Guild Wars 2

Game is coming out in 2.5 weeks. They’re working on getting the game out. Any changes that came from feedback are probably on a very long list. Programming doesn’t work that quickly.

Ashivan.5216:

Kreed.2768:

A lot of games nowadays include a “Story Mode” difficulty type because they’re designed for people who don’t actually want to play the game, but are there for an interactive, cinematic experience… or something. I guess those types of “gamers” exist now, but I don’t know if an action MMORPG like GW2 needs it. I don’t think the story content is particularly challenging as long as you have a basic grip of the mechanics and run a decent build/gear setup. If you die too easily, a setup that is a bit sturdier might be a solution. Sure, it won’t win you fights quite as fast, but that’s better than not winning them at all, right?

If you’re the type of person that can only enjoys things if there are other people that can’t have them – yes, it makes sense to think like that.

But at the end of the day, why would you care how other people play their story missions?

Shouldn’t those ‘dirty story peasants’ eat their cookies too? In the end they also payed for those, money that are used for further development of the game you love.

I care how other people intereact in the open world sharing events I’m in. If they can’t get through story they should want to get better Doing everything on the easy mode means they’re carried through everything else.

And I don’t actually mind carrying people or teaching them. But it’s naive to think that letting people not learn how to play the game is somehow better for the game.

maddoctor.2738:

Vayne.8563:

We only have five new zones. if half of them are like core Tyria, they’d be frankly dull. So we’d get 2.5 new zones for us and 2.5 new zones for you…I’m not sure who would be happy there.

Judging by the LS3 zones they could make some parts easy and some parts hard.
Siren’s Landing and Ember Bay are the easiest zones of LS3 by far, yet they both have one area that is more appropriate difficulty for an end-game. Shrine of Balthazar in Siren’s Landing and the Mursaat Fortress in Ember Bay.

It all depends if they treat the expansion as something to do after you finish the rest of the game (like Heart of Thorns) or if they treat it as something fresh players will do. Use the insta-level 80 booster and go to the expansion ignoring the rest of the game.

The problem for me is that Siren’s Landing doesn’t do it for me. See, VB does it for me, because it’s an entire zone that is cohesive. Every part of it works together. The shortcutes, the multiple ways to get into the canopy without choppers, the hidden stuff. An area of a zone doesn’t fulfill me, and frankly wouldn’t hold my interest.

It’s like reading an action/adventure book where every other chapter is a romance. It wouldn’t work for me.

It may sound selfish but I don’t think this solution will hold most players. Zones like Siren’s Landing wouldn’t keep me playing this game.

symke.3105:

maddoctor.2738:

alceste.8712:

I hope that Arena Net designed content for all types of players this time.

You mean content that is doable by the lowest skilled players? That’s not content for all types of players though, that’s content for those players, still not for everyone.

I think that means content that caters to low AND content that caters to high skilled player.
Imagine HOT maps designed slightly different. With a central, flat area that resembles core GW2 and all those roots, branches and whatnot above and below that central area. Central area offers easier content while all other areas offer content for “skilled” players. Not impossible.

The problem is the expansions aren’t that big to begin with. Most of the game is dead easy. 90% of it probably. We need something easier than HoT but harder than core Tyria, more like the Season 3 zones I think.

We only have five new zones. if half of them are like core Tyria, they’d be frankly dull. So we’d get 2.5 new zones for us and 2.5 new zones for you…I’m not sure who would be happy there.

I’ve done DS almost every day this week, haven’t crashed. I have seen crashes, but they’re pretty infrequent.

AFAIK there is no retail box for PoF. Therefore it will not be in stores…again to my knowledge.

@Ashen

Okay let’s try this from another point of view, that of a developer. The developer has to make content that is not too easy and not too hard for a percentage of the people. Too hard for most people and the game can’t be played. Too easy for most people and most people find it boring.

I’m not talking about whether you find it hard or I find it hard. There are people who know certain games are hard and certain games are easy more generally.

I’m not batter, but I’m a good fielder. I wouldn’t go to a batting range and ask them to change their entire business so I could hit the ball, because I know that the way it’s set it, is set up for people who know how to hit. This is what I’m talking about.

Yes, some people can find a game easy and some people can find a game hard, but beyond that, there has to be some sort of baseline to make a game in the first place.

