Guild Wars 2

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

You and I played a very different Guild Wars 1 then, because it wasn’t like that at all for me. It was nice, but it wasn’t an excellent book series – there’s no Lord Vorkosigan, for one.

And endless grind pretty much describes all the achievements/titles in GW1 . . . plus Obsidian or Vabbian armors . . . not so much for progression here.

“Your mileage may, nay, does vary there, I think”.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

The required Faction farming in Cantha to progress the story

Nope, they didn’t.

They required you to do some of the quests in order to progress the story, but instead of giving you a specific set and order of quests to do, they allowed you to choose yourself. Doing the available quests was more than enough to get enough Faction to continue the storyline, as can be proved with very simple math. And, for the records, this was account bound.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

The required Sunspear farming in Elona.

Nope. Same thing here. When the game was released it did require people to farm when using characters from other games, but it was quickly fixed; after that, you only had to “farm” if you ignored more than half the quests in the game. Which was basically ArenaNet giving players an option of what to do.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Very likely not reaching Level 20 before the end of Prophecies.

Nope. You couldn’t not reach level 20 before the end of Prophecies unless someone had just ran your character from the beginning to the end of the game, but even if that were true, it would be meaningless – there was no level gate at the end of the game, and the henchmen there were not gated by your level either.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Now, I don’t know about you but GW2 by comparison has significantly less grind than people want to claim.

Nope, it’s more grind than people usually claim. Some of it has been known for a long time so it isn’t even mentioned often, but in comparison with the origina GW – which had a level cap of 20, usually reached at the end of the tutorial, and which had many vendors selling weapons with maxed damage and armor with maxed defense by very small prices at the main cities, and which had few tiers of gear, and in which crafting grind didn’t exist, and so on and on – GW2 is incredibly, massively grindy.

And to makes thing worst, ArenaNet has been dedicating a lot of their resources to grind instead of to real content. Their last additions to the core GW2 was basically nothing more than grind – see the Silverwastes -, HoT is filled with grind in order to try to hide how little content the expansion has, and so on. Instead of trying to make a finite but large amount of good content that people would be willing to come back to – like the original GW – ArenaNet is focusing on making a very small amount of content and to keep people around through sheer grind.

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

Honestly, anything is going to be a “massive disappointment” to some people and they’ll be the first atop the wall to cry it to the masses. “No, no don’t be having fun! This is terrible!”

And to some people everything is going to be “perfect” and they’ll be the first atop the wall to cry it the masses.“No, no don’t try to improve the game! ArenaNet is perfect and cannot make any mistake!”.

warbignime.4610:

Pretty well thought and insightful review

This one more is more insightful:

http://www.gamerevolution.com/review/guild-wars-2-heart-of-thorns

Although I think the game deserves a somewhat lower score than what they gave it.

Kal Spiro.9745:

In GW2 it has to fit Human, Asura and Charr, while also being animated for all five races, all of which move differently.

Not really.

It’s a well known fact that armors for Charr and Asura are incredibly poorly done. They are basically textures poorly stretched over their body types, which often looks ridiculous, especially as you see the Charr’s tail clipping through the armor. That, if nothing else, is a perfect evidence of how ArenaNet didn’t even bother to make even the smallest effort to adapt the armors for different races.

And thus, the comment about animations is preposterous. The armors don’t animate; they fit over the bodies that already have their own animation.

So yep, HoT has an incredibly low amount of new skins. Trying to inflate the number of new skins through some bad math (are you going to say each single armor piece is a new skin, too, so you can inflate that number even more?) just highlights how much of a DLC HoT feels like.

But the real kick here is how HoT has very few new skins, but the Gem Store is bursting with them. It has been less than two weeks since the release of HoT, but we have already seen new designs for the following Gem Store items:

• Improvised Weapons
• ]Immortal Weapons
• Glittering Weapons

(HoT came with 5 new weapon sets. The Gem Store has designs for 3 new weapon sets found in less than 14 days. That’s more than 50% of the number of new skins of HoT.)

• Crystal Arbiter outfit
• Lyssa’s Regalia outfit
• Lunatic Guard outfit

So it’s not like ArenaNet couldn’t add more skins to their $50,00 DLC. They could, but they chose not to so they could add more stuff to the Gem Store.

Dengar.1785:

Ok I’m done, this place is just toxic. Keep enticing eachother to keep hating like the toxic crew you are while I go back and enjoy my game.

Yeah, how dare people have different opinions! Don’t they know how toxic that is? No, everyone should just stop complaining about the overpriced content they paid for and go quietly spend more at the Gem Store, right?

Substatic.6958:

It seems like the type of expansion you would see from a F2P game, certainly not B2P.

Truth be said, GW2 is now a free to play game. It’s not uncommon for FtP MMOs to have paid expansions, either.

I guess HoT is setting the low content bar that marks GW2’s transition from BtP to FtP.

Qugi.2653:

WingLegacy.7159:

You want them to update the website or you want them to fix in game bugs that needs attention at the moment?

Do not think people that work with website same people that work on GW2 game program.

That WOULD explain all the bugs, though :P

Kuruk.8472:

Except for all the new unique armor and weapon skins for all of the elite specs

ArenaNet says:

• Two new armor sets

• Five new weapon sets

No no, not really that many new skins.

Meanwhile, the Gem Store continues to burst with new skins; at the release of HoT they just added a full new weapon set and a new outfit with some other new skins, which you could buy in a pack for “just” 2000 gems.

