Guild Wars 2

Hakuryuu.8634:

This will make meta event as well as raids easier for PUGs when TS is not always available. Also people will have more incentive to purchase the commander title. What do you guys think about this event?
Edit: Whenever I’m in their squad and they have the tag on, of course.

Simple question: would it make it simpler for PUGs if it means you need to be in the squad?

OGDeadHead.8326:

@Swift: have you tried stresstesting your ram? It’s worth a shot imho.

http://www.memtest86.com/

Certainly I will give it a go when I get home, but this issue simply doesn’t happen to any other games (Planetside 2, The Witcher 3, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, etc), and hadn’t happened to Guild Wars 2 until HoT released. Thanks for the tip anyways.

abomally.2694:

“Uh… slight flaw in your logic there. If you’re running a new AAA game on, say… a 10-year-old laptop, its vid card is going to get to such a temperature that it can even burn out. Seriously, you can try it sometime if you like. First the game will play hard-to-get, and everything will lag and stutter, and then one of three things will happen: 1) the game will die, 2) the computer will shut down, or 3) the video card will die. Preferably, the game is designed in such a way that it shuts itself down or allows the operating system to shut it down in such situations.”

That’s a cooling system or hardware problem, not the fault of the software. A laptop that old is going to need to be disassembled, have the fan + heatsink cleaned and need new thermal paste anyway. My laptop could use that (it’s running about 10 degrees hotter than it should even with a laptop cooler), but I’m busy with other projects at the moment.

I know how the hardware works – I’m an electronic technician and have been for over 30 years.

So you’re saying that a (cleaned, maintained) video card with 512 vRAM could play a game like The Witcher 3 (on the very lowest settings, if you like) without burning up?

I ask out of curiosity; I’m not trying to antagonize you.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Swift.1930:

Exactly. And some. It’s quite absurd, not to mention it staggers my loyalty somewhat.

Mine, too. The Fractal reward nerf especially irritated me in this regard. I get that there’s a mastery for it, but come on. The mastery should have improved on the rewards as they were.

It’s like a car dealership “sale.” Where they jack up the price of the car and then put it “on sale” so that in the end, you’re just paying the same price you would have before the sale. Only in reverse.

This is one thing I’ve noticed about HoT: it keeps being advertised as an expansion, but even people who haven’t paid for the content (which for quite a few people also means haven’t endorsed the changes) are being flooded with changes and replacements for content that they were, well… (pardon the pun) content with. They may have endorsed upgrades, but they were enjoying the gameplay they already had.

I bought the expansion myself, and to be honest I’m glad I did; I would have been hit by the changes anyways, but I’d just have been thrown up against tons of walls labeled “HoT content. You shall not pass.”

abomally.2694:

it doesn’t matter what game or other software you drive a video card with; it is (or is supposed to be) designed to handle it WITHOUT overheating no matter how long you use the card for!

If the card cannot do that; it is either poorly designed or is failing in some way, which is not the fault of software.

Uh… slight flaw in your logic there. If you’re running a new AAA game on, say… a 10-year-old laptop, its vid card is going to get to such a temperature that it can even burn out. Seriously, you can try it sometime if you like. First the game will play hard-to-get, and everything will lag and stutter, and then one of three things will happen: 1) the game will die, 2) the computer will shut down, or 3) the video card will die. Preferably, the game is designed in such a way that it shuts itself down or allows the operating system to shut it down in such situations.

But what is happening with GW2 today is unusual, because a lot of the people with crashes/high temperatures actually have good systems. I personally hadn’t had any heat problems with Guild Wars 2 at all until today.

Goldrock.9076:

reasonable pace? its fine as is good god quit expecting everything to be handed to you progress to it. Its hard and take awhile for a reason we dont need another starwars where people fly through the content get bored and quit like 2 days later because they power gamed through it. Just relax have fun and play take some breaks no pressure your not paying a sub.

Except that this thread isn’t about pushing people around and making them do anything, it’s about how people would rate the fun factor. If their favorite game style is like that Star Wars game you mentioned (although honestly, I’ve no idea which one you mean), then they’re probably going to have a lower fun factor rating here.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Gene Archer.8560:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Gene Archer.8560:

They filled that void by locking away things that small guilds already had worked for and you KNOW it.

In my opinion, it’s really never okay to take away what someone or a group has already spent time earning. It would have been possible to simply give guilds what they had before and let them work toward the new things. There still would have been plenty to do and it wouldn’t exactly have been game-breaking.

At this point, I’m convinced it’s a symptom of a larger problem. For all that ANet has added in 3 years, look at all the things they’ve also taken away, or re-done for the millionth iteration, and in so re-doing, still take something away or re-start the unlock process that people have already worked on.

I’ve never seen this at such a scale from any other MMO. This is the kind of stuff that I expect from an EA backed game.

Yeah, this is the first MMO I’ve played where they’ve employed the strategy of taking AWAY content in order to incentivize expansion purchases. Every other game I play, the promise of new content alone is enough to encourage people to buy their x-pacs.

