may or may not nerf the enemies themselves however, but they likely will. Removing the anti-ranged on shadowleapers for example seems like something they’d do, like how they removed the frontal defense on the spinners.

The problem ArenaNet will always face, is that due to the lack of gear progression, people like the op will eventually hit a brick wall. In WoW for example, if you’re not good enough, you simply get better gear to compensate. GW2’s equivalent is actually bringing more people since the content doesn’t scale 1:1. That however requires a heavily active population, which they can’t keep up forever, plus the majority plays solo, and if they can’t complete the story solo, they’ll simply quit. They can’t appeal to both sides at the same time, and there’s a reason why almost all MMOs balance for the casual audience – it’s safer and more profitable.

maddoctor.2738:

And all old tyria hero point mobs can be killed while afk spamming only 1.

Only equip what is given to you through the personal story/leveling rewards and only play in +3 level areas. Starting at level ~15, you’re now playing the game on normal mode at a similar difficulty as what was seen in the original, pre-nerf beta, where all special attacks would 1 shot you. From my perspective, leveling through old Tyria is more challenging than playing through HoT at cap.

The mistake they’re currently making is making it look like their focus is entirely on raids. According to the AMA, the raid team is very small, and thus raids should be cheap to implement, whereas the story team is larger and of course a lot more works goes into it. But by releasing only new raids, making them the center of attention, and only announcing raids as new content for the next several months, GW2 is looking just like every other generic MMO. I can see why however and why they focused HoT’s advertising on it, because back at the original launch, all the WoW players I knew quit a week in because they didn’t know what to do without raids to grind. A simple solo/story version of the raids to tie them in would have been good enough as a simple distraction.

Knowing that some SAB data was mined a while ago, it will probably be out soon, or maybe the hinted at Gauntlet will return. That should hopefully make a distraction while waiting for the story to return months later. But considering how long the story is taking, I don’t expect to see more than 1 season per expansion, with an expansion every 2 years.

Avarice.2791:

Probably need to find a new game… One easier than GW2…. So this excludes all other MMO’s in existence… You need a game that requires zero thought… Any ideas people?

In terms of the solo play through experience, and I mean with no one else around whatsoever, a lot of MMOs are by far easier than GW2, especially when gear is usually the dominant factor. WoW and the like for example. Their solo/open world content is always balanced for the most casual of players, like Queensdale-level of difficulty, because people with the same opinion as the op make up the casual majority.

Also, MMOs aren’t exactly strategy games and reactionary combat doesn’t require thought. If you can /follow a target and press a 1 button macro, you can be a hardcore raider in WoW.