By your logic if a terrible player, playing on a really really old machine with terrible internet can come here and say yes this game is too hard, make it easier so I can play it.

For him the game would be truly hard. But that doesn’t make the game hard, and if you made it so that guy could play it, 90% of the rest of the people would likely find it too easy and get bored.

Games are created around a baseline of how difficult the company wants the game to be. This is necessarily to keep people interested in the game. Guild Wars 2 did have a very low baseline in core. And Orr had been harder and people complained and Anet nerfed it.

By nerfing Orr, Anet took away some of what they wanted in the game in the first place. They wanted challenging end game open world zones. They said this. They talked about this.

Orr was a bit obnoxious but I don’t think it was really difficult. I think some people did find it difficult, but I don’t believe they were very good players. This is a problem all games have. If you make them too easy for too many people you lose the people that do want challenge.

You’re talking about the subjective feeling of whether something is easy or not, but there is such a thing as difficulty. Here’s an example.

Dodging and moving out of circles that give you a clear tell and more than 2 seconds isn’t hard. It may be hard for some people but the actual act of moving and dodging out of that circle is not hard.

None of the mechanics in HOT is difficult per say. You have a sniper who puts a clear target on your head and when he does, you can move sideways to avoid the red line of death that he’s going to hit you with. That’s not hard. It may be difficult for some people, but objectively moving sideways when you see a target isn’t hard.

There’s a smokescale that does a lot of damage, but also dies fast, as long as you hit it when it’s not in it’s circle of mist, when it’s invulnerable. If you melee it in that circle, you’ll likely die. But it has no range. You can run away from it draw it out of it’s circle and it dies very fast. Again, it’s not a hard mechanic. The circle is very easy to see.

The hardest thing in all of VB is probably the frogs that shoot circles of poison because those circles of poison are harder to see. For me, I’m colorblind, I can barely seem them at all, but I can see my health bar going down fast and I know to dodge out of it. Again, even with my limitiations, this isn’t objectively hard.

There are people out there, and I’ve watched them, who want to charge into everything with a sword and hit it, no matter what they agrro on the way. Those people may have a lot of trouble in HOT because HoT requires you too look around and know what’s going on.

But the mechanics set up in HOT aren’t “hard”, whether people find them hard or not. When you start adding lots of mechanics on top of each other, say a sniper who’s targeting you and a tormenter, who’s putting torment on you, it gets harder. It means you have to move out of the way of the red line of death, while not moving too far and killing yourself, but even then, the tormenter has pretty clear circles indicating what you can’t step in while you’re moving.

It takes practice…it’s not really hard, from the point of view of creating a game.

There is always going to be someone who finds something hard, not matter how easy it is, but you can’t create a game based on that subjective definition of hard and easy, because if you make a game too easy for most people, you’ll lose most people.

I don’t believe HoT is too hard for most people who play games generally. It is harder for certain people. It’s harder for mouse turners and skill clickers as an example. But that’s not the best way to play these games and those same people would find end game content in most games hard.

The history is more complex than people have been saying. It’s true originally we could buy the gift of battle with badges of honor, But it’s also true that originally we had to complete all 4 WvW zones as part of world complete, which depending on your server could sometimes take months.

Back then badges of honor didn’t come in achievement point chests, so we had to get them by playing It’s a pretty good bet you’d have needed 8 hours of playing in WvW to get a legendary when the game launched. Achievement point rewards like badges and not having to do map completion in those zones changed the landscape.

It’s not any harder now than it was at launch.

I thought it was 200 gems per episode and every episode comes with a new zone as well. It’s free if you log in when it’s current so you should already have the current episode unlocked, which means you’re missing five, assuming you didn’t log in at all.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

The lack of gem store sales goes to two things. Anet said it themselves. Not enough free to play players picking up HoT. Their words, not my words.

Every game has attrition. This is particularly true of a 3.5 year old game. There were a lot of people who bought HoT, finished it in 3 months and left again. That’s called normal in MMO space. You don’t have to blame HoT for normal. You’re only looking to blame HoT because you don’t personally enjoy it, so you want to read those numbers as not normal.

Most MMOs 3 months after expansion drops lose people. WoW does. No one blames the expansion because it’s expected.