They may not add to the previous content, but they leave it alone and allow new players and alts to enjoy it as is or they make it easier and faster to progress through. They certainly don’t take away rewards, etc. in order to entice purchases. It’s just not necessary.

Exactly. And some. It’s quite absurd, not to mention it staggers my loyalty somewhat.

I descended from the remnants of old Ascalon; such scorn at the bending of my knee is astounding.

Kailynn.8546:

I was crashing approximately every hour or so, and since the download on 11/17 I cannot stay connected for more then 5 minutes at a time. It makes trying to complete any event impossible, and now it is crashing my entire system. I understand that the Mac client is less of a priority then the Windows version, but I payed the same amount of money for my game as everyone else did. Maybe it’s just me, but I expected a much higher level of customer service from Arena Net. Please address immidiately.

Don’t worry; I’m on a mid-high spec Windows rig and I’m having the same issue. They want their playerbase to stick around, so I’m pretty confident they’re working on it.

Couldn’t have hurt to have both borderland maps; the new one isn’t very pretty, and is lacking the homeland feel the original had. If Anet had just added this map as a rotation borderland (the game already has that as a mechanic), it would have been fine. I fought with sword and spirit to defend my borderland! Now coding simply says “too bad, you can’t go back there”.

Astra Lux.2846:

So here’s another neat side effect:
I cannot progress my story because no one is doing the events. There is an NPC I have to talk to to move forward but he is dead and when I approach him I am swarmed by literally dozens of mobs with crossed swords above their heads.

Hah, population-affected events. I love those in low-level maps and when people are actually present in high-level maps. Must be painful in your situation though.

JaddynnStarr.5201:

RustyMech.9876:

Require T4 to open the raid, problem solved.

This is a horrible idea. it forces players to play things and ways they dont want to play for the sake of selfish interests. No one should be forced to play a particular way just to access content they really want to play.

Hahaha – oh, wait, you’re serious? Half of HoT is about exactly that, lol. No… more than half. Randomly-tiered masteries, skill circles, specific zones that only level certain mastery XP; the list goes on….

It couldn’t hurt to duck into a couple of events just to start a raid that consists of elite players anyways.

That, or Anet needs to put your lobby in a little lobby map.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Gene Archer.8560:

They filled that void by locking away things that small guilds already had worked for and you KNOW it.

In my opinion, it’s really never okay to take away what someone or a group has already spent time earning. It would have been possible to simply give guilds what they had before and let them work toward the new things. There still would have been plenty to do and it wouldn’t exactly have been game-breaking.

Big +1. Seriously, rather than rework prices of current things, lock previously unlocked things, etc… Anet should just add random new content to use up our materials and gold. Buildable/craftable/researchable/etc stuff. They’ve already got templates; it couldn’t be ridiculously hard to simply add more, could it?

On top of that, people pay good money for aesthetics. Outfits. Minis. Etc. Why wouldn’t they spend more gems and gold and materials adding aesthetics to guild halls? Didn’t need to rework the whole thing as a gold/material sink in a way that cuts the little guys out xP

Seera.5916:

Swift.1930:

Seera.5916:

The thing is, this is an MMO. To expect all content the game develops as rewards to be developed for players who refuse to play with others is not being realistic.

That being said, they should have grandfathered in everything a guild had earned prior to HoT launching. Not just certain things like the bank. And covert like things to like. So if they had X banner that did Y, they should get the new Z banner that does Y since X banner went away.

It’s still a realistic expectation for people to want to be able to play with small guilds (5-15 players). Small guilds are often cosy and fun atmospheres, as opposed to larger guilds where (while it can be fun and relaxed) it’s often more about organization and rank and even responsibilities. I like both elements, and I personally enjoy that they are both part of the Guild Wars experience. It’s just cruel if Anet is just telling little guilds that they’re going to have to swap to full-time organized farming just to get some basic upgrades (especially things they had already build up) and clapping big guilds on the back and saying “well done, son/daughter/creature”.

I was talking to the OP who seems to have developed a desire to not play with anyone else. Or anyone else but their spouse. ANet doesn’t need to make everything obtainable by people who do not want to ever play with others. And by play with I mean actually engage. Not sit silently and press 1 and dodge occasionally.

But yes, ANet does need to make it easier for smaller guilds to get back what they had before HoT launched. Because they shouldn’t have had to get it back in the first place. I get why they had to make it hard because 500 person guilds would make anything reasonable for a small guild something they could do in 2 seconds.

Gotcha. I still hold by my idea that they should make small guild halls available for small guilds. Less/smaller services or something… more attainable for little guilds. I’m honestly spooked by the size of the current halls. I go in there and just immediately leave. It’s a giant city in there.

Healix.5819:

Muusic.2967:

The Meta cannot be successful unless a certain number of players participate and if there’s 15 people farming nodes then that many less players are able to join the map.