Kuruk.8472:

Sooooo, there is actually quite a sizable amount of skins added which you can obtain ingame.

As described above, nope.

And there are far, far more skins that you can get in the Gem Store.

ArenaNet didn’t release even the 3 new legendary weapons that they had promised, much less the full set, yet they had enough resources to make A LOT of content for the Gem Store and are still making more as we speak.

Clearly, they could have added more to HoT for the $50,00 people paid, but they simply chose not to.

Crinn.7864:

I’ve never seen a MMO expac have as much content as the original core game did.

They’re also usually not priced at $50,00. Other than WoW’s expansions (which are overpriced like two thirds of what Blizzard makes), they’re usually around $40,00.

Crinn.7864:

You realize they literally spend years developing the core game right?

Building engines, systems and tools. Just making more content should have been significantly faster, yet HoT doesn’t have that much content.

BrotherBelial.3094:

The first and only expansion for Guild Wars, was Eye of the North. No new race, PvP mode, a few maps and new skills. I’d say HoT is about the same as EoTN.

GW:EN had 25 new explorable areas, plus 3 new cities, plus 18 new dungeons, plus 100 new profession skills, plus 50 new PvE only skills, plus 41 new armor unique looks, and tons of new weapon skins.

Even if HoT had that much content (and no, it doesn’t), EoTN was never priced as $50,00.

Psygo.5976:

They have also stated that all Living Story moving forward will require HoT. So really you have to count all that stuff too.

How much “stuff”? When is it going to be released? How many releases will it have? How long until it’s gated behind one more expansion?

The Living Story failed. ArenaNet itself said that if they did it right, we would not have an expansion, and here we are. Both seasons of the LS failed to increase GW2 earnings – worse, neither could even stop said earnings from falling.

No, if HoT is successful, the lesson ArenaNet will learn is that it’s better to make expansions than LS. Which means, the “Living Story” you will get with HoT? Merely token content while they work on something else.

I’m massively disappointed, too.

Not as much at release. It had a lot of little flaws, but it was something that could be improved upon slowly with time. I enjoyed many dynamic events which were chains to tell small stories – the writing was sharp, the events were fun, and those were unique ways of telling a story in a MMORPG. The writing in the personal storyline was bad, and the dungeon storylines were INCREDIBLY bad, but to be honest the writing in Guild Wars: Prophecies wasn’t that good either, it only improved later on.

Later, though, things only got worse:

Ascended grind and Fractals grind were introduced quickly when the game had the player loss that every single person knew all MMORPGs have. It was exactly at the 3 months mark that hit most recent MMORPGs, too. That was all it took for ArenaNet to completely renegade their own principles.

It only got worse from there. Instead of improving the combat system, ArenaNet only kept it more stale. With the removal of enchantments and hexes, what the skills do is incredibly limited – we have basically the same few effects repeated over and over. It was laughable when ArenaNet was showing one of the specializations, and they said, “Look how cool this is, each skill has a combo field!” – and really? Combo fields? We have been using the same combo fields for years now. This isn’t just a matter of having less skills than in the original GW, we have far shallower skill design as well.

Instead of improving dynamic event design, ArenaNet actually gave up on using them to tell a story, and turned them into just a grind. Take a look at the Silverwastes – it’s basically the same three events being repeated over and over on four different places, with no story development, no overall narrative, nothing. It’s just a grind pretending to be a “dynamic event” when it’s anything but dynamic.

And the storyline became even worse than the original personal storyline. Instead of building from the lore originally present in GW2, ArenaNet chose to add a very Mary Sue villain out of nothing, Scarlett, and it only went downhill from there; the way cutscenes and dialogue was built meant that our characters had to stay in silent and hidden most of the time, so the story basically became about a bunch of poorly written token characters instead of being about our PCs.

Instead of improving what we had at release, ArenaNet only made it worse.

It’s amazing how much they have destroyed their own Manifesto. Looking at what they had promised:

• “If you love MMOs, you’ll want to check out Guild Wars 2, and if you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2”: nope, GW2 has become the same grind cesspool as others MMORPGs.

• “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun”: HoT is all about players grinding, be it through the mastery points, the precursor collections, grining gold to convert to gems and buy things at the gem store (where most of the skins go), and so on.

• “a fully-branching, personalized storyline”: thrown away after the end of the personall storyline in the core game (and it was poorly done even there).

• “and in Guild Wars 2, it’s your world. It’s your story. You affect things around you in a very permanent way”: no, we don’t. And it isn’t our story, it’s the story of the token NPCs.

Really, this has been nothing but a massive disappointment.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The true test will be what the maps are like once the initial exploration push is done with and most of the players are only bothering to farm the meta events for shinies.

I wonder what will ArenaNet do then. Will they try to improve the maps, or will they nerf everything else so HoT becomes the “less bad” option where to play in?

Looks great to me.

It animates with decent physics, unlike the black and white wings. The lack of glow fits it very well.

I would consider getting it if not for the fact that I hate fractals.

Narrrz.7532:

Imagine that all the content of this expansion were reduced to be obtainable immediately, or after the most minimal participation. You do a single hero challenge and can fully unlock your elite spec. Unlock your elite spec and immediately have the Ascended item associated with it. Open a single crate of airship salvage and you can afford to buy everything obtainable with the currency.
Do you feel any incentive to do anything anymore? I sure wouldn’t.

