Guild Wars 2

Ayrilana.1396:

What’s the point of progression if it’s done passively?

It’s not done passively if done through XP. Progression will then occur through playing the game. Playing the game is never passive. Progression, and reward itself, should always come through playing the game. The benefit with using XP is that it allows the player to largely play the game their way and still progress along the horizontal scale.

I know “play it your way” sounds foreign to many ears, but it didn’t to the original developers of GW2.

OP, gear progression (vertical progression) was actually officially added to the game in November 2012. I think we saw about a 10% increase in power the first year which was subsequently taken away with a nerf to precision if I recall correctly. But, due to it’s unpopularity (what were they thinking?) we really haven’t seen that much of it.

GW2 was different in many ways and besides the foray into VP I believe they’ve been able to maintain the distinctiveness. To me, mounts, properly implemented (a very big if given Anet), will be a net plus. They score pretty high with me on the QoL and FUN scale.

kurfu.5623:

I am looking forward to the mounts, and hope they add more into the game…

Back when I played WoW, I was a mount-a-holic with 214 of them:

https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/korialstrasz/kurfu/collections/mounts

I didn’t see a time-lost proto-drake in there so you’ve got a bit more collecting to do.
Seriously though, nice collection. It was great fun getting that swift white hawkstrider from magister’s terrace, eh?

Very similar to my experience and belief. The mastery system is a mechanism to implement horizontal progression. As such, you should be making progress when you play the game. When the mastery system came out I very quickly got 9 mastery points but never got another one even after months of daily play. How could this happen? I was playing the game my way (Colin’s way) and not as the developers intended.

The long and short of it is very simple: if you are going to implement horizontal progression it should progress for everyone through playing the game. The easiest way to implement this is through XP. Other kinds of masteries could also be present to enrich the baseline XP progression.

It is extremely rare for me to take a white knight position, but deadness is not something I experience in GW2. And, I have 25+ max level characters so I’ve experienced a good deal of the world at different times (e.g., as a latecomer).

The only place where this broke down for me was HoT, and the whole conception of the zones in HoTland is simply bad design made manifest. I stopped playing HoT and went back to experiencing the living world that is GW2.

In terms of PoF I’m not going to prepurchase either precisely because of HoT. If I’m convinced at some point that PoF stands of the shoulders of GW2 and not HoT I’ll buy it. But, I won’t be fooled into buying a game I won’t enjoy just because it’s from the creators of GW2—they made HoT afterall.

I think mounts (as implemented) and gliding are two very different things. They are both present in the game as mentioned above. And, both are fantastic QoL and FUN enhancements to the game. The only thing that would even compete with gliding would be true flying mounts, but again it would still be two different things. In WoW you have gliding-like abilities and gliders along with flying.

As a long time MMO player mounts are nothing new for me. And, I confess, I love mounts. But, there are a couple things that bring concern with the fact that it is Anet that is implementing them. First, I hope that they are not hidden behind silly insane grinds. Mounts, for me, are fun, enriching, and just a very large QoL addition to any game. There are some that should be extremely easy to obtain (the functionality) and there should be some that must be pursued. Second, I hope that they are not used to gate content. And, this is a large fear because Anet. I don’t want to need a particular mount to do particular content. I don’t want to encounter anything in PoF that remotely resembles a bouncing mushroom. I don’t want a required mount in order to do platforming. I want them to be for travel and for fun. It would be hugely disappointing if they gated content or were a platforming tool. (From the video this may already be a lost cause.)

Those are the main concerns. Additionally, I would like true flying mounts at some point. This is largely for the view of the game world they would provide. GW2 is such a beautiful game I would love to see it from every angle. There are some who believe this would be antithetical to exploration but I disagree. There are areas that I quested through in WoW with flying that, because of the questing, I stood on just about every square inch of the zone. And, I know those maps like the back of my hand because of flying not in spite of it. Anyway, my thoughts on mounts.

