Guild Wars 2

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

I believe that part of the dissatisfaction with HoT was how poorly the core game prepared people for the increased difficulty.

(Some) Players didnt learn game mechanics because, simply put, they didnt really need to. If the game allowed you to complete events, etc, without doing more than pressing the 1 and 6 keys, and sometimes not doing even that much, then why do more?

I enjoyed the difficulty increase precisely because it rewarded actually paying attention, target prioritization, and knowing my class. But I had learned to play my character in spite of the core game telling me not to bother. Not to put in the effort.

This has been my argument all along. The core game didn’t prepare people, but the living story did. Both Living Story Seasons 1 and 2 did prepare people for harder content. If you did the marionette, the battle for lion’s arch, escape from lion’s arch, the nightmare tower, and many of the battles in season 2 (and particularly the achievements), you’d have gotten a lot better.

I did all that stuff, thus I was prepared for HOT. The jump from Orr to HOT without living story is vast. The jump from the Living Story Season 2 really isn’t.

The early stages of LS1 were so offputting that I took a break from the game. Came close to uninstalling.

But temporary events that werent available for everyone to experience shouldnt be counted on as training content for an expansion that came a couple of years later IMO.

Silverwastes was better for this IMO.

But Living Story Season 2 is not temporary content. It’s part of the content. The problem is not everyone got it free. Whether you missed Season 1 or not, you’re choosing not to play Season 2 if you don’t buy it.

It’s not just that you’re missing story which you can watch on youtube. You’re missing learning to play the game as it involves. And that’s a problem.

Ashen.2907:

I believe that part of the dissatisfaction with HoT was how poorly the core game prepared people for the increased difficulty.

(Some) Players didnt learn game mechanics because, simply put, they didnt really need to. If the game allowed you to complete events, etc, without doing more than pressing the 1 and 6 keys, and sometimes not doing even that much, then why do more?

I enjoyed the difficulty increase precisely because it rewarded actually paying attention, target prioritization, and knowing my class. But I had learned to play my character in spite of the core game telling me not to bother. Not to put in the effort.

This has been my argument all along. The core game didn’t prepare people, but the living story did. Both Living Story Seasons 1 and 2 did prepare people for harder content. If you did the marionette, the battle for lion’s arch, escape from lion’s arch, the nightmare tower, and many of the battles in season 2 (and particularly the achievements), you’d have gotten a lot better.

I did all that stuff, thus I was prepared for HOT. The jump from Orr to HOT without living story is vast. The jump from the Living Story Season 2 really isn’t.

Finalfreefall.8247:

Vayne.8563:

Or a warning saying this is end game content, it’s meant to be end game content and you should know the following things before continuing: How to remove conditions, how to access stability, how to dodge, how to move while fighting, how to break break bars, how to remove boons, how to use combos.

In the mean time, there are plenty of people in my guild who don’t know the game well who get around hot zones okay.

YES! People can’t prepare if they don’t know what they’re facing! And by the time it’s been worked out, all the other things in VB (big open space, poor multi-map navigation, pocket raptors or any foes with a cripple/knockdown/good pursuit, falling to your death) have driven them off the map already! It was horribly managed!

I don’t think it’s true. I think you and people like you were drive off the map. There are other people who like to be beaten up and having to figure out their way through. Strangely enough, I’m not one of them.

Originally the HoT maps were badly tuned and some progress was made in making them better for people who solo and are/more casual.

However, what you’re doing here is stating your problem with the game and assuming a large number of people have that problem. I don’t think that demographic is as large as you think.

I played the same game you did and didn’t have the same problems. You can’t just assume most people will have not learned the game in the time they’ve played it.

To me the real issue isn’t long term players, so much, but those who use a level 80 boost. Those people are toast, unless they’re very good.

Finalfreefall.8247:

Vayne.8563:

i agree the map could use a bit of adjustment in teaching, though more important than what you suggest, would be a break bar tutorial.

But the bottom line still remains, the people who haven’t taken the time to learn the game before, aren’t going to learn the game now. As the game gets more complex, which is what generally happens with games, the game gets away from them.

You see this as a flaw. I see this as something that’s a necessary evil. You can’t keep players if the game doesn’t progress and you can’t progress the game if you make everything for the I don’t want to learn the game demographic.

Yes some people WILL be dissatisifed. Then again, every time I see a big red arrow in an instance telling me to go somewhere, I want to beat my monitor.

Oh definitely, It just needs something to say “Hey Pact commander you’re toast”. Like, a pop-up or something that’s not pocket raptors jumping at your shield bubble while you realize there’s no AOE on your bar. (actually the pocket raptors should have been a good sign xD )

Or a warning saying this is end game content, it’s meant to be end game content and you should know the following things before continuing: How to remove conditions, how to access stability, how to dodge, how to move while fighting, how to break break bars, how to remove boons, how to use combos.

In the mean time, there are plenty of people in my guild who don’t know the game well who get around hot zones okay.

Trakarg.2095:

Great advice, by the way. I joined a dragon’s stand meta group and got kicked out of the proper map during the dragon death thing.

This always happens. You’re supposed to join a squad before the map closes, and then when you die, you get to a new map at that time, then you right click on the commander and join in his map.

That’s how I do it and it works.

I run those maps daily. They’re not dead. Saying they’re dead doesn’t make them dead. I have completed those zones on so many characters it would make your head spin and I continue to do so.

If you’re on a US server and you want help getting those zones complete, hit me up in game.

Finalfreefall.8247:

Vayne.8563:

Which is the biggest problem. The lowest 5% want stuff they can do. The highest five percent want stuff they can do. Most people are probably in the middle. That is they know more than nothing and less than everything.

And some of those people, myself included, wouldn’t be satisfied with four maps like central tyria that we can burn through. So you have to lose a percentage of players no matter what you do.

Plenty of people did leave the game because they were bored. How many? I don’t know. Some of them have come back. How many? I don’t know that either.

But I’d wager the number of people who don’t like hot is offset by the number of people who find it refreshing.

That’s the issue. Yes. there are people in the game like you describe. But should we cater to them?

I remember back when the Marionette fight came out, which was one of my favorite fights in the entire game. It was awesome, until some guy who didn’t know the fight brought a minion or pet to the second platform and ruined it for everyone. A hundred people have to suffer, because one guy doesn’t know the game.

When Anet was asked, that long ago, they said they wanted a game where the community taught others how to play the game. They were going for that. This wasn’t some top secret rocket science added with HOT and not mentioned. Anet wanted to do more and they couldn’t until the playerbase had more knowledge of how to play. So they made stuff that required that knowledge.

If the people who can’t handle it don’t play those zones, they’re not necessarily hurting players like me. Because ultimately I find that content more appealing, and as a result, I want to be able to beat it.