Despite popular belief, you do not need a full map to complete meta events. You rarely need more than 3 people to actually meet the minimum requirements of most individual events. Considering I’ve pushed entire chains solo in VB, I’d assume a coordinated group of about 20 players could easily hit T4. The problem however is that doing this is not rewarding at all. The less people you bring, the harder it gets and in comparison to zerging, the less rewards you receive for the time spent.

If you’re going to complain about people not participating, there are far more people doing something else than those logging in for a minute to gather flax. Consider all the AFK people, the raiders, adventures, hero challenges or people simply exploring.

True, and I mostly agree with you, but I can’t see a team of 5-10 taking out all the legendaries in time, or holding all the rally points. Pushing a chain or two is certainly viable, but T4 is unlikely.

But yeah, no removing flax seed farmers. Poor guys work hard to make a living.

Seera.5916:

The thing is, this is an MMO. To expect all content the game develops as rewards to be developed for players who refuse to play with others is not being realistic.

That being said, they should have grandfathered in everything a guild had earned prior to HoT launching. Not just certain things like the bank. And covert like things to like. So if they had X banner that did Y, they should get the new Z banner that does Y since X banner went away.

It’s still a realistic expectation for people to want to be able to play with small guilds (5-15 players). Small guilds are often cosy and fun atmospheres, as opposed to larger guilds where (while it can be fun and relaxed) it’s often more about organization and rank and even responsibilities. I like both elements, and I personally enjoy that they are both part of the Guild Wars experience. It’s just cruel if Anet is just telling little guilds that they’re going to have to swap to full-time organized farming just to get some basic upgrades (especially things they had already build up) and clapping big guilds on the back and saying “well done, son/daughter/creature”.

Obtena.7952:

Swift.1930:

Obtena.7952:

Small guilds do small guild things. From the perspective of the game, I don’t really see it making much sense to have a guild hall if you have a 3 person guild in the first place. based on the requirements, I don’t think Anet does either, though I don’t believe anything stops you from trying, which is really the point. You aren’t blocked from getting the mats needed for whatever upgrades you’re after.

I disagree; even a small guild likes to have some place to call theirs. It would be good if Anet added little guild halls for little guilds (and less/smaller services as upgrades). A little, say… guild of thieves could have a smuggler’s den. I’d be content with a nice little hobbit hole. Or a little old-Ascalonian keep, perhaps.

Guild Wars 1 had guild halls of various sizes. I don’t see why Guild Wars 2 shouldn’t!

I’m not sure that the OP is complaining he can’t get a hall. I think he’s complaining about the price to upgrade once he does get it. Furthermore GW1 != GW2.

But my reply was in regards to your comment, not the OP’s post :P

Well, true. But the gameplay mechanics of GW2 means that I can’t go back to GW1 without a little bit of wincing… unfortunately.

Chiccotot.7296:

^on the other hand, your signature initials spell EBG…
Providence? …perhaps.

Funny you mention that. I saw that when I changed my signature but decided to go with it anyway, hah. My first thought was that it looked like the title of a newspaper before I caught onto the EBG reference. xD

Straegen.2938:

zinkz.7045:

I disagree, borderlands were much superior to EB, for a start EB is very imbalanced, there is a fair difference between how strong each keep is, there is a difference in towers such as green does not really have a weak tower, when you compare it to Durios (blue) or Anza (red), etc.

EB is pretty much the superior WvW map. There is virtually zero wasted space on the map. Keep defense is prioritized. Each keep has a different feel with different advantages/disadvantages as neither side has a particularly strong advantage. SM is centered and something to constantly fight over. It also has some of the best rolling semi-flat terrain with few choke points for great large scale combat.

Alpine was far from perfect and downright annoying at times (the water before the ruins… ughhh), most of the map is a complete waste (skrit, centaurs, windmill, the entire center), navigating it beyond Hills/Bay was mostly a camp only affair and it had too many silly PvE events (including a jumping puzzle and ruins). Basically the best parts of Alpine was Garri/Bay with a little bit of Hills and a few pockets in-between.

Course the Deserted map doubled down on everything that made Alpine less than EBG with vast unused space, NPC events, etc. It is like the ANet designers do not understand WvW at all.

Water before ruins… helped to break up the land movement somewhat. It was a nice variation to the normal landscape and was useful if you were a scout escaping a zerg. Certainly a lot better than lava before ruins… or fall a thousand feet to your death before ruins.

Windmill wasn’t a waste, it was part of the battlefield. Also part of the homeland feel that made the place worth fighting for!

Centaurs and skritt, well… yeah. Not really sure why those were there except to support skill points. But they could have been repaired/changed; they didn’t need to be utterly replaced by a new map.

I did love wandering the borderlands and snagging random attackers and having them follow me somewhere you referred to as “wasted space” to finish them off without interruption. Good spot for duels, too. It’s always funny when people try to duel in EBG.

The rolling hills and neat castle/keep/tower design had me invested from day one, even though I probably played more PvE than WvW. The expansion has taken WvW (except sometimes EBG) out of my books. =/

BlackSpathi.1062:

btw Many people say the new borderlands look pretty but I find them ugly. I prefer the rolling green and snowy landscape of alpine bl .