Ah, so you wouldn’t like to play through the storyline to see what happens next?

You wouldn’t like to explore the maps and see what’s actually in them?

You wouldn’t like to see the game’s art or hear the new soundtracks?

You would take that “more content now than there has ever been before” and completely ignore it just because it wouldn’t give you any new reward?

So yep, by your own words, you are not playing the game – you are grinding the game just to get rewards. It’s easy to understand that you would feel cheated if those rewards were made easier to acquire, but I’m sorry to say – it’s not that ArenaNet has wasted your time, you are wasting your time doing something you don’t enjoy for meaningless rewards.

I have a legendary sword. Do you know what I would feel if everyone woke up with the same sword in their inventory, without doing any “work” for it?

Nothing.

I don’t have any delusion about an item giving me “prestige” or “exclusivity” in a game. And just because I did something that took a long time, it doesn’t mean everyone has to also wait a long time. I got the sword because I like the skin – and the skin won’t change, no matter if there are 1, 100 or 1.000.000 of that sword around, or it other people got it after 1 or after 10.000 days.

That’s a healthy response – I wasn’t wasting my time through an experience I didn’t enjoy so I would regret if the reward in the end had changed. Can you honestly say the same?

Tollz.4152:

It’s not work, it is work to you because you choose to make it feel like work

Uhuh:

Tollz.4152:

There is no recognition for putting in the hard work

Ergo… It’s not work, it is work to you because you choose to make it feel like work. And since it’s not work, there is no need for it to be recognised.

Tollz.4152:

I was having fun there is no “instead”

So if you were having fun, what need is there for you to receive any kind of reward as recognition? Fun was your reward.

Unless, of course, you think what you were doing was just using “time and effort” without having fun. Which, incidentally, would be quite like a (bad) work.

Narrrz.7532:

As it was, i was rewarded for exploration, participating in events, fooling around with the new mechanics, killing enemies, and yes, playing.

If you actually enjoyed doing those things, and had fun doing them, fun would be your reward and you would feel no need to receive anything more.

If you actually don’t enjoy doing those things and were doing something you don’t enjoy just for the reward you would get at the end, sorry, you were grinding as if GW2 were a (bad) job. You don’t really deserve a reward for that.

This is like someone going to see a movie and demanding to be paid for it. Watching the movie and enjoying it is its own reward. What you are doing is like going to see a movie you already knew you wouldn’t enjoy, just because you would receive a rotten apple after watching it – but now you have been told it’s only half a rotten apple. It was a bad idea originally, and it’s still a bad idea now.

Narrrz.7532:

What everyone seemed to want was their fancy spec to do the exploration stuff (with no real reason to bother with it after you’ve unlocked your spec) so they can then complain there’s no content when they’re done.

There’s next to no content.

See, the thing is – you are assuming that it’s ok to hide the fact there is almost no content in HoT behind a smoke screen of grind. Expecting the game to last longer than its small amount of content would allow it to just because people would be busy grinding the specialization points is, almost by definition, trying to fool players by artifically increasing the game’s longevity.

But players won’t be so easily fooled. Or most of us won’t, at least.

(And, for the records, the line “with no reasl reason to bother with it after you’ve unlocked your spec” is exactly like my example above, of wanting to be rewarded for having fun… Or wasting your time grinding through content you don’t have fun with. Both of which don’t deserve a reward, actually.)

Tollz.4152:

I understand but I don’t have time to play all day everyday, I work monday to friday 9am-5pm

Nope.

In reality…

Tollz.4152:

There is no recognition for putting in the hard work

…You work more than just monday to friday 9am-5pm. And that’s because you made the mistake of working in a game as opposed to playing a game. The fact you feel you are not recognised enough for the effort you did is actually very much deserved – you didn’t do anything that deserves recognition, you basically wasted time you could have spent having fun.

This is one of the main reasons why so many MMORPGs are such bad games. The fact some people are willing to waste their time with content not because they are having fun, but because they have an illusion that it will give them some kind of important reward even while they consider doing it “work”, is the reason why grind is so widespread now. Sorry to say, but nothing you grind for is going to give you prestige or the admiration of others. Nothing you grind for is going to actually have a positive impact in your life. The best you can get is not realizing how much time you have wasted doing something you didn’t even enjoy while you could have been having fun instead.

ZeroKaos.1682:

anything lower would just result in people chewing through new content in a week and complaining about not having anything to do within 2 weeks after launch

There is already very little content in the game.

What all the grind they have added with HoT – specializations, masteries, precursor crafting, etc etc – is trying to hide is that the expansion itself has very little content at all. Without the grind, people would have played through all of it in a couple days.

It’s all a matter of how easily fooled players are. Some see the smoke screen as what it is, others don’t understand the difference between “content” and “grind”.

Galandil.9641:

RedBaron.6058:

Some never give up on grinding, others never give up on real life.

Epic.

Epic indeed.

What I’m dying to see, though, is the “OMG shut up everything is perfect and 400 is perfect!” crowd changing their speech to “OMG ArenaNet is the best 250 is perfect!”.

Nike.2631:

Really. You think the folks whose livelihoods depend on the game and have been working towards this release for about two years now didn’t think about it?

Yep.

Just like they didn’t predict the massive outcry when they announced the price of the expansion.

Or when they announced the new “gold to gem” conversion system.

Or any of the other times when they had to take back a decision they had made because of a massive community outcry that they didn’t properly predict.