No one is asking anyone to be able to solo dungeons. But learning the game? That’s part of the game…according to Anet.

Then it would really help for Anet to hold the player’s hand through the first 30 minutes of a map, or at least have a companion NPC set up to help new players instead of that event chain going off every two hours. There’s a very large chance of players missing the event completely and having to power through the forest/temple area.

i agree the map could use a bit of adjustment in teaching, though more important than what you suggest, would be a break bar tutorial.

But the bottom line still remains, the people who haven’t taken the time to learn the game before, aren’t going to learn the game now. As the game gets more complex, which is what generally happens with games, the game gets away from them.

You see this as a flaw. I see this as something that’s a necessary evil. You can’t keep players if the game doesn’t progress and you can’t progress the game if you make everything for the I don’t want to learn the game demographic.

Yes some people WILL be dissatisifed. Then again, every time I see a big red arrow in an instance telling me to go somewhere, I want to beat my monitor.

Finalfreefall.8247:

Two parts here (sorry)

Vayne.8563:

I’m not 100% sure I agree with that. That is, from the beginning, there has been information from external sources that you can ONLY get from external sources, including timer sites for the fire ele. There’s no in game way to get that.

The game has been telling us to look at stuff for years. There’s always been some weird events that lead to other events that you need to open up waypoints, or get to jumping puzzles, or whatever. Hell even in Caledon Forest, the jumping puzzle there depends on an event being finished or you can’t get to it.

What you’re really saying is that there are a percentage of people in this game who played with game without understanding it fully, and they could sorta get by as long as they stayed with certain content.

Yeah, that’s it exactly! What I’m taking about is a low floor of enjoyment. The players don’t have to know anything about the game to do low-grade content. If someone wants to run around a map, they can do so to the fullest extent of their abilities. That’s not an option in HoT because of the artificially high floor created by requiring XP for masteries.

The problem comes when the game introduces high-grade content. Dungeons and Fractals aren’t unapproachable from a casual level but Hot and Raids require builds and specific gear. And until HoT dropped, most players were conditioned to not worry about that sort of thing.

Vayne.8563:

I agree. But I’d like you to find a quote from Anet where they said you’d be able to understand everything in game, or that the game was made for people who aren’t interested in figuring stuff out.

Guild wars 2 design manifesto:

Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment.

Which is contrary to the mastery system, making players grind experience to play the same content at a more accessible level.

E: grabbed a better quote

Which is the biggest problem. The lowest 5% want stuff they can do. The highest five percent want stuff they can do. Most people are probably in the middle. That is they know more than nothing and less than everything.

And some of those people, myself included, wouldn’t be satisfied with four maps like central tyria that we can burn through. So you have to lose a percentage of players no matter what you do.

Plenty of people did leave the game because they were bored. How many? I don’t know. Some of them have come back. How many? I don’t know that either.

But I’d wager the number of people who don’t like hot is offset by the number of people who find it refreshing.

That’s the issue. Yes. there are people in the game like you describe. But should we cater to them?

I remember back when the Marionette fight came out, which was one of my favorite fights in the entire game. It was awesome, until some guy who didn’t know the fight brought a minion or pet to the second platform and ruined it for everyone. A hundred people have to suffer, because one guy doesn’t know the game.

When Anet was asked, that long ago, they said they wanted a game where the community taught others how to play the game. They were going for that. This wasn’t some top secret rocket science added with HOT and not mentioned. Anet wanted to do more and they couldn’t until the playerbase had more knowledge of how to play. So they made stuff that required that knowledge.

If the people who can’t handle it don’t play those zones, they’re not necessarily hurting players like me. Because ultimately I find that content more appealing, and as a result, I want to be able to beat it.

No one is asking anyone to be able to solo dungeons. But learning the game? That’s part of the game…according to Anet.

My characters look great and I’m not a fractal guy.

Finalfreefall.8247:

Vayne.8563:

What information is not there? That events happen around outposts? It was said in the lead up to the game more than once. Outposts are areas where events happen. And if people joined a guild they’d have known it. But even if they didn’t join a guild that information was around. There were places you could go to see that information.

What you’re saying is people don’t like to explore, they don’t like to watch videos, they don’t like the read websites, they don’t like to join guilds, they don’t like to talk to people in game.

Well that’s not going to go so good for people in most MMOs, and it wouldn’t go so good for people in any MMO I’d want to play since exploring is what I want to do.

Yes, but Guild wars 2 defined itself as a niche for those kinds of players. That’s where the issue lies.

I’m not 100% sure I agree with that. That is, from the beginning, there has been information from external sources that you can ONLY get from external sources, including timer sites for the fire ele. There’s no in game way to get that.

The game has been telling us to look at stuff for years. There’s always been some weird events that lead to other events that you need to open up waypoints, or get to jumping puzzles, or whatever. Hell even in Caledon Forest, the jumping puzzle there depends on an event being finished or you can’t get to it.

What you’re really saying is that there are a percentage of people in this game who played with game without understanding it fully, and they could sorta get by as long as they stayed with certain content.

I agree. But I’d like you to find a quote from Anet where they said you’d be able to understand everything in game, or that the game was made for people who aren’t interested in figuring stuff out.

Finalfreefall.8247:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. I’m saying this is a game and part of any game is problem solving. Food has been in this game from day one. It’s always been there. It’s always had at least a 10% bonus. Even casual players should have tons of halloween food or wintersday food left over. If not it’s easy to buy.

If you’re playing a game and you say wow this is taking too long to get experience, logically wouldn’t you take something that’s easy to get to get more. This doesn’t count people who farmed or buy black lion keys either who probably have experience booster sitting there they have no need for at all, which gives you a 50% buff.

I’ve always said it’s easier to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

Some casual players would probably be better off joining a casual guild even if they solo, because these things would be said in guild chat or in voice over and over again.

Or they’d say this is such a grind leveling and someone would show them.

Happens in my guild all the time.

We’re not talking about hard core stuff no one can get. We’re talking about people making the simplest change to make their game more enjoyable.

Exactly! but the information’s not there- people try and strike out on their own instead of waiting for an event to come up, end up lost and angry because they didn’t know what they were doing. Guild wars never teaches you to try.

What information is not there? That events happen around outposts? It was said in the lead up to the game more than once. Outposts are areas where events happen. And if people joined a guild they’d have known it. But even if they didn’t join a guild that information was around. There were places you could go to see that information.

What you’re saying is people don’t like to explore, they don’t like to watch videos, they don’t like the read websites, they don’t like to join guilds, they don’t like to talk to people in game.