Yeah, seriously… what’s with that? The new borderlands are mixtures of random terrains all kinda clumped together and littered with keeps and towers and camps of utterly unrelated design. I miss my old Ascalonian homeland map. =(

Celtic Lady.3729:

morrolan.9608:

I don’t think they can fix it, I agree this was an absurd change though. Guilds should not have lost the upgrades they had EARNED before and there should not be a stupidly long PvE grind for WvW upgrades. Its almost beyond belief that they thought this was reasonable.

It’s like they wanted to kill WvW along with their dungeons.

Don’t mind me, I’m just off in the corner sobbing a bit. xP

Aomine.5012:

Thornum.8607:

Coyote.7031:

The average “fun”, with some posts omitted because I’m lazy, is 5.12008 with 251 entries. Unless people gave a very clear short answer, I skipped the post. I didn’t want to average out the multi-score posts unless they listed a clear answer. If it was just two numbers, I averaged it out. So don’t beat me if it’s off, I did it just for kicks.

Things to consider when reading this:
- People who don’t like HoT are more likely to complain on the forums
- People who don’t like HoT are more likely to rate 0 instead of an actual considered value (due to being sour about not getting their money’s worth)
- All the people that put in incredibly low numbers, yet still play several hours a day grinding the new content are kittening liars

Happy players would be playing in the game right now. They don’t have time reading through these threads because they’re too busy enjoying themselves.

Unhappy players quit the game and have lots of free time rage on forum because they don’t want to log on. That’s why the general score is quite low here.

Hey, not fair – some of us enjoy it but simply have our games keep crashing on us! (Or we log into the forum during breaks at work.) I’ve enjoyed critical analysis of the game elements with some people here who actually give detailed and interesting posts, too.

Oh, and I’ve seen plenty of people here who seem to love the game but simply come on the forums to flame those who have questions/problems. Not really sure why they’re here… they’re spending valuable life time and energy and effort reading through and constructing responses to posts they seem to despise. And their posts are usually uninformative.

Coyote.7031:

Swift.1930:

This part of it sucks pretty badly. Firstly because I was just getting back into Guild Wars after playing The Witcher 3 and some other games, but secondly because it means other people are going to be leaving as well. Some are leaving for more reasons than just the crashes. I wanted to get back into one of my favorite games/game worlds, but it’s turning out unplayable for now… =(

It’s okay, it’s why I camp the forums too. GW2 is a unique game, it’s very special. It’s just not headed the way I like. But, I don’t think GW2 will be the game I want, which is fine, other people enjoy it. I’ll wait and see a little while longer, but now I just feel like that creepy ex that hangs around going “You’ll see how much need me! YOU’LL SEE!!!” Might be time to move on. =\

Haha, yeah, something like that.

Obtena.7952:

Small guilds do small guild things. From the perspective of the game, I don’t really see it making much sense to have a guild hall if you have a 3 person guild in the first place. based on the requirements, I don’t think Anet does either, though I don’t believe anything stops you from trying, which is really the point. You aren’t blocked from getting the mats needed for whatever upgrades you’re after.

I disagree; even a small guild likes to have some place to call theirs. It would be good if Anet added little guild halls for little guilds (and less/smaller services as upgrades). A little, say… guild of thieves could have a smuggler’s den. I’d be content with a nice little hobbit hole. Or a little old-Ascalonian keep, perhaps.

Guild Wars 1 had guild halls of various sizes. I don’t see why Guild Wars 2 shouldn’t!

In fact, here’s a quote I found from a Guild Wars 1 guild hall vendor: “I am pleased that you should ask. Truly, what guild can call itself a guild without an island of its own? Come with me. I can take you on a tour of each island, and you can choose which you like the best.”

Dejavu.2349:

Valentinus.3412:

I’m genuinely getting more and more baffled by the complaints on this forum.

You can’t expect content to be balanced around 2-3 person guilds. That doesn’t even qualify as a full party!

The game type should clue you in… Massivley-Multiplayer-Online.

If you can’t stand the rest of the community to thebpointbyou have hamstring your enjoyment of the game… Well, that’s your issue and not Anets.

And for the love of Dhuum. Does ever single tiny tangential complaint need a new thread?! This forum is already hard enough to navigate without “I’m quitting HOT because X” thread number 9000.

You should all start an anti hot support group guild, then you will have plenty of people to get a guild hall.

/rant

I’m so tired of this argument. I’ve been playing GW2 since launch and they have inarguably made a HUGE change to the very point of their game and content and, in doing so, have completely annihilated the reasons I was playing this game. It’s completely within reason for me to be upset. I’m not speaking for YOU or for people who actually like hanging out in big guilds. I do not and have had no need to until this huge let-down of an expansion.