You can claim that ArenaNet is perfect and thinks everything through correctly and perfectly. This mess with the specialization points show otherwise.

If anything, this is a sign of how poorly they are doing. People are complaining because the specializations are locked behind a grind wall. The grind wall exists because ArenaNet is trying to artificially inflate the duration of HoT. They are artifically trying to inflate the duration of HoT because the expansion has very little content. HoT has very little content because ArenaNet couldn’t make more, even after all this time working on the expansion without adding new content to the core game. ArenaNet couldn’t make more content because they are extremely ineffective at making things.

And that explains why they are doing so poorly. We know that:

• ArenaNet had basically to make server merges with the megaserver thing, due to how empty the maps were.

• ArenaNet itself had said that, if they did it right, the Living World would mean they wouldn’t make an expansion. Here we are with an expansion, hinting that no, they didn’t do the Living World right.

• We also know the GW2 earnings during the Living World and, accordingly, it didn’t stop falling. Not only the LW didn’t raise the earnings like expansions do, it didn’t even prevent them from falling.

• GW2 became free to play, and we know that no MMORPG went free to play when its previous business model was being a success.

• NCSoft, which completely owns ArenaNet, has distanced itself from GW2. We have been told that it’s ArenaNet who’s publishing GW2 now, instead of NCSoft; the lack of advertisement about HoT is a very clear sign of how few resources ArenaNet has as far as publishing goes when compared to NCSoft itself.

• HoT has been released in a hurry, with many promised features that aren’t actually here but have been postponed for “later” (legendary weapons – they didn’t release even the three they had mentioned earlier -, raids, the new squad system, etc…).

• Lots of important people have left ArenaNet this year. Chris Whiteside, Eric Flannum, Jon Peters, Kristen Perry… Many of those have left in the last few months.

If they really did think so thoughtfully about things, they wouldn’t be in the middle of all those issues.

With the current mess about the specialization grind being just one more mess among many.

Xenon.4537:

Is it grind? Technically yes, but what did you expect? It’s an MMO

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun”.

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward”.

Xenon.4537:

and the whole point of elite specs originally was to have some kind of progression after level 80 that would take longer than 1 afternoon

“The Mastery system is a new approach to endgame progression. It represents a new way to grow your characters once they’ve hit level 80”.

Mastery system. Not the specialization system. That’s what ArenaNet said would be the “kind of progression after level 80 that would take longer than 1 afternoon”.

It was a massive mistake to gate the specializations behind a grind wall. It’s obvious that, after 3 years of a very stale game, people would like to explore the new content with the new skills and traits. If unlocking the specializations didn’t require such a grind, we would have significantly less complaining here.

maniamsmart.7981:

I mean, we’ve all been wanting new content, we’ve all be wanting raids, we’ve all been wanting guild halls, and they’ve given it to us.

Like the others have said, ArenaNet has not “given” us anything, they are requiring people to pay a very high price – $50,00 is not the usual for an expansion – for this content update. And they haven’t given us raids yet, for the records – they said they will give us one wing of one raid, but we don’t know when exactly that will happen.

maniamsmart.7981:

I think it’s really rude and heartless to bring people down and call someone’s work a piece of trash when they’ve put time and effort into it.

Honestly, looks like a lot of people have left ArenaNet recently anyway.

Jon Peters, former Game Design Lead? Left ArenaNet a few months ago to join Amazon.

Eric Flannum, former Lead Designer for GW2? Left ArenaNet to also join Amazon.

Kristen Perry, the main artist behind the Sylvary look? Left ArenaNet a couple months ago.

binidj.5734:

Test.8734:

Really, everyone should go to the Metacritic site and give HoT a low score. Then maybe ArenaNet will feel motivated to fix this faster than the months it took them to improve the trait system.

That’s the second time you’ve posted that Test and it’s a real kitteny thing to suggest. ArenaNet got one thing wrong, which was the amount of HPs it takes to fully unlock skills and traits for eSpecs. Everything else in this expansion has been marvellous so far, indeed it’s been quite a bit better than I was expecting it to be. I’m not going to mark an entire expansion down because of one problem and your suggestion that I should will do no good for the game and is almost certainly reportable. Do it again and I’ll check to see if that last theory is true.

By all means be critical of areas of the game you feel could be improved but trying to sabotage it does none of us any favours at all and just makes you look like a kitten.

Engage in the discussion or kitten off, this forum doesn’t need childish negativity from either side of this issue.

Why?

And what do you suggest?

Just talking here? Not nearly enough. ArenaNet often loves to take negative feedback, lump it into a single topic and hope it will fade away (see the topic about the Dragonhunter name). Even when they bother to fix something, it takes them many, many months to even acknowledge so, much less actually do it (see the topic about the broken trait acquisition system, or the one about how the NPE update broke the personal storyline, etc).

Asking for a refund? That’s far, far worse. Not only it actually takes money away from ArenaNet, but it also keeps Support busy (while they could be working on real issues), and it’s also a lot of trouble for the players.

No, giving HoT a low Metacritic score is the best option. It’s:

• Relatively harmless. Low user scores have not prevented big releases from selling millions, just take a look at Assassin’s Creed or any EA game. Unlike asking for a refund, this doesn’t remove money from ArenaNet.

• Easily undone. It’s very easy to change a given Metacritic score, as soon as ArenaNet fixes this. Unlike all the trouble of asking for a refund, that would basically require a player to buy HoT again.