Agree. Fewer gimmicky annoying mechanics would yield more fun. HoT++ is my greatest fear with PoF. Man, I hope nothing from HoT beyond gliding creeps into the expansion. Let that thing die a peaceful death.

An interesting note on the allusion to mastery points as a mechanism of horizontal progression in the announcement. In my most recent foray back into the game, I spent maybe 3-4 months playing daily. In the first month or so I gained 9 mastery points and then played daily for 2-3 months without gaining a single additional point. If I returned today and played another month I’m sure I would not progress horizontally.

How is this possible? Well, I have but don’t play HoT. I play solely in vanilla GW2 which I greatly enjoy. But, there is no horizontal progression for a player like me. It’s not really how I would design horizontal progression into the game. I wonder how they think about horizontal progression in PoF.

I watched the announcement with one background thought. Will the expansion stand on the shoulders of GW2 or continue down the path of HoT? I have no interest in anything remotely like HoT. It’s a completely different game.

There were many allusions to returning to GW2 and building on it. Great! However, somewhere during the mount section I heard that mounts would allow you to get across puzzles in ways you never thought of. Yeah, no. HoT is a platformer obscura puzzle game with densely packed annoying mobs that make sure the platforming is tedious. I want to play a game like GW2 where puzzles enriched the game for those who enjoyed them and could be completely avoided by those who didn’t.

So, I’m left unsure about PoF. What’s it like? GW2 or HoT? I definitely won’t pre-purchase without assurance that I won’t be sold HoT++. I suppose I’ll need to wait for release and an in-depth review. Because of HoT there is nothing here in the announcement that I’m excited about.

I actually think that story is the preferred method of introducing new maps. It’s the natural way to unfold a living world. But, and it is a pretty big but, if the story requires platforming, solving puzzles, or wading through densely packed annoying mobs, I would have no interest in doing the story which would effectively keep me locked out of the zone.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Mil.3562:

Another grindfest expansion? Nice.

There are no MMO’s that are without time sinks. That’s the nature of the genre.

Back on topic, I too wish ANet well.

This is absolutely true. And, I love grinding in an MMO; I believe the presence of grinds does nothing but enrich the game. The only distinction I make is between optional grinds and non-optional grinds. Some non-optional grinds are necessary in your typical MMO: 1-max level anyone? It’s just that post max level I would prefer that the game would shift away from non-optional grinds to more and more optional ones. An example of a non-optional grind would be any grind that increases your power level, so vertical progression would be an example of a non-optional grind. You simply must keep up with the power curve or you eventually won’t be able to play. But basically any grind that advances the core game would be by definition non-optional.

But the options around optional grinds are endless in a modern MMO. I would like to see evidence that this is a principle at Anet. The Anet that released GW2 was principle rich. In fact, this is what caused me to purchase and play GW2 since before it was released. Currently, principles, design principles, get short shrift at Anet. Perhaps with the addition of VandenBerghe to the team there will be a return to a thoughtful design philosophy.

Who wouldn’t want to see a comeback? I always wanted to be daphoenix when I grew up.

Ashen.2907:

Raine.1394:

SmirkDog.3160:

Raine.1394:

This is absolutely true advice for the solo player. However, if you do anything group oriented, meta matters. Your idiosyncrasies will only compromise group efficiency and effectiveness—and the group will notice.

What’s it like playing to have 0 fun? I don’t know what that’s like because I don’t let other people dictate what gear I use. And I haven’t had any problems doing group content with the gear/build I use.

I play to have fun. And, for me, it’s fun to do well in combat in PvE and PvP. It’s also fun to contribute to a teams ability to do well in combat. There are many factors involved in “doing well”, e.g., player ability, experience with encounter mechanics, what you ate and drank for dinner, internet connection, gear, and builds. Objectively, gear and builds combine to set your power level in the game. And, in games where the goal is to reduce an opponents HP to zero before they reduce your HP to zero, your power level will dictate both whether you can meet the goal (gear check), how efficiently you can meet the goal, and how much you can contribute to your team.