Well that’s not going to go so good for people in most MMOs, and it wouldn’t go so good for people in any MMO I’d want to play since exploring is what I want to do.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Of course no game is perfect, but I believe that the complaint was that someone finds a game they like and then an expansion comes along an fundamentally changes the game in such a manner that it is no longer enjoyable.

What is wrong in asking or expecting for more of the same in an expansion?

There is nothing wrong with it. Nothing at all.

There’s nothing wrong with expecting politicians to keep their promises either.

I can’t remember any MMO where the expansion doesn’t change something up. It happened even in Guild Wars 1, when heroes were introduced. There was a huge outcry over that, because it fundmentally changed the game.

The only thing that is guaranteed when you play an active MMO is that it’s going to chance and evolve. You may not like the way an MMO evolves, but that’s not going to stop it from evolving, nor should you expect it not to evolve. There’s nothing wrong with expecting it not to evolve, but you’re bound to be disappointed.

How many people who played vanilla wow complained about changes to WoW as the game progressed. People complain about changes to every MMO I’ve ever played. To expect more of exactly the same stuff is not what MMOs do? Why?

Because it only keeps the players they have, and companies and games want more players. This game was woefully short on difficult content and now it’s not. Anet filled in kitten.

They also added something that’s arguably popular which are multi-layered maps.

There are people who hate them, but I don’t believe they’re in any way a majority or even close to it. There are also people who didn’t like them at first but now like them.

I mean, Dry Top was popular and that’s more platforming than HoT maps. And Bazare of the Four Winds was massively popular and that’s more platforming than HoT.

The map complexity is bad for some people it’s true. But I think far more people were concerned with the difficulty than the map complexity. Map complexity can be solved by watching a video. Combat? Not so much.

Finalfreefall.8247:

Vayne.8563:

Food is dirt cheap. Doesn’t matter the food you need. Halloween food gives you 15% bonus to kills. Candy Corn Custard is currently 2 copper on the trading post. I don’t care how casual you are, you should be able to afford 20 copper to have a couple of hours of buff. Potion of ogre grawl slaying (and several others) are 3 copper. They give you another 10%. If you have log in rewards you should have celebration boosters. They give you another 10%. You might even have a birthday booster if you’re been around a while that lasts 24 hours of actual play time and if you happen to belong to any guild that’s been around a bit, you get 10% from just your guild hall buff.

You’re making it sound like these buffs are beyond the means of even the most casual player…but they’re not.

Playiing casually means just doing the events in the area, and killing some stuff. If you’re not doing events and you’re not killing stuff you’re not casual. You’re not playing.

I do agree with you there, people should have buffs up, but how may times do you end up handing out potions when a dungeon run keeps going sour? (Less so now cause of elites~ but) I used to run into people planning on running one dungeon for a bit who just wouldn’t pick up potions, I don’t even think people on average know that there’s a way to buff your damage against Nightmare Court, it’s just not information that occurs to people.

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. I’m saying this is a game and part of any game is problem solving. Food has been in this game from day one. It’s always been there. It’s always had at least a 10% bonus. Even casual players should have tons of halloween food or wintersday food left over. If not it’s easy to buy.

If you’re playing a game and you say wow this is taking too long to get experience, logically wouldn’t you take something that’s easy to get to get more. This doesn’t count people who farmed or buy black lion keys either who probably have experience booster sitting there they have no need for at all, which gives you a 50% buff.

I’ve always said it’s easier to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

Some casual players would probably be better off joining a casual guild even if they solo, because these things would be said in guild chat or in voice over and over again.

Or they’d say this is such a grind leveling and someone would show them.

Happens in my guild all the time.

We’re not talking about hard core stuff no one can get. We’re talking about people making the simplest change to make their game more enjoyable.

Finalfreefall.8247:

Vayne.8563:

Grind? For mushrooms? Really? You must be playing a different game than me.

Mushrooms are the first, single mastery point mastery of itzel law. In theory you could see it grinding to get leyline gliding, but just doing events, I got all the mastetries I needed to get through HOT in the first day or two of the expansion release. What you call grinding, I call playing.

It doesn’t take you hours to unlock mushroom jumping. It doesn’t even take you an hour. You can get both mushroom jumping and basic gliding in an hour, and it’s a lot faster that that if you use buffs like food and utliities which anyone can get. And now with guild buffs in the mix, it’s easy and fast to level those.

People maxed out their masteries in a week or two. So if you’re a more casual player, maybe it takes you a month to get all your masteries. It’s a new expansion. Surely a month to get your masteries isn’t that hard.

The masteries you need, absolutely need are the first three gliding, the first itzel, the first exalt and the first two nuhoch. If that took you a week you did something terrible wrong.

The rest of those you can get any time you want, at your leisure without grinding.

I never did any grinding. I did events. If you just go through the hubs and do the events in VB, you can easily get enough mastery experience and points to get all the masteries you need to go to TD. It doesn’t take much longer than completing a zone in the core game, when you didn’t know how to complete zones.

This is a new expansion. Getting through it shouldn’t be instant. Playing it just to get through it is pointless. It’s like saying I only want the masteries but I don’t want to play the zone.

This wasn’t all true at launch, but it was certainly true shortly after launch when two changes were made. Hero points were reduced from 400 to 250 to unlock your elite spec and poison lore was removed as a story requirement. It remains an option to this day, and not something you need.

Mushrooms were an example based off the super mario bros theme we seem to have going on. Feel free to replace it with the “you need this to move faster” mastery of your choice.

And yes, you and I are expert players with full ascended gear, and an invisible bag full of potions but not everybody preps like that. An average player won’t be able to pick up mastery points at a quarter of the speed of a hardcore player. That hurts the game because by the time someone’s unlocked the appropriate masteries, they’ve run through the map to the point where it’s boring. Their only reward was something that would have made the map more fun at the start, but they’ve spent four hours on that map, and want to go do something else. And then they do.

That’s the problem. The Mastery system as-is isn’t fun. It’s also barely progression since you need both a full XP bar and the points to level. If it was just the points that would be fine but the mastery XP bar is currently a way to add progress to the game without adding content. If we didn’t have the bar then rolling through the game would be exploration-based, as it is right now, masteries are a grind.

Food is dirt cheap. Doesn’t matter the food you need. Halloween food gives you 15% bonus to kills. Candy Corn Custard is currently 2 copper on the trading post. I don’t care how casual you are, you should be able to afford 20 copper to have a couple of hours of buff. Potion of ogre grawl slaying (and several others) are 3 copper. They give you another 10%. If you have log in rewards you should have celebration boosters. They give you another 10%. You might even have a birthday booster if you’re been around a while that lasts 24 hours of actual play time and if you happen to belong to any guild that’s been around a bit, you get 10% from just your guild hall buff.