• A very clear message. A low number on that score is a simple way to let ArenaNet know that players are really unhappy.

• It adds pressure, just like asking for a refund and far more than just posting here. But again, without actually taking resources from ArenaNet.

• Very simple for players. Making an account there is very quick, and voicing one’s opinion about other games is a good thing.

Really, the best way to express being unhappy with the current specialization grind is going over to Metacritic and giving HoT a low score. It’s a way to make yourself heard without actually sabotaging ArenaNet.

Fozzik.1742:

The things I most enjoy in GW2…
-Creating / testing new builds
-Playing WvW
-Exploring open world

With this expansion, all of those activities are trapped behind a bunch of gates that I don’t enjoy and that feel painfully slow. Trapping the fun behind big time sinks and a single method of gaining experience (grinding events in the new zones) is not cool, and was never the way GW2 was designed originally. Remember “play how you want to play”?

Other than the “play how you want to play” quote, another great one is the “Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward”.

They have completely shot that idea in the face with HoT.

Really, everyone should go to the Metacritic site and give HoT a low score. Then maybe ArenaNet will feel motivated to fix this faster than the months it took them to improve the trait system.

Kythan Myr.4719:

but why would they put so much of this perceived “grind” into their first x-pac

It’s kinda obvious.

HoT has very little content. ArenaNet couldn’t make more than just four maps, even after working on the expansion for more than one year and completely halting content release for the core game in the mean time.

Players would be done with HoT in a couple hours, and then there would be a massive outcry about how the $50,00 “expansion” feels more like a $10,00 DLC.

What was ArenaNet’s solution? Grind. Artificially inflating the longevity of the game by gating features people want.

People want to play using the specializations, after 3 years of stale skills? So let’s make the players grind while preparing to have fun, so they will continue to play longer.

(Despite how, once upon a time, ArenaNet said that “Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward”.)

Players want to see what happens in the storyline? So let’s gate it behind mastery grind, making players play longer and preventing them from realizing the storyline is so short it could be finished in half a day.

(ArenaNet had also said that “We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun”.)

Players are willing to grind for aesthetics? Too bad, we will only add two new armor sets and five weapon sets to the expansion. This means that grind for aesthetics is not enough to keep players around – there aren’t enough new skins to grind for.

(Meanwhile, look, more new outfits and full weapon sets for the Gem Store! Don’t you want to pay 2000 gems to look good?)

There is still very little end game content. There is still very little content at all. It’s a matter of how many players ArenaNet can fool into believing that grind is actually content, when it’s just a smoke screen.

Oh wow, look at that!

ArenaNet couldn’t make more than two armor sets and five weapon sets for their $50,00 expansion.

BUT, they already have some new outfits and a full new weapon set ready for the Gem Store!

ArenaNet surely know their priorities very well.

Alaya.8765:

Then you have to create 10 Greatsword Blades and 10 Greatsword Hilts of kinda every type of ingot there is including Deldrimor Steel Ingots again.

Wow, that sounds like SO MUCH FUN.

Amazing it took that long for ArenaNet to add precursor crafting, only for them to make it as much a grind as everything else they have added with HoT.

The “legendary journey” is just a badly designed legendary grind.

beastie.4536:

And here’s the famous quote from Mike O’Brien:

“We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”

It gets better:

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward.”

Grinding for a future fun reward is exactly the proccess required to unlock specializations.

Right now, there are some options for people to take action:

• Asking for a refund, see the instructions here. The thing is, there have been reports that asking for a refund of HoT actually makes ArenaNet erase your entire account – even if you already owned GW2 before buying the expansion. Buyers beware.

• Go to Metacritic and give Guild Wars 2 a low user score. Metacritic is becoming increasingly important in the gaming industry and, while we cannot do anything about the critics’ score, we can put pressure on ArenaNet by making very public our displeasure with the expansion.

Keep talking until they give in.

Osu.6307:

Test.8734:

Go to the metacritic site and give HoT a low score

No reason to get nasty. Hero points are really the only thing that I think is screwed up. I’m going stick with lobbying for now. Let’s hope anet fixes this almost as fast as they fixed perma-quickness rangers.

People can change their scores later, if ArenaNet actually fixes those issues.

Besides, companies usually worry more about the critics’ score than the user score. And the “official” critics for MMORPGs give everything the same score, just look how Wildstar, a massive and complete failure, got almost the same score as FF: A Realm Reborn, which is one of the most successful modern MMORPGs.

Using Metacritic to complain about the grindfest with the specializations is a nice, temporary way of pressuring ArenaNet into changing it. It’s better for everyone involved than just asking for a refund, too.

We have one more tool which to express our displeasure with the specialization grind this time.

Go to the metacritic site and give HoT a low score.

Metacritic scores are becoming increasingly important in the gaming industry, with several companies tying bonuses and etc to a good score. By telling ArenaNet very publicly about how the current system doesn’t work, we can be heard.

Zanther Deathbringer.4762:

You guys remember that mmo expansion where you didnt have some sort of new leveling type deal going on?

I dont

When Guild Wars: Factions was released, the level cap wasn’t raised and you didn’t have a “leveling type deal going on”.

Zanther Deathbringer.4762:

ITT: People who dont realize that masteries and elite spec is the new form of expansion leveling.

ITT: People who don’t realize that artificially inflating the longevity of small amounts of content through leveling and other kinds of grind only work on gullible players.