For lots of content it’s not necessary to be playing at the top of the meta. However, in group content with any challenge your choice to perform less well in terms of your idiosyncrasies of build and gear, will mean that your team members will have to take up your slack. It’s just an objective fact that can be reduced to a set of numbers. For me, it’s not fun to play less well than I could (solo even) and not something I want to saddle my team with. And, this goes for both games and IRL.

Team members do not, necessarily, have to, “take up your slack,” as even end game content in this game has a cushion that allows for suboptimal play to still reach the goal you describe.

As I said, in trivial content it’s irrelevant how optimized you are in terms of gear/build. And you are right in non-trivial content it’s always possible to be suboptimal and be carried by your group. But, your teammates will be making up for your under-performance. For example, let’s say it takes 50k to down a boss in a 5 man group. The group succeeds with one player contributing 5,000 damage and the other four contributing 11,250 damage each. What has happened is that four people took up the slack of one sub-optimal player. Can it be done? Yes, but it’s the very essence of taking up the slack; one person under-performed and the four other team mates had to make up for the under-performance.

And, it’s important to note that this is not a matter of opinion. In any encounter it can be reduced to a set of numbers. With combat logs it’s easy to measure, without them the same thing occurs without the metrics.

SmirkDog.3160:

Raine.1394:

This is absolutely true advice for the solo player. However, if you do anything group oriented, meta matters. Your idiosyncrasies will only compromise group efficiency and effectiveness—and the group will notice.

What’s it like playing to have 0 fun? I don’t know what that’s like because I don’t let other people dictate what gear I use. And I haven’t had any problems doing group content with the gear/build I use.

I play to have fun. And, for me, it’s fun to do well in combat in PvE and PvP. It’s also fun to contribute to a teams ability to do well in combat. There are many factors involved in “doing well”, e.g., player ability, experience with encounter mechanics, what you ate and drank for dinner, internet connection, gear, and builds. Objectively, gear and builds combine to set your power level in the game. And, in games where the goal is to reduce an opponents HP to zero before they reduce your HP to zero, your power level will dictate both whether you can meet the goal (gear check), how efficiently you can meet the goal, and how much you can contribute to your team.

For lots of content it’s not necessary to be playing at the top of the meta. However, in group content with any challenge your choice to perform less well in terms of your idiosyncrasies of build and gear, will mean that your team members will have to take up your slack. It’s just an objective fact that can be reduced to a set of numbers. For me, it’s not fun to play less well than I could (solo even) and not something I want to saddle my team with. And, this goes for both games and IRL.

I’ve played WoW since Wrath and as you probably know WoW has been hard on the “ability pruning” train since Cata. Today, the BM hunter in WoW has, what, 5 buttons to press outside of the niche abilities? This is all part of a general trend in games to make things more comprehensible to more players and for the most part affects both builds and abilities.

I don’t really find GW2 deficient or comparatively boring in this regard as compared to WoW. For me, I’ve stopped playing the current content in GW2 due to the plaformer-puzzle nature of the game in its current conception. I’m waiting for the new expansion announcement and if it doesn’t require platforming skills or puzzles in the core game I will be returning.

SmirkDog.3160:

This may be new information, but you can actually play however you want. Playing a certain way because that’s what the ~~~meta~~~ is and all the Cool Players tell you to is dumb.

This is absolutely true advice for the solo player. However, if you do anything group oriented, meta matters. Your idiosyncrasies will only compromise group efficiency and effectiveness—and the group will notice.

MacLeod.5386:

I’m sorry, but if I had wanted to play a puzzle game, I would have bought a puzzle game instead of this game.

The jumping puzzle/puzzle element used to be a side element back when the game launched, didn’t do them then when it was a choice, sure as kitten don’t want to do them now as kitten requirements.