What Anet expected was more free to play players to pick up HoT, because of that happened there probably would have been more gemstore sales

But there was a very loud negative publicity surrounding HoT and launch and anyone in the industry will tell you that’s the worst time for bad publicity because it’s the time when 90% of your sales are being made

Personally the community did more to damage the game than the game itself. In the beginning Anet did make some pretty bad blunders, and those blunders got major coverage. People on the fence don’t buy when that happens.

Less people in the game means less game sales, but then, a content draught for the main player base also means less players which means less gem sales.

You can blame it on HoT all you want. It’s fueled by our dislike for HoT. Normal falloff is normal.

Edit: As an example, dungeon rewards were completely nerfed and a reasonable percentage of the dungeon running community, which did exist, stopped playing. They didn’t stop playing because the jungle was too hard or the maps were too complex> They stopped playing because their content of choice was not worth running. That has very little to do with how many people who played HoT liked HoT.

Edit 2: Here’s a thread from reddit, which is community controlled, instead of just anyone posting anything. People who post stuff that doesn’t get community support tend to get downvoted until they’re posts are no longer visible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6y0ock/i_finally_upgraded_from_core_to_hot_this_weekend/

Naturally reddit is comprised of people who probably know the game better, but at least there, this is what the community thinks.

I’m not blaming HoT for anything. I am debunking your previous assertion that gem sales were stable through HoT launch and for a year thereafter. They weren’t. The only possible explanation I offered as to why was, “Content drought.” not HoT.

The statement about “not enough free players bought HoT” was in the NCSoft report. While ANet may have provided data and analysis, NCSoft made the statement. Lower gem sales being due to free players failing to buy HoT? May have been a thing, but to my knowledge ANet never stated that as a reason. The statement in the report was about revenue from HoT sales being below expectation. In the same report, gem store sales were cited as “stable for Q4/15.”

I also challenged your assertion that raids were at fault for the content drought. While that’s a perception shared by a bunch of people, it’s a flawed one. I’ve already said why. Maybe if you reread without going on a mental tangent that I’m somehow blaming HoT for something, you’ll get what I’m saying.

The rest of your post is addressing things I did not say, or mean to say. I’ve criticized HoT in the past. I leveled no criticisms at the XPac this time.

You mistook ,my meaning, which is fine, since it wasn’t very clear. I’m talking about stable from where it ended up before hot and after hot. Guild Wars 2 was basically making 8 million a month before HoT launched and again when HOT died down is was making about the same. That’s what I meant

It doesn’t mean that the number didn’t go up for launch and drop after three months, because that’s expected. I’m looking at what the game had been doing and what the game started doing again after the initial rush. Where it settled. And yes, it was about what it had been before.

Now it’s less, but that’s a lot later.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t believe your way is more fun. All you can say is that it would be more fun for you. I personally prefer a token system.

Edit: Farming gold allows me to play in a lot of places, not just one place to get a specific item that I might never get.

I know you believe so. And we never know for sure if with the other system would have been better able at retaining people.

Then again, for all non-accountbound items you would still have your grind for gold option if you prefer that. So that does not change.

Also this approach would not trequire you to only play in one place, it requires you to play in one specific place for one specific item. That is a difference. It means that when you go after rewards you will llikely do all the content. Instead of only the things that are the best to grind for gold.

It’s also a more ‘life of the land’ mentality vs a work for cash and buy mentality.
Thing is, in the current approach, the people who prefer the ‘life of the land’ will get bored and leave (well, left). While in the other approach they don’t while people who want do to other content to earn gold to then buy what they want can still do so.
So logically more people would be happy (don’t get bored) with that approach.

It’s the best of both worlds.

But I don’t want to play in one place for one specific item. In Guild Wars 1 it was Bogroots Growth to get a Frog Scepter I never had. I don’t want to farm over and over again for a voltaic spear.

In Guild Wars 1 you could buy that stuff with gold, but most of that stuff inthis game you can’t. There are obviously reasons for that as well.

Right now, no matter what I ‘m doing I’m making gold or something that can become gold. I don’t need to “farm” it and I don’t. I just play the game.

I think the OP is highly underestimating soul beast. There were some very high DPS builds in evidence over the demo weekend. So I would imagine they’ll have to be nerfed.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

Five months of a content draught is a long time, particularly for an expansion that wasn’t huge to begin with. If you look, at every other MMO they follow the same pattern. WoW subs start falling off after 3 months and by six they’re pretty low.

Raids aren’t a scapegoat. Raids are a very visible target that wouldn’t have been a target if something besides raids were coming out for the PvE crowd.