You’re making it sound like these buffs are beyond the means of even the most casual player…but they’re not.

Playiing casually means just doing the events in the area, and killing some stuff. If you’re not doing events and you’re not killing stuff you’re not casual. You’re not playing.

Edit: The mushrooms are nothing like mario brother mushrooms. In mario brothers you have to gude yourself to where you are. These mushrooms require no skill, which means no platforming at all. You get on the mushroom and it places you where you need to be. It’s no different than the portals in DR. You might not like the them, but it’s essentially a portal with a jungle theme. That’s all it is.

Finalfreefall.8247:

Vayne.8563:

Skor.4652:

Vayne.8563:

Dashingsteel.3410:

I don’t agree….. I think HoT was a massive change from core gw2……. This has nothing to do with difficulty of enemies…… The game became more of a player vs map game. The HoT maps have an obstacle course feel to them…………

Not to mention the many changes of other components(guild influence system changed, gated content, nintento style adventures, farming requirements increased from core game)

That sort of stuff existed in the game from day one. Vistas at the end of jumping puzzles is the easiest example. That was player vs. map.

The anti was upped in Dry Top which is absolutely player vs. map.

It’s not like this suddenly happened with HoT.

Hell even South Sun showed signs of it and that was released only months after the game came out.

Not even close. If I didn’t want to do a jumping puzzle, it didn’t impact my game progression at all. Almost all vistas were easy to get to and didn’t really require the same amount of mario bros skills that HOT maps do.

So something that was rare and optional became constant and required in the expansion.

With the exception of adventures. there are virtually no mario brothers skills to get through HoT maps. Those who say there are didn’t spend long enough on those maps.

You can pretty much walk to most places. Jumping mushrooms require very very very little skill. If you can jump on the mushroom it places you were you want to be.

The fact is this oft repeated platforming claim has very little to back it up. I can walk you from one end of VB to the other. At night choppers land to take you to the canopy. You need to interact with a rope to get there.

AB is even less of a platforming experience. It’s mostly a flat map.

DS doesn’t have any platforming, except a single hero point.

It’s easy to say something. If you don’t believe me, get into the game and I’ll show you how little platforming actually exists.

Hmmm… If I may step in, it appears the issue here is not one of difficulty. The mushroom in question is a time gate in that: you are intentionally spending more time then necessary to do something. Map shortcuts are cool and interesting when you can use them, but when you have to grind for something as simple as not taking the stairs (while other people just jump past you) it tends to put the elevator in a negative light.

And, to reply in advance to the ‘level masteries’ response that’s been popping up recently: Grinding takes time and effort, and is not as fun part of games.

Grind? For mushrooms? Really? You must be playing a different game than me.

Mushrooms are the first, single mastery point mastery of itzel law. In theory you could see it grinding to get leyline gliding, but just doing events, I got all the mastetries I needed to get through HOT in the first day or two of the expansion release. What you call grinding, I call playing.

It doesn’t take you hours to unlock mushroom jumping. It doesn’t even take you an hour. You can get both mushroom jumping and basic gliding in an hour, and it’s a lot faster that that if you use buffs like food and utliities which anyone can get. And now with guild buffs in the mix, it’s easy and fast to level those.

People maxed out their masteries in a week or two. So if you’re a more casual player, maybe it takes you a month to get all your masteries. It’s a new expansion. Surely a month to get your masteries isn’t that hard.

The masteries you need, absolutely need are the first three gliding, the first itzel, the first exalt and the first two nuhoch. If that took you a week you did something terrible wrong.

The rest of those you can get any time you want, at your leisure without grinding.

I never did any grinding. I did events. If you just go through the hubs and do the events in VB, you can easily get enough mastery experience and points to get all the masteries you need to go to TD. It doesn’t take much longer than completing a zone in the core game, when you didn’t know how to complete zones.

This is a new expansion. Getting through it shouldn’t be instant. Playing it just to get through it is pointless. It’s like saying I only want the masteries but I don’t want to play the zone.

This wasn’t all true at launch, but it was certainly true shortly after launch when two changes were made. Hero points were reduced from 400 to 250 to unlock your elite spec and poison lore was removed as a story requirement. It remains an option to this day, and not something you need.

While I disagree it’s the most boring quest ever, it’s not exactly thrilling.

Doing hearts over and over until you get what you need simply isn’t fun for me.

There was an official customer service forum, but not a general forum. I myself posted to the customer service forum, but it wasn’t a game forum. It was for people who were experiencing technical difficulties.

Dawdler.8521:

Vayne.8563:

You don’t change the name of a franchise just because the game has changed. Star Trek Deepspace 9 took place on a space station, not a starship. They weren’t trekking anywhere, but it was still called Star Trek.

What a silly thing to say, since DS9 fired up its engines and trekked to the wormhole in the first episodes, lol. Also they got a ship later and travelled all over the place in shuttles.

Anyway, its Guild Wars. Literally. We have plenty of beefs with other guilds in WvW. Thats not why its called Guild Wars of course. Doesnt really matter.

There have been other shows/series that didn’t change names though the topic has changed too. The point is you pour money, real money, into building an IP. You don’t rename a series just because the IP experiences changes.

Star Trek was about a trek to the stars. It was about the voyage of the Starship Enterprise which traveled around (sort of like a trek).

Whether DS 9 moved in an episode or 2, the entire story wasn’t about a trek at all. It followed for the most part, a single world, a single space station and the relationship between the two.

I was a diehard trek fan for a long long time and every fan I’ve ever talked to acknowledged the major differences between DS 9 and the rest of the series, all of which had ships that moved around through space to different locations all the time.

The Guild Wars were a historic reference even in Guild Wars 1, but they didn’t take place in Guild Wars 1. Only a foolish company would change the IP name, even if the game changed, because there’s so much money tied up in recognition.

You don’t change the name of a franchise just because the game has changed. Star Trek Deepspace 9 took place on a space station, not a starship. They weren’t trekking anywhere, but it was still called Star Trek.

Dashingsteel.3410:

The difference is in HoT the entire map feels like an obstacle course….. I will grant you Dry Top seemed transitional…….. but none of the other core maps come close to the player vs map rigor that goes with HoT

What obstacles are you talking about specifically. I don’t remember any obstacles. I know there are jumping mushrooms. I know there are updrafts. I’m not sure how that’s an obstacle course. This is particularly true of AB, but all the zones have relatively easy ways to get around them.

I don’t recall anything as bad as the vizier’s tower, for example. Or even the Breached Wall or the Scaffolding JP in Dredgehaunt, which you need to do to get to a vista.