I was hyped about the new expansion, but I was hyped for a GuildWars2 expansion, not a GuildPuzzle2/PuzzleWars2 that this has become. Sadly, I only see it becoming worse, judging by the amount that was in this Living World season. That’s just my opinion, I’m sure many others think the opposite, which is fine, to each their own.

I really couldn’t have said it any better. From the start puzzles, mini-games and the like were on the side where they belong. They enrich the game for many and it’s great having them. I am, however, an MMO player and they don’t do anything for me. Also, from the beginning it didn’t matter as I didn’t need to do them in order to advance the game…perfect.

With HoT (actually started with Dry Top) GW2 has become a platformer/puzzle game at it’s core. To me this is a bad move. And, it’s disheartening to see that there is no intention at all evident that it will ever come back to being an MMO with puzzles on the side for those who like them.

DoctorDing.5890:

Squee.7829:

Enjoy the thread now, because it won’t be long before we get dozens of posts saying “I figured it out in 3 minutes because I’m amazing!”

I’m not amazing and I didn’t figure it out in any amount of time at all. In fact, I just got immensely frustrated and quit the kitten thing.

Those sorts of fights need to be safely tucked away in raids and dungeons where folks who enjoy that stuff can seek them out. The Living Story should be fun and entertaining and not so difficult that you need to go looking for tricks and tips on forums. Normal stuff should be fun not frustrating. Anet seem to have forgotten that.

This pretty much exactly. The fact that we are discussing it in this way on a forum is an indicator of the encounters failure. The open world, living story, etc. is not the place for crushing challenge or raid-like mechanics that must first be grokked by progression raiders and later communicated to the masses. This is an example of how not to design an encounter of this nature.

Arnox.5128:

What in the ####ing #### has ANet done to deserve these attacks? This is so not cool on so many levels. I can think of a gazillion other companies that are more deserving of this than them.

‘Deserving’ is not part of the calculus.

Ben K.6238:

The one piece of vertical progression was adding Ascended gear. No new tiers have been added in the last 4 years though, and it seems pretty unlikely any more ever will be.

Chris Whiteside said in an AMA in 11/2012 that they were adding, not Ascended gear, but vertical progression to the game going forward. If they were only adding a tier of gear it wouldn’t be vertical progression and he explicitly said they were adding vertical progression to the game going forward. Unless Anet has reversed themselves then one must assume that VP is in the game. As I mentioned in my post I haven’t seen much in the way of VP in the game over the years so I assume that they have de facto reversed themselves if not de jure.

GW2 was released without a gear grind. It was stated that players wouldn’t constantly be preparing to have fun. With the Nov 2012 release they paradoxically said that vertical progression (gear grind) would be in the game going forward. I have to admit that there hasn’t been much in the way of vertical progression since so I’m taking it that they view it as an unpopular decision, which I believe it was, and have reversed it. (I mean, vertical progression doesn’t progress by stopping.) I haven’t been playing much since HoT so I’m not really up on any current statements made by Anet. Perhaps someone can comment on this. Where they left it when I was playing VP was in the game and raising the level cap was always an option.

I have full ascended in 3 armor sets which I pass around to my characters. I will echo the others in saying that it will make little difference in HoT. I basically no longer play because of HoT. I have several rangers and went to HoT zones on them for the OP ranger pets there. The part of the process that was always most fun was leaving HoT for vanilla GW2. Can’t stand the place. Maybe the next expansion will build on the strengths and big ideas of vanilla. Anet lost their way with the Lost Souls release (aka Lost Shores) and following; I hope they can find their way back.

More on the internet. Jason describes his position as studio-level and I would assume that this is the game director being called director of design. Anet could clear this up and should—this knowledge shouldn’t have come from the playerbase. I hope Jason is not put off by the lack of a professional introduction from Anet.