I think Anet underestimated the number of people who keep coming back to their game BECAUSE it was very casual-friendly. It is no longer so unless you are able to completely ignore the content you won’t ever see (like Weaponsmith 2 – skins I can never have because Anet put them behind a wall of friends I don’t have (or want). I can’t ignore that and am stating my valid argument for why this sucks. Of course people who are in big guilds won’t get this at all – I don’t expect you to.

I wouldn’t go quite as far to say it’s a huge let-down, as some things aren’t so bad, but otherwise I agree with you here and on your initial post. I’ve commented elsewhere about this as well – it’s not a great development choice to be cutting little guilds out of the game. Casual/small-guild players have been as invested in the game as most other players!

Further than that, though, an issue with the giant-guild focus is that it removes the equal footing that WvW gameplay has had. Big guilds are not always online (and some servers don’t even have them). Gating upgrades behind huge resource/gold sinks is detrimental to small guilds who would gladly support their server with some modest upgrades/boosts that they put effort into obtaining – but not as much effort as it now costs. It will take some guilds years to reach the stage they had already reached. Others simply won’t be able to.

Same, yup. It’s been mentioned in quite a few other threads now. You might notice that your computer runs a lot hotter now as well, which is mildly disturbing since the game has not visibly changed. I miss my solid 60fps… but it does run slightly better at low specs (a bad eyesore, but at least smoother).

robertul.3679:

Yes this happens because they can’t make a non-garbage client. It just runs out of memory because of compatibility issues between 32 and 64bit. Not that it matters, the issue occurs on both cases anyway.

Erm, except that I don’t recall crashing being an issue for most people until HoT released. I personally had a grand total of maybe three crashes in three years until HoT, and now it’s every 5-10 minutes.

Something else is going on.

Yeah, gotta agree with Nury on this one. It’s part of the organic nature of the non-instanced gameplay that shouldn’t be removed simply for meta events. However, I do think the Verdant Brink raid queue is kind of in the way – people aren’t really doing anything on the map there, so there needs to be a lobby for them to occupy instead. Unless there already is one now and I missed the memo.

Did this issue start for you yesterday? My GW2 never ran hot until the patch yesterday (even on high settings in zergs), and suddenly my PC started burning up in an empty spot when I loaded in. FPS dropped from a solid and smooth 60fps to a fluctuation between 25 and 48 fps. Had to cut all my settings down to low/medium to stabilize.

(Hint: there’s a technical support section of the forum. Not that there’s necessarily a fix for your situation yet.)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/support

I feel dumb, but I only found it when a mod moved a thread I had replied to to the support/bug section.

Ritualist in GW1, guardian in GW2. I thought revenant was supposed to be a ritualist replacement, but in my opinion the guardian is still the closest. Revenant’s fun, but is more quirky and unique than practical – unless you want to channel elite skills all day… xD

Celtic Lady.3729:

Kanto.1659:

I believe the megaserver is to blame. We had the problem of empty servers before, megaserver came. Now we still have empty maps and it makes no sense. Why do -I get a prompt to leave my empty map and I’m shuffled into another empty map? I’d understand if I got the prompt and BAM! Full map! Ton of people running around!

Sometimes it feels like there are an actual 50-60 people playing GW2.

The mega server was supposed to make the maps fuller. What it feels like in HoT is that there’s 8 empty copies of a map for every 1 or 2 full one. I get shuffled regularly from one empty map to another and, yeah, I wonder…why? I could have stayed on the empty map I was in four maps ago. No difference.

Yup, it’s an issue. I’m guessing it has something to do with raid queues? (Technically the maps aren’t empty?) Could be wrong.

Coyote.7031:

Swift.1930:

Curiously, if I hadn’t paid for HoT, my game would still be crashing every 10-20 minutes.

Can confirm, no HoT, still crashing. But more like once an hour so far, it’s normally “I crashed? F’it, I’ll play something else.”

This part of it sucks pretty badly. Firstly because I was just getting back into Guild Wars after playing The Witcher 3 and some other games, but secondly because it means other people are going to be leaving as well. Some are leaving for more reasons than just the crashes. I wanted to get back into one of my favorite games/game worlds, but it’s turning out unplayable for now… =(

Jon Olson.8439:

We’re trying to clear up a lot of these issues, but it takes time and many iterations to find the sweet spots for these kinds of optimizations. Fragmentation is inevitable while running any application that does allocations after initial start up. However, the degree and severity of this depends entirely on the circumstances and specifics of the application.

In general games often use custom-built memory managers and will have built-in limits for each type of resource. When the memory manager starts to run out of space, it may choose to crash, or to move data around to make more room, or automatically remove some older item that hasn’t been updated/used for some period of time. There are lots of schemes surrounding how this can be done and there are trade-offs to each of these choices.

In our case lowering one’s graphics settings reduces the space requirements for many different parts of the game, which makes it easier to find space for new models that come into view.

The curious part to me is that before the HoT update, I was able to run Guild Wars 2 with high settings at a smooth and consistent 60fps in all but the biggest karma trains/WvW battles. Now (same computer) it’s crashing regularly, even in solo instances (I can’t progress story). This happens in vanilla maps as well.