SliceOfUnagi.6532:

i can understand if the grind is for extra stuff, like the dry top and silverwastes. The loot is extra and thats a grind. They didnt put the story behind the grind. They just went “Here’s some extra shiny stoof that you might want, kill 3×10^18 dogs to get this new shiny thing”. You had the choice to say “duck it, imma just enjoy the story” and anet would be like “Sure. Np”

This is the main issue, IMO.

Grinding for the basic tools of a profession – skills and traits – really doesn’t work. It’s obvious that after so long with the same few skills, people would like to experience the new content using their new specializations. With the way the game is now, it requires a massive grind to access what was one of the main selling points of HoT.

Genei.7502:

and the lack of “end game” content

There is still a lack of endgame content.

Smart players are complaining because they can see through ArenaNet’s smoke screen and realize that HoT has very, VERY little content. All the grind required to unlock everything is just ArenaNet’s way of trying to artificially inflate the duration of the little content they have added to the game.

Some gullible players have been deceived and can’t tell the difference between grinding and content. I’m happy we have many smart players in this forum, though.

Shen Slayer.3058:

I would like an official response from Anet……CAN WE GET A REFUND????

You can try. Just follow the instructions here…

…BUT, apparently, if you have bought GW2 at release for $60,00, then bought HoT for $50,00, and asks now for a refund of your $50,00, ArenaNet will shut down your entire account.

Yep, instead of just removing your access to HoT, looks like they will invalidate your entire $110,00 purchase when refunding your $50,00.

It sounds dishonest and illegal, but that’s what I have been told ArenaNet is doing.

Good luck.

It’s just more of the lack of polish ArenaNet is becoming known for.

Be happy that this time they have at least added the new currencies into the wallet, when they released the Silverwastes and Dry Top they didn’t even bother doing that (and it took them a long, LONG time to fix it).

HoT should have been in development for quite some more time, but I guess ArenaNet’s finances wouldn’t allow them to wait any longer.

I think ArenaNet set the expansion maps preparing for a large flood of players… But the floor never came.

I’m really curious to see, some months from now, the NCSoft quarterly report showing the sales of HoT. I wonder if it sold a lot less than ArenaNet/NCSoft were expecting.

Espoir.3061:

They were planning this expansion for what seems like forever! They had plenty of time to devote to new armor sets.

Yes, they had.

But they chose to devote said time to the Gem Store instead.

We get two – TWO – new armor sets at the release of HoT.

But, look at that! A full pack of new skins at the Gem Store! Why won’t you buy it, it’s “just” 2000 gems! As if HoT weren’t ridiculous overpriced as it is.

Looks like ArenaNet has released an expansion, but they just forgot two small details: content and skins. Instead, they have created grind and more stuff to be sold at the Gem Store.

Nike.2631:

There’s three sets at the very first frog-vendor in Verdant Brink.

Oh?

Are you saying that there are 3 new armor sets in the game?

Funny, because the patch notes say otherwise.

They very clearly say, “Two new armor sets are available”.

Paulash.5814:

If you’re going to leave , then leave. You won’t be missed.

Until the day when there’s almost no one playing, and ArenaNet finds out they’re not making enough of a profit to keep making GW2 content.

Then you’ll miss dearly every single person who’s complaining.

But I agree with you. I hope everyone who has realized how HoT is little more than an overpriced and rushed piece of DLC asks for a refund and uninstalls GW2. When the ArenaNet layoffs begin, I’ll be here laughing at them and at you.

Levi M.7428:

Let’s just all get everything at launch right away. So then the masses can complain again for 3 years of no content! Hurrah!

Too bad we have some gullible players who can’t tell the difference between “content” and “mindless, easy repetitive gating in order to unlock content”.

If anything, the current gating for specializations is a smoke screen to how little real content HoT has.

wyllam.5890:

It’s unfortunate that I had to purchase the expansion to discover that Heart of Thorns is far more like the Living Story, Season 2 (i.e., difficult, grindy, gimmicky [jumping mushrooms, glider abilities that take forever to acquire, etc.], and tedious — and certainly nothing I’d want to through play through a second time on an alt) than it is like the base GW2 game, which I greatly enjoyed.

Remember to get a refund. It’s easy!

Just click here, pick “Purchase Issue” in the first option, then “Refund request” in the “Specific issue” field, fill the other forms and click “Submit”! You’ll have one less headache and $50,00 more in your pockets.

lordhelmos.7623:

1.) Lack of solid tutorial for the new content. New maps were sensory overload with a ton of new icons that were not explained. I didn’t play the PvE beta, it took a friend explaining that masteries needed to be grinded up a bar before a point could be used.

2.) Elite specializations tallgated behind massive amounts of hero points. All the new playstyles are not really unlockable until your done with like 75% of the new content. The result is pretty much feeling like your going through just another living story with the same class mechanics that you had pre expansion. Alot of the elite specializations are not even that much better or leagues worse than the core class.

3.) Massive frustration for finally getting to hard to reach hero points and finding out you don’t have the mastery to get it.

4.) Hero point challenges crushing solo players, begging for help from friends when you realize they can’t figure out how to get to you or don’t have the masteries to reach you.

It’s all a small amount of rushed content. That’s the issue here.

The grind to unlock masteries and the specializations is basically a smoke screen to how ArenaNet could only make a very small amount of content, even after working on HoT all this time and stopping content releases for the core game.