Skor.4652:

Vayne.8563:

Dashingsteel.3410:

I don’t agree….. I think HoT was a massive change from core gw2……. This has nothing to do with difficulty of enemies…… The game became more of a player vs map game. The HoT maps have an obstacle course feel to them…………

Not to mention the many changes of other components(guild influence system changed, gated content, nintento style adventures, farming requirements increased from core game)

That sort of stuff existed in the game from day one. Vistas at the end of jumping puzzles is the easiest example. That was player vs. map.

The anti was upped in Dry Top which is absolutely player vs. map.

It’s not like this suddenly happened with HoT.

Hell even South Sun showed signs of it and that was released only months after the game came out.

Not even close. If I didn’t want to do a jumping puzzle, it didn’t impact my game progression at all. Almost all vistas were easy to get to and didn’t really require the same amount of mario bros skills that HOT maps do.

So something that was rare and optional became constant and required in the expansion.

With the exception of adventures. there are virtually no mario brothers skills to get through HoT maps. Those who say there are didn’t spend long enough on those maps.

You can pretty much walk to most places. Jumping mushrooms require very very very little skill. If you can jump on the mushroom it places you were you want to be.

The fact is this oft repeated platforming claim has very little to back it up. I can walk you from one end of VB to the other. At night choppers land to take you to the canopy. You need to interact with a rope to get there.

AB is even less of a platforming experience. It’s mostly a flat map.

DS doesn’t have any platforming, except a single hero point.

It’s easy to say something. If you don’t believe me, get into the game and I’ll show you how little platforming actually exists.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I don’t agree….. I think HoT was a massive change from core gw2……. This has nothing to do with difficulty of enemies…… The game became more of a player vs map game. The HoT maps have an obstacle course feel to them…………

Not to mention the many changes of other components(guild influence system changed, gated content, nintento style adventures, farming requirements increased from core game)

That sort of stuff existed in the game from day one. Vistas at the end of jumping puzzles is the easiest example. That was player vs. map.

The anti was upped in Dry Top which is absolutely player vs. map.

It’s not like this suddenly happened with HoT.

Hell even South Sun showed signs of it and that was released only months after the game came out.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Of course no game is perfect, but I believe that the complaint was that someone finds a game they like and then an expansion comes along an fundamentally changes the game in such a manner that it is no longer enjoyable.

What is wrong in asking or expecting for more of the same in an expansion?

I don’t think the expansion is substantially different than the game before the expansion, except maybe in the complexity of zones. But I play the expansion exactly the same way I played the core game. It’s harder, but then I expected that since we were told it would be harder and because it was meant to be end game content because there was never enough of it.

I remember when EoTN came out a lot of people found that hard, but it was made to be end game content. I’m not sure why people didn’t think it would be more difficult.

But there’s been a consistent change in the game since day one. Living story got harder. Drytop is a map that’s more vertical and Southsun, Drytop and Silverwastes all are harder than any of the core maps. I bet it’s just as hard to solo a fort defense in the Silverwastes as it is to clear an enemy camp in VB night.

The fact is, the game has been changing, and people simply didn’t notice it.

If you played instances like Fractals you were probably more ready for the changes.

But people who solo, don’t get involved in the community or other aspects of the game, this all came as quite a shock to them.

But even back in the day, the Marionette fight was far harder than core Tyria and Triple Thread requires more coordination than anything in HoT but raids.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I think Skor.4652 has a valid point. His tastes haven’t changed the product has(obviously Skor favored flat maps to multitiered maps).

And there are tons of flat maps and very very few multitiered ones. I’ve offered (and very very rarely have people on these forums accept) to take people around the HoT maps free of charge, and show them how to navigate them and deal with some of the harder foes.

The maps aren’t nearly as hard as people make them out to be. They are an adjustment, that’s for sure, but there are people who did take me up on that offer that no longer have a problem with HOT maps.

I agree with Blaeys, at least about the raid issue.

But I do lots of stuff with my guild, including HOT metas, hero point runs, zone completion. In essence, I found HoT to be a perfect platform for my guild to play together.

We really don’t raid (we’ve toyed with it a bit) but we do a lot of open world stuff together, including story achievements, the new zones, and map completion.

Edit: As to being nice to Anet, I’m only as nice as I am happy with the game. Why would I recommend a game I was less than happy with?

I still do recommend the game to friends, but not at quite the rate I once did.

It’s not happening. It’s never been mentioned or discussed. There simply aren’t enough players in this region to justify the costs. Servers in this game would mean you only play with people in that region.

But the game requires a lot of people for a lot of different things. If you split us out of say the US server, which is where most Austrlians go, we simply wouldn’t have enough people to do everything. Now, on the US servers, we do, because you get late night/early morning US people and Oceanics.

The game is 4.5 years old. If it was going to have an Aussie server, it’d have had one already.

My advice to you is to join a filithy casual guild. Because you can be casual and part of a guild. If you’re on a US server, hit me up in game, I can help you get through almost anything. It doesn’t take a zerg. It takes just a little bit of knowledge.

phys.7689:

Vayne.8563:

Feanor.2358:

Vayne.8563:

Forcing people into areas they don’t enjoy doesn’t make the game better for anyone.

That’s factually untrue. It did make it better for me, on two separate occasions. First, I was forced into WvW because of the Gift of Battle change. And I ended up enjoying it. Second, I was forced into raiding, because I’m kind of completionist and want everything possible for my main. I ended up enjoying that, too.

The big negative of giving the same reward across multiple game modes is it doesn’t stimulate you to step out of your current comfort zone. People tend to stick with what they know. Giving them an incentive to try something new objectively does make the game better.

A valid middle ground would be to introduce a new set, with different means of acquisition. This way you’d still keep the incentive for people to try raiding, while giving another for something else. But ANet seem reluctant to do it for some reason.

P.S. It’s not a coincidence they added reward tracks as an alternative of content they chose to no longer support.

It is true. Because you ended up enjoying it. You were forced into an area of the game that you didn’t know if you’d like or not and ended up enjoying it. I’ve raided enough, several hours now, to know that I don’t enjoy it. I’ve PvPed that much as well.

If I enjoyed it, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.

you are wrong because you claim there is no benefit, and he claims there is some benefit.

also id say he is right, there are some benefits.
however, i’d say a dev should carefully weigh the benefits and the goal, each time they lock something.

as a general rule, id say cosmetics can be locked
if an item requires attaining mastery, it should only be locked if the item itselfs main use is heavily tied to the content. like agony infusion in fractals, even though agony itself was a boring mechanic.

if an item is primarily to get people to try X, they should probably not make it exclusive, but rather make it way more efficient than to do it in another way. that or require only a small investment.

but a game, imo definately needs to incentivize certain actions, and if everything you do could get you anything else, everything would be at war with each other in terms of effeciency.

which would lead to a game that wasnt very fullfilling.