I’ve made no hardware change, and there appears to be no effect/graphical change that should impact gameplay so much. I could imagine the game stuttering or slowing down or something, but not completely crashing. Further to that, yesterday’s patch dropped my functionality in a single massive hit – settings that two days ago ran smoothly suddenly were running at 25-40 fps. I had to drop every setting to low and medium to sustain 56-60 fps. But the crashes still occur…

I had the same issue, and with both launchers. Running 4Gb vRAM and 16Gb RAM here. Not to mention crashes/bluescreens.

tluv.5821:

Exotrax.4207:

So , I’m trying hard to grind xps doing events but since the raids came out , maps (even VB) are quite empty.
Yesterday I ran around VB trying to find a small group to do events and we were 3 people (from 8pm till 11pm).
Normally when I find no people in maps I go do some crafting ….come back after 1/2hour and than map is full again……but really lately no one doing events , so how I’m supposed to level up my mastery ?
Another thing I disagree with HoT is that now became almost impossible play solo and the only way to do meta-events and gain some good amount of xps , is to play with big group of player …..I really miss the old quest system , at least you can play solo and progress anyway.

Don’t get me wrong , I still love the game and the map design is great , is just that Anet seems more focus only to make a game for players that only play in groups and not for casual players.

Maybe I’m wrong….what’s your opinion ?

You are wrong.

1) Raids are new and exciting and brand new content. EVERY single time new content comes out, everything else empties. It always happens with every single content update for ANY game out there. So, give it time, people will come back. Rewards will eventually get fixed.

2) I’m sorry, whenever I hear people complain about the lack of “solo” content in an MMORPG makes me want to smack them. I solo’d all of the content (meaning map completion, specializations, and Story) in HoT. Not impossible, it’s a l2p issue for most. To further my points, the story does not make sense for you to solo the “Meta” event of the map. In fact, in any of the maps in the game, you can not solo the Meta Boss, but you are just now complaining because it is probably too hard. News flash, you can’t faceroll in HoT.

You can solo content in HoT. The small missions of getting the supplies, rescuing some scouts, all solo’able.

But in reality, you are wanting to play a Massively *MULTIPLAYER" Online Roleplaying Game solo. The content is going to be geared towards working with others. Always will be. If you want to play a solo game, go play Skyrim. It’s really that simple.

Also, you don’t need a “big” group. 10 people are suggested for an “group event”.

So quick crying, get better at the game, and make some friends to play with.

Fun thoughts, but overall abusive. If you wanted a co-op MMO (also known as a CORPG) you’d be playing Guild Wars 1. Pretty much everything was overhauled in the Guild Wars 2 release; synchronization is rare (except very specific combos), skills are no longer directly supportive unless you stack tons of boons on people, heal skills are very personal (not to mention limited to one each for non-guardians), etc, etc, etc. Nearly everything was soloable until HoT released, but even though difficulty has been raised, strong support skills haven’t been implemented. You’re still essentially on your own (when fighting a champion, for instance, you can be focused and there’s nothing anyone around you can do to save you unless they’re in your party and have thirty aegis skills equipped to use after each other). Fields/combos are okay, so long as you’re one of the five people affected.

I personally don’t feel that HoT is too hard, but there are several problems some of us have noticed. The biggest one is that, as the OP said, maps are getting empty. Map meta events (along with their achievements) will be hard or impossible to complete when population thins out; the expansion added four further meta-event maps, and it was hard enough sustaining one or two – now that the expansion hype is fading, meta success will occur less and less often. For people like me who have been loaded up with problems with regular client crashes after the HoT update, when the problems are finally ironed out, the maps will likely be ghost towns.

The problem is, a lot of people playing this game are casual (myself included, but if I have time I coordinate for events). Map metas that require 50+ people working in coordination simply don’t work unless 1) people are organized or 2) the maps are flooded by active players (not VB raid queues). Casual gamers often means less organization, and the general lack of casual gameplay in HoT maps is cutting back numbers of people present to potentially join in with meta events. It’s all very well to have 20-30 organized people there, but they are simply too undermanned to succeed.

FogLeg.9354:

Couple things:

1. I find it weird that people who LOVE the HoT content and ENJOY it SO MUCH spend most of their time posting in the forum about how much exactly they love and enjoy it. Personally, if I really like the book I read or food I am eating, I do not stop reading or eating to post about it in the forum. I think people who actually love HoT are playing the game instead.

2. If you find game too easy, there is endless combinations to make it harder and more difficult for you. Have you tried to complete everything without wearing a weapon? Using only blue items? Implementing permadeath, deleting char and all items it had every time you die? You are not forced to get best possible equipment, or use some broken skill that one-hits everything and then moan how easy the game is, demaning more difficult content for everyone else. Thats just selfish.

3. Players who really want very difficult content have not played GW2 for many years because there was none. Those players have played other games instead. Players who only want to raid have not played GW2 for many years because there was none. Such players, too, have moved on to play other games. The players who actually played GW2 for many years, are actually the players who liked the content the way it was, who did not mind lack of difficulty or 0 possible raids. So, the HoT expansion is not created for GW2 players in mind, it is created to attract players who did not like GW2.