Simply put, any mobs you engage in the open world are not your mobs. And, people coming to your aid is actually one of the distinctives of GW2. In other games in 2012 loot and xp was not generally shared. This contributed to your hating even seeing other players on the map when you were questing through an area. GW2 with shared loot and resource nodes contributed to an environment where you wanted to help others and you were fine with seeing other players on the map. You may not be familiar with this distinctive and perhaps are having a paradoxical response to people wanting to help you out. It’s actually a breath of fresh air. And, as has been said the target dummy golems are your friends if you want to test builds.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

It would be great if he was as interactive with the playerbase as Chris was.

I miss Chris. =(

From what I can piece together from his postings, interactive seems to be his middle name. He thinks and talks about gaming. And, does it in an engaging way. Admittedly not much to go on yet, but this is the first time I have felt optimism about the game since November 16th, 2012.

Rauderi.8706:

Raine.1394:

Checked out a presentation by him on player motivation. He seems a thoughtful person, that is, he thinks about gaming. Could bode well for the future.

A good portion of the UX staff are pretty thoughtful people.

It’s the combat design folks that need a riding crop to the haunches. :\

The reward and economy folks are next on my list of leatherwhip brandishing. So, maybe he’ll be a part of one of those two groups.

Well, after hearing him speak I was hoping that he was coming in a tad higher than a part of or lead of one of those groups. In fact, I was hoping he would be influential in overall game direction if not the director.

Checked out a presentation by him on player motivation. He seems a thoughtful person, that is, he thinks about gaming. Could bode well for the future.

I would like to see an expansion that builds on and extends the core ideas of the guild wars franchise. In other words, something not at all like HoT.

I have a Norn warrior that, conceptually, I absolutely love. However, I’ve never gotten comfortable with his lumbering gait. Technically, he moves as fast as an asura, but it just doesn’t feel that way—it takes forever to to move him in any direction. Just in terms of character navigation I’ve found Sylvari to be ideal. But, we’re talking warrior here and if you want to go fierce and intimidating I’ll join the others and say: go Charr!

I’m a big fan of play it your way. In my most recent period of playing GW2 I went through a 3 month period of daily play without gaining a single mastery point. I’d say play it your way is an excellent idea that departed fairly early in the course of the game’s evolution.

Here are some good ideas for a future game:

Ah, those old video’s, especially the MMO manifesto, make me nostalgic for vanilla GW2, one of the best games I ever played. For me the issue never was “heart” quests. I had a problem with the addition of vertical progression to the game something they said was not to be part of the GW2 experience, we weren’t going to ever “prepare” to have fun. Was that a broken promise? Technically, by definition, yes. But, I don’t hold it that way as I believe they are free to evolve the game as they see fit. I’m just sad for the early inclusion of VP though they haven’t allowed it to have its traditional impact in the game.

Of course I have a problem with HoT. I always knew the early success of jumping puzzles posed a risk. But Anet said that they would always be there if you wanted to do them, but would never be required to advance the game. Of course that was a promise broken as well—HoT is nothing but a massive extended jumping puzzle.

I do wish they had hung onto their original vision because the idea’s, maybe not entirely new, were revolutionary and the game was beautiful. It has been difficult to watch them manage it over time.

Mastery is nothing new conceptually in gaming. It is a way to progress a character post max level. It gives as sense of progression without constantly raising the level cap. Diablo 3 did something comparable but did it well as opposed to the poor implementation by Anet.

In Diablo 3 you have the paragon system where players earn points by playing the game. The mechanism is XP. With GW2 it’s possible to play the game everyday, craft several sets of ascended gear, and participate in open world content assiduously and not earn a single mastery point. I actually did this myself where I played several months without a single point gained.

My assumption here is that reward should come from playing the game and it should come from playing it your way as much as possible. “Mastery” progression works beautifully in D3, it doesn’t work at all in GW2 if your playstyle doesn’t align perfectly with that prescribed by Anet.