I think there’s no net benefit if more people leave the game than stay with the format you’re “forcing them into”.

That is to say, over all, if 5% of the playerbase is really annoyed by it, but 1% of the playerbase ends up liking a format they’ve previously avoided, then the benefit is a negative. I’m thinking about it from a business point of view.

If I make changes to my shop and I sell less because of it, even if a small percentage of customers like the change, then there’s no benefit. The benefit doesn’t exist.

My argument is this sort of thing hurts the game, thus there is no benefit. Some people may like it but that doesn’t necessarily benefit the game.

This is the same thing with gear progression. Some people crave it, but adding it to this game will not benefit this game. Too many people would feel betrayed, and the negative publicity alone would hurt the game. Too many people are here because there is no gear progression.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Vayne.8563:

I play without youtube, until I get what I can, then, maybe I go to finish it off. like I got 32 of the Mursaat Tokens in Ember Bay on my own and only recently went and looked where the last 8 were.

Vayne: you are your own YouTube for your guildies. I lost track of how many times people have taken you up on your offer to be shown around, for puzzles or scavenging, or various instanced content.

And I’d argue that getting help from someone in the game (such as Vayne) isn’t meaningfully different from getting that help from Dulfy or the wiki or QTfy indirectly.

I’m impressed with folks who can manage it on their own without a guide. And some stuff I’ll do on my own. But sometimes ANet’s idea is that if finding 10 rocks is fun than finding 60 is six times as fun… and for me, it’s not at all; it’s less fun.

The funny bit is, I get a lot of credit, but most of what I learn comes from playing with my wife who just loves to explore (as you well know). She’s the real hero in all this.

I just get the accolades. lol

Faaris.8013:

Most comments here sound really idealistic. Have you tried to find all karka bugs in Lion’s Arch on your own? If so, congratulations. With the karkas, I even get the “I try alone until I can’t find any more and then look it up”, but I don’t even remember which heroe points I communed at in Tangled Depths. If they require heroe points for something in the future, I will have to check all locations anyway to get more.

Fortunately, the achievement tab lists the numbers for things like the Dive Master achievement. When I decided to finish it, I only had to look up those I haven’t done already by simply playing the game.

Another thing is that some of these collections are tied to something you need. I only finished the Dive Master achievement because I wanted the Mastery Point, same with the Skritt labyrinth and the karka hunt. I don’t find it fun to do these things and would rather spend my time in the game doing something else. So I’m glad that there are people who enjoy that content and share their experience on youtube.

There is an underlying tone here in some posts that express superiority if you “find things out on your own, don’t take the easy road, be patient.” For me, trial and error is not the best way to find things out. If I have information available, I use it. The designers already take into account that there is a wiki and youtube videos when designing new content. It should be challenging even if you already have the information. Knowing where the goggles are in the Not so Secret JP doesn’t really make it less harder to get the achievement. Knowing the mechanics of an encounter is often necessary to succeed.

I have no patience with people who don’t look up how to best fight Golem Mark II and ignore what people tell them in chat, staying dead on the ground for minutes, whine because nobody resurrects them, making the fight harder for everybody else (because they are part of the scaling without contributing). I wished nobody would resurrect them after the fight so they have to do the 20 seconds run from the waypoint anyway. Even knowing the mechanics, it takes some practice to learn where to stand and when to dodge. I look up fractals before I join a group, and are still surprised how it really works when you are actually playing them. My challenge is not to build new roads that lead to Rome, but to make them better and more efficient. That’s not less valuable than creating roads, just different.

The karka had a sound affect that increased in volume as you got closer. I got all of them without resorting to looking them up. I did it with my wife and between us we figured them all out by following the clues in combination with the audo queues.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t think everyone has the same memory or same set of directions. While I had little problem learning this map, I can understand why the OP is frustrated by it.

I can understand why people have trouble when they first encounter it. I don’t accept that it’s okay to stop there and claim it’s a horrid map.

I have trouble on every map. My brain has difficulty distinguishing left & right (and so east & west) and top & bottom (so north & south). And the UI’s limitations for displaying height are vexing even in a single-layer map.

So I know going in that I’m going to be lost most of the time to start with. It is challenging to get around and so it’s worth learning (through trial & error or reading about it) various tricks for navigating.

• The map works like a healix: a spiral shape with a couple of layers.
• In this map, unlike others, lava tubes are your friend. Take them all the way up and glide down to any level.
• Updrafts are less friendly, in that they often won’t take you up a layer.
• Sometimes the best way down is to go up and glide down.
• Oakheart’s Reach is useful everywhere; get in the habit of grabbing it and using it all the time. It can be used while gliding, while falling, and allows you to fix a whole host of mistakes we all tend to make when navigating.
• Identify one spot in each layer and find a reliable way to reach it, one that works for you. (It turns out that there are usually 3-4.)

Or in shorter form: when in doubt, lava tub up the map and glide down, using Oakheart’s Reach as a safety, um, web.

Don’t get me wrong, I personally love the map. It’s my kind of map and the mastery feels made for me. After Bitterfrost and Lake Doric which I didn’t particularly like (they were okay for telling the story but I wouldn’t spend time there by choice), this is a map I can spend hours on just exploring. I like it as much or more than Ember Bay and I really like Ember Bay.

Still the OP doesn’t like that type of map and is entitled to that opinion. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but that’s not really the point.

I play without youtube, until I get what I can, then, maybe I go to finish it off. like I got 32 of the Mursaat Tokens in Ember Bay on my own and only recently went and looked where the last 8 were.

Game is better generally in PvE than it is in PvP, but if you were bored playing alone before, you’ll be bored playing alone now. Solution?

Find someone to play with.

Feanor.2358:

The point stays. If the approach makes some players discover new content they enjoy, it’s good for the game and it makes it better. That it didn’t work for you is unfortunate, but doesn’t make it objectively bad.

If you can’t see the difference between locking a single reward type, between a single type of content, or encouraging people to try content, I’m not sure what to tell you. There are many ways to encourage people to try content. This reward encourages me to not play as much, and over time, maybe not at all. I’m not sure why anyone would defend that.

Feanor.2358:

Vayne.8563:

Forcing people into areas they don’t enjoy doesn’t make the game better for anyone.

That’s factually untrue. It did make it better for me, on two separate occasions. First, I was forced into WvW because of the Gift of Battle change. And I ended up enjoying it. Second, I was forced into raiding, because I’m kind of completionist and want everything possible for my main. I ended up enjoying that, too.

The big negative of giving the same reward across multiple game modes is it doesn’t stimulate you to step out of your current comfort zone. People tend to stick with what they know. Giving them an incentive to try something new objectively does make the game better.