They are trying to make players grind as much as possible because otherwise everyone would be done with HoT in less than one day. But instead of following their old approach – players receive their tools early and may grind for aesthetics later – they simply haven’t released the aesthetics. HoT comes not only with very little content, but also with very few new skins. So grind for the tools it is.

(Meanwhile, look, the Gem Store has a lot of new skins! Just 2000 gems!)

Really, the best thing to do here is ask for a refund and hope ArenaNet learns their lesson from all this. Although I doubt they will.

binidj.5734:

This is something that the developers don’t quite seem to have grasped. Want us to do every mastery in the new expansion and have us be happy about it? Just put shiny weapon and armour skins at the end of it. People, in my experience, have no problem grinding patiently for cosmetics.

That would have required ArenaNet to actually work adding new skins to the game. Considering how HoT has released with just 2 new armor sets…

…But hey, have you seen the new Crystal Arbiter Appearance Pack? For “just” 2000 gems, you can buy a new outfit and part of a new weapon set! Despite how ArenaNet didn’t bother to even start the legendary weapon set for HoT.

The grind we have for the specializations is because ArenaNet knows they are incredibly ineffective at making content and skins. They have – obviously and unrepentantly – dedicated most of their art assets to the Gem Store, not to their $50,00 expansion. And they couldn’t make more than 4 badly designed maps for HoT despite not adding content to GW2 for quite some time now.

In this context – a company that is very bad at actually making the thing players want, content – they have little choice other than to add a massive grind and hope that players will waste a lot of time grinding while they try to scrap one more overpriced DLC.

Batelle.1680:

I purchased HOT expecting the maps to be challenging, but more along the lines of Silverwastes or Dry Top.

My suggestion? Ask for a refund and uninstall the game. Then, a few weeks later, come here to laugh as the players who today tell you to just ask someone nearby for help begin complaining that there is no one nearby to help them.

Based on everything I have read – frustrations with the vertical design, empty zones, players asking for a refund and so on and so on…

…Looks like HoT wouldn’t be worth even the $10 that DLCs like it usually are sold for, much less the somewhat ridiculous $50,00.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Please read the topic of this thread. The subject is: “If you did not purchase HoT, are you still playing (or will you continue to play) GW2?”

Ok.

My answer to the above question is, no, I won’t continue to play GW2.

That’s mostly because I cannot continue to support ArenaNet. They have clearly spit on their players’ faces by releasing HoT with so few armor and weapon skins, at the same time they add a bunch of new skins to the Gem Store, with the preposterous price of 2000 gems.

This is a clear example of ArenaNet’s priority, and a sign of how greed has overcome their concerns about the well being of their players.

This was not the first sign, though. ArenaNet went from “we will release content when it’s ready” to releasing HoT with lots of vague promises about adding features “later”, without even a hint of when said “later” will be. New Legendaries? “Later”. New squad system? “Later”. Raid? “Later”.

And again, they cannot add the legendary skins to HoT at release, but they can release a bunch of skins buyable through the Gem Store.

I simply cannot have faith or support ArenaNet with this kind of behavior, when they act with such spite regarding their players.

And thus, my very much on topic answer to what has been clearly stated as being the subject of this topic is: no, I won’t.

Good Tofu.9376:

Diablo III’s expansion lasted 3-4 hours, with all replay ability being found in grinding harder difficulties of these levels. It costed $50 at launch.

GTA IV’s expansion episodes lasted around 10-20 hours, and were priced at a total of $40 for both.

Destiny, the Taken King, lasts around 15-20 hours, and raids were incrementally released after launch. It costs $40.

Uhuh.

Guild Wars: Factions had 40 new explorable areas, 12 new missions, 2 new professions each with 75 new skills, and more than 150 new skills for the older professions. That, plus dozens of new armor arts, hundreds of new weapon skins, and so on and so on.

HoT is a joke compared to that. It looks and sounds like just an overpriced, rushed piece of DLC.

Sengel.7801:

In the GW2 engine, armor must be hand rigged to each and every body type (so 5-6 per gender per race). an “automated” version would look terrible because of little differences between races (humans have longer legs than norn, sylvari dimensions don’t match up with humans…etc) so each of these needs to be done by hand in order to get the aesthetics right.

The same armor between races already looks terrible exactly because it’s automated. It’s “less bad” for the races that look more like human beings, but a lot of armors look incredibly bad on Charrs and on the asura. It’s obvious those armors are automated already.

Sengel.7801:

lastly, true armor sets need to not clip with existing armor pieces, see light vigil pants with seer shoes for an example of this not working

As you have mentioned yourself, ArenaNet almost never bothers with that in the first place. There is already a lot of clipping in this game. There is an obscene amount of clipping between any medium armor and off hand items, for example.

Honestly, there isn’t much to say here: we all know HoT has been very rushed so it would be expected that it would be released with very few armor skins and few weapon sets. But releasing a new outfit at the same time they’re releasing the expansion, while charing 2000 gems for it by hiding it under a pack, is basically spitting on the players’ face.

We are very much aware that ArenaNet has added more to the Gem Store over a similar time frame than they have added to HoT, skin-wise. This clearly shows ArenaNet’s priorities.

GragorR.9768:

but considering the huge success that GW2 has had in the last years, and the fact that it is about to launch a gamechanging expansion in a few hours

GW2 has been very far from being a “huge success” in the last years. ArenaNet has said it themselves – if they did the Living Story thing right, they wouldn’t release an expansion. Yet, after two failed Living Story tries – and both failed to actually increase the earnings of GW2, much less create the kind of spike that expansions do -, it’s expansion time.