In order to make it work in GW2 points would have to be awarded for playing the game and the best way to do that is through XP. My two cents.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The human stories are dull. I think the most interesting are:

• The charr ones — more interesting NPCs, tasks, and more creative sort of quests.
• The asura ones — the asura are just fun: fun voice actors, crazy situations, and interesting dilemmas (although the tasks are pretty standard).
• The sylvari — the most “alien” of the races imo. And it’s especially interesting in retrospect, once you go through the Living World stories.

I have to second this. I found the Asura ones especially engaging. They had the right combination of good story and lots of humor.

AliamRationem.5172:

Raine.1394:

Worst maps? Any map from Dry Top on into HoT. They are the intrusion of the jumping puzzle into the core game, something Anet said would never happen. The new maps are nothing but advancing the core game through platforming. The context of the maps is also problematic, i.e., you do your platforming with annoying mobs densely populated…everywhere.

I think we’re using a pretty loose interpretation of the terms “platforming” and “jumping puzzle” here. Jumping off a ledge and deploying a glider or bouncing off of a mushroom that automatically sends you to the same location every time (minus some wonnkiness every now and then) doesn’t strike me as “jump puzzle” or “platforming” material. But I suppose you’re welcome to your own interpretation.

Google “platforming game”. Second hit for me was the wiki. “A platform game (or platformer) is a type of video game, and a subgenre of action game. It involves guiding a player character or avatar to jump between suspended platforms and/or over obstacles to traverse their environment. The player controls the jumps to avoid letting their character fall to their death or miss necessary jumps.” The key here is that you advance the game through the performance of platforming.

Sound like any games you’ve played? Maybe GW2 from Dry Top on? I think we’re using a pretty tight interpretation of platforming here.

Ascended gear “a tedious grind”.

Yep, GW2 was founded upon the principle of not having grinds for item level or power. That lasted around 6 months until the Lost Souls (sic) patch. So much of GW2 is now tedious grinds for power, what they called “preparing” to have fun. But, glad you feel you got your money’s worth. I wish you well in your gaming!

And, then a justice system to handle the dissolution of marriages and the handling of joint property.

WoW, I can hear the sirens of the play police. I tend not to blame players for the way they play. I place a lot of the responsibility for successful play on game designers . The design should be engaging and rewarding, you know, fun. And, design should occur so that there are as many options as possible; play should never feel like there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

Worst maps? Any map from Dry Top on into HoT. They are the intrusion of the jumping puzzle into the core game, something Anet said would never happen. The new maps are nothing but advancing the core game through platforming. The context of the maps is also problematic, i.e., you do your platforming with annoying mobs densely populated…everywhere.

I second the opinion of Djinn. When GW2 first came out it was such a breath of fresh air. No more competition in quests, for resource nodes, etc. Players could now play successfully with other players. No more “preparing to have fun”, i.e., no grinding for gear that will again be replaced by other gear that you must again grind for, all without changing gameplay at all, just a treadmill.

And the game world…GW2 brought so much life to the game. It’s sad to see it devolve into platforming where you don’t know where to platform to (platformer obscura) with hellish annoying mobs nipping at your heels. It must be what hell is like. But, why on earth would you want to model hell into your gaming experience. I mean I want to have a cause to defeat evil forces, but I don’t want to live in hell 24/7 to do it. I’d much prefer to live in the game world conceptualized by vanilla GW2.

Faaris.8013:

Raine.1394:

With GW2 combat, from the beginning almost, often the only lesson to learn is that you shouldn’t have entered combat. Entering combat was your only mistake. And then you die.

That is simply not true. Yesterday I could literally watch people learning at Golem Mark II. You died because of electric fields on the ground? Oh, better move out of them next time. Ah, red circle, I know what to do. Oh kitten, even bigger red circle, so I have to dodge twice in a row, better save up my endurance. Alright, so this machine gun circle shower again, get closer to the golem. Now the rotation starts again…

Get sniped while flying to the Octovine with bombs? kitten, better hit the dodge button next time to get stealth. Fell into the lava through the gap of the bridge in the Volcanic Fractal? (I’m always looking who falls in pugs to see who’s new to it) Well, next time you know when to jump. Kill yourself because the boss used reflect? Sure enough, next time you stop firing when his shield goes up.