You can’t take a casual PvE game with no raids, add raids and then ignore the rest of PvE for 9 months without actually experiencing some raid hate. Not necessarily because raids deserve it, but because they become a symptom of what’s wrong.

Yeah, that’s the perception, but it isn’t the reality. The reality is that most of the live team was working on things other than raids, it’s just that they felt they needed to address issues with HoT and lay the groundwork for regular periodic living story episodes going forward. They no more ignored general PvE in the drought than they did in the ~9 month drought that preceded HoT release.

After five months, sales fell about back to were they were and it took more than a year before they dropped to their currert low state.

As stated before, Q2/16 was the biggest drop in revenue from (primarily) gem sales that the game had seen. They went from a median in the months preceding HoT of ~21,000 Mn KW to ~14,000 Mn KW. They may have dropped further since (I lost interest in following the numbers tbh) , but you cannot say that gem sales remained stable for a year after HoT launched and be accurate. In fact, of those discussing the Q2/16 numbers, a lot pointed at the significant drop and blamed the drought, which of course led to blaming raids.

So, I’m going to ask. Did people blame the Shatterer revamp, or the revisions to HoT, or the balance team, the L. Weapons team? No, they blamed raids, because of prejudice. Just as there were a lot of factors that led to HOT sales being substantially lower than there were active accounts before it hit, there are a lot of factors which led to the PvE content drought. Most of those get ignored. That makes raids a scapegoat.

The lack of gem store sales goes to two things. Anet said it themselves. Not enough free to play players picking up HoT. Their words, not my words.

Every game has attrition. This is particularly true of a 3.5 year old game. There were a lot of people who bought HoT, finished it in 3 months and left again. That’s called normal in MMO space. You don’t have to blame HoT for normal. You’re only looking to blame HoT because you don’t personally enjoy it, so you want to read those numbers as not normal.

Most MMOs 3 months after expansion drops lose people. WoW does. No one blames the expansion because it’s expected.

What Anet expected was more free to play players to pick up HoT, because of that happened there probably would have been more gemstore sales

But there was a very loud negative publicity surrounding HoT and launch and anyone in the industry will tell you that’s the worst time for bad publicity because it’s the time when 90% of your sales are being made

Personally the community did more to damage the game than the game itself. In the beginning Anet did make some pretty bad blunders, and those blunders got major coverage. People on the fence don’t buy when that happens.

Less people in the game means less game sales, but then, a content draught for the main player base also means less players which means less gem sales.

You can blame it on HoT all you want. It’s fueled by our dislike for HoT. Normal falloff is normal.

Edit: As an example, dungeon rewards were completely nerfed and a reasonable percentage of the dungeon running community, which did exist, stopped playing. They didn’t stop playing because the jungle was too hard or the maps were too complex> They stopped playing because their content of choice was not worth running. That has very little to do with how many people who played HoT liked HoT.

Edit 2: Here’s a thread from reddit, which is community controlled, instead of just anyone posting anything. People who post stuff that doesn’t get community support tend to get downvoted until they’re posts are no longer visible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6y0ock/i_finally_upgraded_from_core_to_hot_this_weekend/

Naturally reddit is comprised of people who probably know the game better, but at least there, this is what the community thinks.

Devata.6589:

Faaris.8013:

Maybe you are the one that doesn’t understand reward systems in MMO games, but you think your experience and expertise in that field is greater than that of the people in charge at ArenaNet (and of people with common sense)

Can you even picture a situation where that backpack skin and other S1 rewards drop from Molten Boss fractal (after all, it’s the molten boss jetpack)? Everybody would have it within 2 days. People farm that fractal, it’s played thousands of times per day. It would turn all these items into trash. Soon people would start asking for them to be removed (or at least stack to 250) because deleting jetpacks and other items from the inventory takes time. They would be like Mini Professor Mew!

Being able to buy the items with gold is the maximum freedom you can give people. Even gems, since you can buy gems with gold. If you make the skin (example) a rare drop from Molten Boss, how is that not require players to grind? Molten Boss gives so much gold, you could just buy the skin from the TP after a while, maybe even before you get the drop. Personally, I find having the freedom to get gold in a way that suits me, better than having to grind a specific fractal. Somehow you seem to believe that the thousand ways of getting currency in a game is more grinding than doing a fractal over and over to get a drop.