Not to mention all the other (rather obvious, tbh) signs that the game is doing poorly: the move to free to play (do you remember any MMORPG that changed its business model while the previous one was being a “huge success”?), losing important ArenaNet staff (the original GW2 lead developer has just left, for example), the rushed release of HoT (legendaries will come “later”, raids will come “later”, the new squad system will come “later”, and so on).

The reason why few gaming sites are talking about HoT is because few people care.

Behellagh.1468:

Blaine Tog.8304:

Makai.3429:

Wonder how many preorders they would’ve had if they had announced this change before the beta weekends…

At least one fewer. I dislike the idea of phasing out dungeons far more than I like the idea of raids. Far, far more.

You had to have your head in the sand to not know this was coming.

It does speak a lot about ArenaNet that people think being disappointed equals not seeing the obvious coming.

As much as they had made it clear that they don’t care about dungeons and won’t ever bother improving what’s in the game, it’s a whole new level to actually change the dungeons with the specific and declared intent of making them (even) worse than they are today.

This isn’t just ArenaNet devaluing old content, it’s ArenaNet also spitting in the face of players who happen to like the current game.

Ashen.2907:

More than anything else this feels, to me, like an effort to devalue the base game so as to encourage sales of the expansion. They couldn’t come right out and remove dungeons without looking very bad in the game press so they just make them less appealing. I won’t be surprised if this is just the first of multiple steps to discourage playing dungeons.

True, but I wouldn’t call it the first step… Only the biggest one so far.

EDIT: For the records…

John Smith.4610:

Is the intention to deincentivize dungeons
Yes

So yes, this is really ArenaNet trying to make people leave content of the game.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Staff, axe, and pistol. Shiny, shiny.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hot-new-legendary-weapons/

Sure, sure. Meanwhile, the amount of new Legendary weapons introduced with HoT’s release just went from 3 to zero – they will add the first three legendaries later, not at release:

Linsey Murdock

Collections for the existing legendary weapons will be available on launch day, while the first three new legendaries will become available shortly after launch, alongside raids.

When was the last time they promised new legendary weapons for “later”?

Oh right, in 2013! When they said we would see new legendary weapons during that year! Only, we didn’t.

Meanwhile, the amount of “HoT content” that won’t be there when HoT releases is increasing: raids (of which we will get the first part of the first wing soon after release, whatever that means, and who knows when we will get more), the new squad system, and now the first three new legendary weapons (and who knows when we will get the rest).

Speaking about “the rest”, has anyone noticed this quote?

Linsey Murdock

we will be releasing new legendary weapons in small groups at regular intervals until the full set of sixteen has been added to the game

Uh… There are nineteen weapon types in the game.

Who wants to bet that ArenaNet has given up on making new aquatic legendary weapons?

And who else isn’t surprised that the so-called “new set” isn’t actually a full new set?

Bombastic.1428:

For me, that 4 hours was some of the most rewarding game time I have had in a very long time.

Funny that you say the above right after saying…

Bombastic.1428:

At that time I had @50 Google in the bank,so I made my very first gem purchase with a whopping $35 to cover the costs. In about 4 hours I had my mesmer from 0-500 in tailor and weaponsmith

Congrats. Your most rewarding experience in the game was after buying those rewards with real money. That’s a huge statement about the state of the reward system in GW2 and how much ArenaNet has pushed its monetization scheme on players.

Nemitri.8172:

“oh we don’t want berserker to be the meta anymore, you are going to need to use other gear other than zerker” -paraphrasing what a dev said, then, what do I see on the beta Raid boss?

Guess what the people who killed the raid boss were using?

Hurrah for berserker gear in more than half the party!

The berserker meta is sooooo dead (NOT).

They should, of course, OP.

But really, does anyone even doubt that HoT is a rushed product?

All signs are there, really:

• ArenaNet had said that, if they did the Living World right, they wouldn’t do expansions. Yet here we are, showing that something went wrong.

• Reiterating that, the GW2 earnings kept falling through both Living World seasons. They failed to increase earnings the way an expansion do.

• GW2 went free to play. Is there any MMORPG that changed its business mode to free to play because the previous model was successful?

• At the same time, NCSoft began distancing itself from GW2, despite how it own 100% of ArenaNet; they will not publish the game anymore, which is a way to soften their losses if the game tanks.

• Meanwhile, the former Lead Designer, Eric Flannum, has just left ArenaNet. The signs are all there that there’s something wrong in Denmark.

• And let’s take a look at HoT? Four maps. Just four. All this time, and they can’t make more than that.

• “Two new armor sets”. They release more content into the Gem Store than this and yet the expansion will have only two armor sets.

• A few legendary weapons with more to come “later”. The last time ArenaNet said we would get more legendary weapons “later”, it took them 2 years to talk about the subject again.

• No raid at release. A very vague promise of releasing one wing of one raid some unspecified moment after release.

• A massive amount of bugs on HoT, despite how we’re at one month before release.

• Very poor balance between specializations. ArenaNet made a lot of changes to the previous specializations after the previous betas, showing how little they had been tested, but there has been nowhere similar time to test the last two.

And so on, and so on and so on.

It’s clear that HoT is ArenaNet’s last chance and they are in a hurry to release it soon. I wonder if said hurry won’t be their downfall, when the expansion arrives filled with bugs and lacking content.