Haha, yeah… people who love fantasy, casual gameplay, and the lore of Guild Wars… they play Guild Wars. People who pretty much only love challenge… play Dark Souls.

That aside, it wouldn’t be amiss if Anet added a “hard mode” toggle like in Guild Wars 1, which scales every foe up to max level (bosses higher) in the instance. Anyone with it toggled on will enter with you (so not solo instances, just scaled instances).

Ohoni.6057:

good thing is HoT is optional you dont have to play it if you dont like it simple as that stick with the core game plenty of content there still.

Do you honestly believe that comments of this sort will make anyone feel better? Is there someone whom you imagine in your mind would read that and go “oh, well that’s ok then?”

People are are complaining do not just want to continue playing the same content they have been for the past three years, they want NEW content as much as anyone else, they just want new content of the type of the previous content. They want new material of the same formula, and it should come as a surprise to no one if they are unsatisfied with new content that is well outside their interests or capabilities.

If you like the new content direction, that’s great, you’re allowed to say as much, but there’s absolutely no point to belittling or attempting to silence people who genuinely believe otherwise. Let them speak their mind, honor that their opinions are just as valid as your own, and let ANet decide what to do about it.

Curiously, if I hadn’t paid for HoT, my game would still be crashing every 10-20 minutes. Soooooo even without paying for the game I would have paid dearly for the compulsory update (bluescreens are detrimental to computers, just so you know).

As for content, I’m okay with HoT, but I still feel that the direction the game is going is less than ideal. A lot of unnecessary compromises. Some decent content, though.

IndigoSundown.5419:

As an interested observer, this is my concern, also. The meta events may be possible at certain times of the day with a dedicated group using the LFG system to bring interested parties into that shard. That’s cold comfort to those who play at odd hours for their region. One-and-done objectives like HC’s, on the other hand, may become a real problem for some players.

Thankfully, HCs can be taken by little groups, so if people beg their friends or have some guildies online, they should be okay. It would take a pretty massive guild to succeed with a map meta, though.

It made sense when there was a single map meta event (Clockwork Chaos) in the game at a time. People would go there for living story and for loot and for achievements. But now there are more than five maps that have full-length meta events, and some take more than an hour (Dragon’s Stand). Far too much of a spread-out population. With more people (apparently) leaving on a daily basis, the events will only become less and less populated to the point of either no metas succeeding or only one succeeding at a time. With the latter scenario, the other map events would need to be left to time out, which could take 30 minutes or more.

Coyote.7031:

I actually agree with you. GW2 was never very casual. You could play it casually, but things like legendaries or ascended crafting come with a very hefty price tag or materials list. And while, yes of course casuals could get them, but you can’t say to me farming 10800 silk for your ascended light armor set wasn’t a grind or an expensive shopping list. So it’s not a surprise to me that the grinds just keep getting higher price tags, because people have accepted it for so long. Still, I’m fine with people saying “Enough is enough”, I just wish you guys said it sooner.

Nah, GW2 was casual enough. I was able to craft several ascended pieces without grinding/repeated farming for anything. Three greatswords, gloves, chest, and a back item (spinal blades) later, I’m finding HoT rather over-grindy. I’m still enjoying the game, don’t get me wrong (not a hater), but when I’m running a celebration booster and I’m still not leveling tier 1 masteries after eight hours of running around collecting events (over a couple of days), I’m feeling somewhat handicapped. Birthday boosters only come around once per year, and only last 24 hours…

But that’s not to say that I’m hating it. I’m not loving the rate of gain, but I’ll live. The worst thing is the population and the 50+ people requirements for event completion. Most of the metas are undermanned most times I’m on (not all, thankfully). Still haven’t seen anyone at the Gerent, and I need that achievement… =/

Amyrial.4316:

I’m having the same experience as quorra.4391. I never had crashes before HOT, and now they are frequent. At first, I only experienced crashes while in HOT maps (e.g., Verdant Brink) However, since the patch a couple of days ago, the game crashes in all PVE and PVP maps, and usually at the worst possible time (i.e. I lose out on rewards, chests, and participation that I’ve accumulated)

I then installed the 64bit beta client a couple of days ago, since some posters and players have reported no crashes since switching. However, the 64 bit client has made no difference . I play on an Alienware system with 32GB of RAM and dual NVidia GTX 780M graphics cards with 4GB of memory. I should not be getting out of memory crashes, and yet I am. Please fix this soon.

Pretty much the same situation as you (see my post above this); not using an Alienware, but eeeeeverything was butter-smooth (even though some people say it’s not possible to maintain 60fps, I maintained it pretty much the whole time except in the biggest of zergs). Have you noticed that even your settings have to go down now after the latest patch (unless they patched again within the last 10 hours)?

Alas, the latest patch cut my fps down to 40-45 and caused more crashes than before… Even with the previous build’s crashes, my computer was running cool and smooth on high settings at a pretty solid 60fps.