A valid middle ground would be to introduce a new set, with different means of acquisition. This way you’d still keep the incentive for people to try raiding, while giving another for something else. But ANet seem reluctant to do it for some reason.

P.S. It’s not a coincidence they added reward tracks as an alternative of content they chose to no longer support.

It is true. Because you ended up enjoying it. You were forced into an area of the game that you didn’t know if you’d like or not and ended up enjoying it. I’ve raided enough, several hours now, to know that I don’t enjoy it. I’ve PvPed that much as well.

If I enjoyed it, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.

Feanor.2358:

Vayne.8563:

The status situation is what I dislike most about the addition of raids to the game. I thought the game was a better game before legendary armor became the new status symbol.

You’re being subjective here. If they added a type of content which appealed to you, you wouldn’t dislike it. Players always create “status symbols” out of thin air. AP numbers, specific titles, legendaries, they are all used to that purpose. It’s not something inherent to the object in question, it’s the perception of the players.

This is factually untrue. I’ve often argued for rewards to be brought out in multiple game types, even though the game type it was out in was something I enjoyed.

I’m in favor of people getting rewards for playing the areas of the game they enjoy. I’ve always been for that. I always will be.

Forcing people into areas they don’t enjoy doesn’t make the game better for anyone. Keeping rewards from people who don’t like a specific game type doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

That’s why they added dungeon reward tracks to PvP and WvW and I was all for it, even though I ran plenty of dungeons.

Dindin.2378:

To expand on my post, progression is not the only thing lacking from the game. There is no rarity. Everything is obtainable and crafting is not the same as in other MMORPG’s. There is no excitement when killing a mob to drop a really unique item. Yes you can drop precursors, but I do not think these are enough. Maybe its tied to the lack of progression. If Legendary Weapons would REALLY be Legendary I would understand. But they are not, everybody is walking around with them. They have mediocre stats and do not make you all that powerful. There is no prestige or status left anymore with having one.

Boy am I glad I don’t play this game for status. There are skins that very very few people have btw.

99% of the players of the game probably don’t have pinnacle weapons. I have them and almost never use them. Because I just want my characters to look cool. I don’t need status to enjoy the game.

The status situation is what I dislike most about the addition of raids to the game. I thought the game was a better game before legendary armor became the new status symbol.

With guilds not bound to server, the number of guilds listed would be in the thousands. Guilds higher up on the page, in the search would have huge advantages over the other guilds. How would Anet even sort it.

If it was alphabetic, my guild would be screwed, since the guild name because with W. If it was number of members, the top guilds would keep getting more and more and everyone else would be basically closed out.

The best way to recruit, I find, is one on one in game. Talking to people, playing with people, and bringing them into a guild they’d fit into.

Choosing a guild from text on a list of thousands of guilds doesn’t sound like it would benefit very many people at all.

You can always just ask in map chat in a hub area if any guilds are recruiting.

I don’t think the new expansion will be make or break for the game. By the same token, I don’t think the game is going to grow hugely bigger than it is. MMOs tend to settle into a place in the overall pantheon of MMOs and I think Guild Wars 2 is up there in the top five. I don’t really see it going anywhere, unless some really bad mistakes are made.

The initial response to HOT certain did hurt the company some, but then the better reaction to the Living World brought some of the good will back.

I’d say to be make or break, the expansion would have to be terrible and fundamentally change the game.

Since the game is not likely to fundamentally change at this point, I don’t really see how it can make or break anything.

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

AliamRationem.5172:

Hey, look at that! Agreement reached on an internet forum between several people with different outlooks? I guess there’s a first time for everything. I’m with you guys. I have my preferences, but I don’t need to have it all my way.

I think they’ve done a pretty good job of correcting with the map design in LS3. We now have 2:3 ratio in favor of flat maps. That’s probably (correct me if I’m wrong?) more palatable to players who prefer flat maps than the original HoT offerings.

As a player who prefers maps like Tangled Depths and Verdant Brink, I still consider the flat maps in LS3 better than any of the core Tyria offerings. But the vertical maps, while good, feel like map-lite. BF is a tiny map and DM feels full of unused space. Probably due to the time crunch. I hope to see something more like a TD in the next expansion.

The other problem I have with LS3 the reward pool feels too shallow. I want to spend time on these maps, but I don’t have a goal to work toward. The shared currency between maps (unbound magic) has potential, but I feel it’s being underutilized. This may relate to the time crunch, but perhaps it can be addressed after the storyline is completed.

that’s it in a nutshell, having a ratio of maps where the majority is flat but there is complex maps in the mix is reasonable and fair and gives everyone what they want. This is why someone arguing about a zone in isolation and asserting the whole game is ruined is not getting what a mmorpg is about. The virtual world as a cohesive whole, not just the latest extension that you happen to like/dislike. Part of this viewpoint is a learned behavior from older mmorpg where latest expansion = rest of world is killed off i suspect, but that’s not the case in GW2.

Not sure why you are accusing someone of “not getting” MMOs when they are simply expressing their opinion. Even if it is true that the world is a cohesive whole (not sure I agree, if a fantasy MMO suddenly introduced spaceships, for instance), that doesn’t mean that someone can’t have an opinion that certain added content ruined it for that person.

I agree with this. Everyone can have an opinion whether they get MMOs or not. Of course, some opinions may be unreasonable and some may be perfectly reasonable, but it doesn’t stop people from having those opinions.

In a case like Guild Wars 2, it’s understandable that people have opinions about HOT, because it is a significant change from the game they’d loved all along.

For some of us, it’s fine because we played harder content all along, and so it wasn’t such a huge different. And maybe some of us all played a lot of Tombraider (like me) and so the maze thing is second nature to me, and actually quite enjoyable.

Change comes to all MMOs, but sudden change is going to leave a percentage of people feeling disenfranchised, particularly if they don’t like the direction of the change.

That’s always been the issue with HOT. For some people it was too much too fast.

Oh sure, but 10,000 is probably very very low for it.

As an example, I farm Ember Bay every day because I need karma. There are two zones right now that offer the karma buff I need.

There are also dailies in all those zones and people do them. That will keep SOME people there.

Will those zones empty out when the expansion first comes out. No doubt.

But just like HOT, the new living story comes out, people leave HOT for a couple of days, a week later, HoT was as busy as it was.

But even at the emptiest, I always find people in those zones. Even on the day of the new content.

I don’t really believe there are times when only 10,000 people are playing. I find it more likely that the number is higher even at off hours, and much much higher at peak hours. Even if only 300,000 people play this game, I’d expect there to be more than 10,000 people at any give time, and even if only 10% of them do what they want, that leaves a lot of people divided between a lot of zones.