There are uncountable examples that provethat combat in GW2 teaches you how to fight. Do you have examples of the opposite?

I’m not saying that there isn’t well designed combat in GW2—at all. I was addressing the OP. In GW2 there are times when your only mistake, and a fatal one at that, is entering combat. This is actually markedly different from other games I have played.

The OP mixes two issues. One is simply class balance; the desire for all classes to be perceived as bringing something of equal worth to the table. The second issue is the perception of player value in grouped content.

Grouped content, that’s the thing—playing with other humans. Anything is viable solo, but you may catch hell if you deviate from established norms around grouped content. Anet can directly address class balance and do a good or bad job of it. However, a meta will emerge regardless as that is a human thing. People will learn what works best and they will look for that knowledge in the people they play with. And from this human trait will emerge the tears of the nonconformist. This is pervasive in every sphere of life; why would we expect anything less in gaming.

During the first year or so of GW2, I don’t remember when exactly, I watched a stream of a group of developers playing through a dungeon encounter. They were dying left and right, wiping, and all the while laughing and having a good old time. This was paradoxical to me as I play so as not to die. And, I took it to be a bad omen about how the game would evolve. And it has.

Death should always be instructive. It should be a lesson about how to improve. In challenging games, e.g., Dark Souls, the first thing you learn is to think about what you are doing and you don’t run blithely around corners. When you die you should be able to learn a lesson that will allow you not to die next time.

With GW2 combat, from the beginning almost, often the only lesson to learn is that you shouldn’t have entered combat. Entering combat was your only mistake. And then you die.

But, like I said, I saw this coming from the beginning. It never surprises me.

I too have played since release. At release I found GW2 to be one of the best games I ever played. It was full of great ideas whose time had come. That lasted until Oct/Nov of the first year and the Lost Souls (sic) patch.

One of the original great ideas was a game without vertical progression, i.e., no treadmill. That idea was gone within months of release. Other great ideas remained like non-competitive quests and resource nodes. But, it was almost like the devs managing the game were a different group entirely from the ones who created the game.

The next bad idea introduced had to do with story telling. They chose to tell story like episodic TV. That is, story had a beginning, took place in the existing world, and ended. If you weren’t around to experience it forget about it because it was gone. Achievements, loot, whatever it was gone. This created a sense similar to vertical progression, a pressure to play the game in a certain way before time ran out and it was no more. It fit in very nicely with vertical progression I suppose. The more Guild Wars alternative would be to evolve a living world where story unfolded in an expanding game world and remained.

Today GW2 is a Platformer Obscura. Normally, in platforming you know the goal of the next jump. Here your first jump is to youtube to find out how to get to your destination—hence the Obsura. And, Obscura sounds cool. This is my nomination for the name of a new gaming genre. But, hey, they invented it so they are free to name it if they want. Add in densely populated annoying mobs and you have HoT. It’s funny how people can go on about HoT. It’s two things, 1) Platformer Obscura , and 2) densely populated, annoying mobs.

I honestly would never have guessed that GW2 would devolve to this point. It has gone from one of the best games I ever played to Platformer Obscura…and, I don’t like platformers…much prefer MMO’s.

I would certainly like to think that Anet will consider HoT and return to the ideas that made GW2 one of the best games I’ve played. I have to say that I agree with most of the OP. I am not optimistic though; it seems like GW2 was created by one group of people and then turned over to a completely different group of people to manage over time.

Only one thing is for certain and that is I will not preorder any new expansion. And, if they choose to continue down the HoT road I won’t be buying anything period.