Verified on both 32- and 64-bit clients.

Crashes occur between 10 and 30 minutes apart. It’s not possible to progress story like this. =/

Computer = not a potato.
Desktop, grill-style case allows for good air flow
Win 8.1 64-bit
16Gb RAM
4Gb vRAM
… and all drivers up to date.

I’ve pretty much had every crash in the book, ranging from crashes that leave the game running with an error message on-screen (the game eventually dies anyways) to full-on bluescreens (one way to make my nice computer a potato/doorstop).

To the mods/devs: I’ve been submitting the prompted error reports where possible (sometimes that window either doesn’t show up or doesn’t respond), so hopefully some of that info is making it through successfully and is helpful.

maddoctor.2738:

Swift.1930:

As to the hylek stealth guys, usually I’m not actually hurt by them so much as inconvenienced. Seriously, I can take them down in maybe ten hits without losing more than… say… 25% health, but they just vanish and loiter invisibly for ages. If they just teleported, sure, that’d make sense. I thought the whole idea was that they were frogs and were jumping (and that the invis was just a cheap animation cop-out), but I can’t tell.

You can see them with Nuhoch Stealth mastery.

Seriously? Stealth reveal is only 9,999,999 XP away? In most games there’s counter-stealth skills… funny that it’s an unlocked passive here. The thing is, I wouldn’t bother with spending mastery points on that – except to allow me to access the next mastery. I couldn’t care much less about the invis element except for the tedium (which is why I sometimes just give up and walk away). Soooo do they actually have a jump animation? Or do they just go invisible and walk to a different place? (I’d ask if they use the thief’s shadowstep skill, but they wield longbows.)

ArchonWing.9480:

The only one listed that counts IMO listed is probably the canopy champion axemaster that can just kill you just because. Everything else can be countered simply on good reactions. The hylek stealth guys are just really hard, not fake difficulty. If you could have reasonably gotten away, then it’s no longer the game’s fault.

Gotta agree about the axeman; if he did 99% of your health and you could die from absolutely anything hitting you, it’d make more game sense, but knocking you straight into a downed state (rather than just all-out killing you) is just an insult.

As to the hylek stealth guys, usually I’m not actually hurt by them so much as inconvenienced. Seriously, I can take them down in maybe ten hits without losing more than… say… 25% health, but they just vanish and loiter invisibly for ages. If they just teleported, sure, that’d make sense. I thought the whole idea was that they were frogs and were jumping (and that the invis was just a cheap animation cop-out), but I can’t tell.

PyrateSilly.4710:

Give it time. Soon someone will figure out how to do the 10 man dungeon (aka raid) with only Thief or Warrior or (just insert profession here).

You just reminded me of the good old Dervish/Assassin taxi builds in GW1, haha. Those were cool.

MissSinfully.2478:

Is anyone else wincing at the phrasing of “Katana Dagger” and “Katana Sword?”

It’s like saying sword-sword and sword-dagger. A dagger in that style is a tanto and the sword, depending on length is a Wakizashi or a Katana.

Belinda’s Greatsword on the other hand, is more resembling a “Zanbato” which is a fictional/fantasy sword that’s uber long. Translates to somewhere around “horse-slaying sword” or “horse-chopping sword.”

Zanbato swords are most commonly seen in fighting-style anime, highlighted most especially by Bleach.

Anywho, just wanted to know if anyone else winced when they read that.

Yeah, a bit. To be fair, though, that kind thing happens with more than just Japanese blades…

Neyjour.3921:

Randulf.7614:

Im hearing reports of the 64bit client still having issues. Can you report back if you still get crashes?

I’m using the 64-bit client, and I’ve crashed after each of the two most recent patches (not including the one today, which I’m downloading right now.)

In general, I still crash with the 64-bit, but it seems to be a bit less frequently than with the 32-bit.

Funny, because I get the opposite: the 64-bit client crashes 3-4 times per hour, whereas the 32-bit one usually lasts 40-50 minutes before dying.

Ephemiel.5694:

Logan’s not dead. After the “i’ll sacrifice myself for you all” moment before the fight with Zhaitan, they won’t kill him for a while.

Oh, he didn’t die? I misremembered then.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Cool. Thank you. So, the consensus so far is 5 basically. In the middle. Interesting.

It’s curious; I wonder why there aren’t Anet statements or comments being made to the community to try and encourage leavers to stay. Simply silence. It’s all very well and good that the people who love it or simply enjoy it are staying, but there are quite a lot of people actually leaving.

Astra Lux.2846:

luzt.7692:

Agreed, show us a list of all the megaservers with a bar that shows the population in %.
In other games these are usually called channels, but it’s not exactly the same.

Guild Wars had a feature like this that, like many others, didn’t carry over. It was called “Districts” and it was a drop down menu and you could choose which map to join. They were very simple as well. North America – English – District 1 or something to that effect, as I remember.

Yeah, I remember that. You could even switch into different server zones within game.