Some people will go there for the dailies, some to farm karma, or XP or whatever currency. Some will go do the jumping puzzle, because they like it, some will just be doing stories on an alt, but people will be there.

Not hundreds of people, maybe, but you don’t need hundreds of people.

If anything the core zones would have been more likely to be deserted, but then free to play players can only access core zones.

I strongly suspect even when the new expansion launches, there’ll be people on those zones to do content, perhaps after an initial dropoff.

By the same token I’m sure Anet would rather have people in the expansion than those zones. I think they’re designed to hold us over.

Labjax.2465:

Vayne.8563:

It works because I play those zones often and there are plenty of people around. The fact that the core playerbase does log in every two months, which is all you have to do to unlock the story means most paid players probably have it.

And other people simply have the gold to convert to gems to not spend any real money. Others are used to downloading DLC and paying for it.

It’s not like all the zones dont’ have traffic, because they do.

I’m sure they have traffic now. As far as I’m aware, most of them are pretty fresh. I’m talking down the road, long-term activity. The argument I’m making is not outlining a dire scenario. They could probably wait 6 months or so from now, then let anyone with HoT access those zones, and it’d be fine. Too bad for me that way, but in terms of activity concerns, they could probably do it that way and avoid the long-term issue of it.

That’s the whole point behind a megaserver. You don’t need five hundred people. A hundred people in a zone is plenty. So is 50 in most cases.

If 10,000 people are playing at once, the odds are you can get 50 in a zone.

Labjax.2465:

Hmm. Well that’s disappointing. Don’t really understand how that’s supposed to work for map population, locking new zones completely behind story chapters. HoT maps are one thing; it’s a paid expansion, like when you pay for the base game. But the story chapters are something you get for free just for being logged in at the right time. It’s a different setup.

It seems to me that they are dooming said maps to being well and truly dead in six months to a year. With the way turnaround of players works, they’ll steadily lose some of the people who had access at all and some who do have access will, by then, have no desire to go back.

I realize you can unlock chapters you missed with gems, but if they’re going for forcing you to spend gems (or save up your gold for buying the gems), then they can expletive my expletive. I just won’t visit those maps and the people who would benefit from some extra players around, like myself, will suffer for it.

I still have a fond perception of Bitterfrost Frontier though.

But this system of map unlocking, well… different kind of Bitter going on there. Bad taste in my mouth.

It works because I play those zones often and there are plenty of people around. The fact that the core playerbase does log in every two months, which is all you have to do to unlock the story means most paid players probably have it.

And other people simply have the gold to convert to gems to not spend any real money. Others are used to downloading DLC and paying for it.

It’s not like all the zones dont’ have traffic, because they do.

Hubal.8571:

If I recall when the bloodstone fen was introduced one of my guildies used “Teleport to Friend” to access it. But that only means he was able to skip on the related living story, as of course that chapter was free for anyone who logged in.
It still might work to access the map, since as far as I can tell only the story chapter is locked.

We’ve tested it. If you try to use a TP to a friend without the story unlocked you end up in Lion’s Arch. You can not get to the new zone unless you have the story unlocked.

There’s virtually no underwater PvP left in the game at all. You say that something should be removed because it doesn’t exist in PvP and in the same breath you want them to add something which doesn’t exist in PvP.

They underwater PvP map was removed from the game. The big lake in the borderlands filled with krait, removed from the game as well.

I would prefer Anet not waste their time adding underwater combat to the guild arena, and instead update the underwater combat so it works for all the professions more or less equally.

Labjax.2465:

Vayne.8563:

All the new maps after bloodstone fen have hearts…and repeatable hearts at that. Bitterfrost is actually my least favorite of the new maps. That’s because of the annoying things that freeze you for two seconds. Not a fan. I’ve farmed berries on the map, like everyone else, but I much prefer Ember Bay for farming karma and doing dailies and such.

Obviously if you need unbound magic fast, Bitterfrost is the way to go.

I haven’t been in bloodstone fen or ember bay yet. I think I might need to use a Teleport to Friend, since I don’t have ch1 or 2 unlocked of the next part. Apparently I logged in at some point to get ch3 and then more recently, ch4, but I missed the other two. I thought I read somewhere that you need the story to get there.

I’m pretty sure you can’t teleport to a friend if you don’t have it unlocked. It would be like teleporting to HoT if you didn’t buy HOT. Those zones are only free if you unlocked them while they were live.

All the new maps after bloodstone fen have hearts…and repeatable hearts at that. Bitterfrost is actually my least favorite of the new maps. That’s because of the annoying things that freeze you for two seconds. Not a fan. I’ve farmed berries on the map, like everyone else, but I much prefer Ember Bay for farming karma and doing dailies and such.

Obviously if you need unbound magic fast, Bitterfrost is the way to go.

What’s your evidence that they mean less?

Astralporing.1957:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Yup that’s exactly right, finally getting that item you have been working for for ages because you really want it and its rare can give a burst of pleasure/prestige, its core to rpg and always has been. Everyone running about with the exact same hammer of godly powerlessness +500 is the other side of the coin. As for player looking bad, that’s the problem of the observer.

Nah, if you dress according to rarity, not aestethics, you are just far more likely to end up dressed in a bunch of completely mismatched gear that do not complement each other. I’ve seen it a lot in the games with no transmutation, where people cared only aboit having good stats. I’ve seen it in GW2 as well. The end result is, most of the time, ugly, simply because there was no care put into it looking good.

And it still carries no prestige. If i even notice people dressed like that, it’s generally only when they look so bad i feel the need to laugh and pity them.

flog.3485:

I really don’t think so. It is pretty much set in stone that they would never add gear progression and higher level than 80, just like they never considered in Guild Wars the possibility to raise the lvl higher than 20.

Well, to be completely honest, they did at some time (pre-launch) consider increasing level cap in the future, and just after the introduction of ascended they were talking about continuing on gear progression course. They’ve just abandoned both of those ideas due to backlash it generated then.

Also, i kind of remember, that the “no raids in gw2” approach was also at some time set in stone. Until it suddenly wasn’t.

So, it is possible they will someday change their mind on that one. It would be a complete betrayal of ideas GW2 was build upon, but it wouldn’t be exactly the first time they deviated from their original course.

I just think it’s not very likely to happen in the foreseeable future. But then, i haven’t foreseen raids either.

I honestly don’t ever remember the devs saying there’ll be no raids in Guild Wars 2. They may have said at some point they don’t have plans for it, but I don’t even think I remember seeing that.

And seeing as my feelings against raids are pretty strong, there’s a good chance I’d have remembered it being said.

Many good games require you to make choices that leave other choices behind. That’s something that’s been lacking from this game for a long time. Personally I can’t wait to have more options.