I actually did buy HoT, but without really knowing what the game would be like. My assumption was that it would follow in some sense the core ideas of GW2.

What I found was that HoT was a full realization of the ideas expressed in Dry Top. Well, they were core ideas first expressed in jumping puzzles I suppose. The difference in HoT was that the core game was advanced through platforming. Don’t like platforming? You won’t like HoT. There was also the difficulty jump but I relate to it more as annoyance than difficulty. Do you remember the original Orr? Mobs everywhere and with limitless CC. Their CC wasn’t anything like my cooldowns, I’d pop mine and they were gone; the mobs on Orr never ran out of CC. So, it was get caught in a CC chain, pop your cooldowns, die. Someone must have thought this would be fun for players. Long story short, they tuned Orr so that it was a fun place to play. HoT was the lessons of Orr forgotten. Annoying mobs everywhere, hard to avoid, and don’t park your character for a brb.

The one thing that HoT got right was simple gliding. Man, what fun. Too bad it got tied into forced platforming. I’ve toyed with the idea that HoT may have been worth buying for the gliding alone, but I suppose that depends on your budget. I stay out of HoTland entirely now, and I suppose I could do without gliding. Oh, I did get the pets for my rangers there but got out as soon as I could.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

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

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

Well, adapt or leave; I’ve chosen the later. And, I’d be careful when using the term “vocal minority” as it’s usually merely a rhetorical device used to bolster an actual minority opinion on the forums. There is no vocal minority on the forums, there are merely voices—and, they are either in the minority or the majority. Do they represent all player voices—no. They merely represent all the voices on the forums.

I’ve determined that the current game is unplayable solo. And, let me be more precise in my definition: it is unplayable solo while having fun playing it. You see, one of my gaming principles in that the time I play should feel like play and be fun. I’m always returning to the forums every few months or so looking for changes in the games direction.

Plautze.6290:

Change your whole build?
Sure, every crapmob having a breakbar is a PITA, but what gives? One can either learn to handle that problem or leave it be.

There, of course, is another option. When being served kitten on a platter, you can always choose to send it back.

I finally quit over changes made to the game. Vanilla GW2 was one of the best games I ever played, but by the time it got to Dry Top it had totally transformed into a platformer obscura with the added joy of annoying mobs haunting you while you are out to youtube to figure out what to do next.

It’s amazing how far this game has gotten from the good ideas it launched with. Currently I’m playing legion and enjoying it—so far, no platforming! I will always keep tabs on GW and look for movement away from the current game conception.

For those unsure of the game genre in use when playing HoT I suggest the following exercise. I use the word exercise but it is not hard at all.

1. Google with search term platformer game
2. your first hit will be the wiki for the platform game genre. Game genre is by definition and luckily the wiki uses the standard definitions.
3. The first sentence of the article reads: “Platform game (or platformer) is a video game which involves guiding an avatar to jump between suspended platforms and/or over obstacles to advance the game. These challenges are known as jumping puzzles or freerunning.”

There. That wasn’t hard at all. The key aspects to gameplay in a platform game are 1) navigation of platforms, and 2) advancing the game thereby. Vanilla GW2 with jumping puzzles was an MMO not a platformer. You could navigate platforms all day but you were not advancing the core game. An example of advancing the core game is arriving at VB and discovering that you need both gliding and updrafts to begin advancing the core game.

The problem is not having elements of platforming in GW2. Jumping puzzles were absolutely brilliant. You could knock youself out with them and have a ton of fun. At the same time Player X could ignore them and derive their fun from standard MMO aspects of the game. Brilliant.

And, for the last comentator here, it has nothing to do with game “difficulty”. Because the full genre here is ‘platformer obscura’ you can’t figure anything out except by brute force as in trying every possibility. Brute-force and skill-based are at opposite ends of the spectrum. This is why the first jump by a skillful player is always to youtube to find out the remaining jumps. What about brute force is going to make the gameplay fun?