I think Anet has different goals with the rewards, and yes I believe the reward system the way I describe it is way superior from a ‘fun’ perspective (but Anet has a monetize goal for rewards, not a fun goal). Btw, the funny thing is that this specific item was initially implemented in the way as I prefer it. If only that dungeon was not temporary.

The fact that they are in charge at Anet does not mean they know better. Many games did fail with ‘experts in charge’. And Anet has always had a hard time retaining players with the same ‘experts in charge’. The same ‘experts in charge’ made many decisions they later had to come back on, decisions many players where negative about from day one. So being in change does not mean you make the right decision. So this whole “they are the experts so they know better” argument is empty and proven wrong many many times.

“Can you even picture a situation where that backpack skin and other S1 rewards drop from Molten Boss fractal (after all, it’s the molten boss jetpack)? Everybody would have it within 2 days.” The original dungeon it dropped from was farmed many times for more than two days and not everybody had it. This is all about drop-rate. And again this has to do with how the game works by now. There are some types on content people grind a lot (while this changes from time to time). If most rewards would be implemented in such way, grinding content would be less of a thing. So flooding the market with one item would also be less of a problem. However if you would want to go for a specific item you could still buy it from the TP (for a price) or go do the content and farm that specific content until you got it. There are examples of such implementations in other MMO’s without the TP being flooded with them (aka everybody having one within 2 days).
Now if a lot of content would have rewards like this and new people come in the game they might see it at somebody, ask where it comes from and so they mind up doing that dungeon. Then they see another item and they go do so other content that rewards that thing, then they see another items…. Now however it’s most likely that for all the items, the approach is grind gold. Then you can wonder how long it takes for those people to leave the game again being burned out.
“Being able to buy the items with gold is the maximum freedom you can give people. Even gems, since you can buy gems with gold.” Yeah, and it makes the game a big boring grind. But I guess that is great.

“If you make the skin (example) a rare drop from Molten Boss, how is that not require players to grind? Molten Boss gives so much gold, you could just buy the skin from the TP after a while, maybe even before you get the drop.”
This has to do with how you balance the game. Again, if you mainly work with these types of rewards and put them all over the world. Then farming the boss for it will be the fastest way. But that is not how the game is designed. You are working from a mindset based on how things work now in GW2. But they work this way because of how it is designed.
“Personally, I find having the freedom to get gold in a way that suits me, better than having to grind a specific fractal.” That is the nice thing about the other approach. For the not account bound items, you still have the ability to grind. Because some will still end up on the TP. The big difference is that at the same time you also have a more direct approach to go for them.

“Somehow you seem to believe that the thousand ways of getting currency in a game is more grinding than doing a fractal over and over to get a drop.” There are only an x number of optimal ways to get it. And again, you still would have the option to grind gold if you would really like that. Also it’s not always doing that fractal over and over again. It’s doing that fractal over and over again for that one specific item! After that there is another content to do. It are many optional micro farms / grinds vs a few required mega grinds to get the items you want.

The again. The people who hate the grind have likely all left by now. So it does not really matter anymore.

snip

I don’t believe your way is more fun. All you can say is that it would be more fun for you. I personally prefer a token system.

Edit: Farming gold allows me to play in a lot of places, not just one place to get a specific item that I might never get.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

It’s not only possible on every class, but once you know the fights, it’s easy on every class, as long as you’re willing to change your build up, or your weapons, maybe take some food/utility buffs.

Only part I disagree with, mainly because easy is subjective.

I’m not so sure it’s subjective. People who play the game well and know the fights do find it easy. Obviously people who can’t dodge, or have lag, or old machines won’t find it easy. But the truth is, none of this stuff is particularly difficult.

The hardest of all of it is probably the last chapter of the Lake Doric story but after a few repeats, even that becomes easy. It wasn’t easy the first time.

Now it’s possible that some people don’t realize they can set snap to ground target on, to throw the shards without actually aiming, because that makes it a lot easier to break the bar. All you really have to do is move, avoid circles, range and you’ll get it down.

Some people refuse to range and that would make it more challenging.

Mostly every fight has an easy solution. My ability usually runs into finding those solutions. Not every fight can be brute forced though.

Since HoT launched there have been those complaining that the fights in HoT were hard.

If it is easy for some but hard for others then its pretty clear cut that the difficulty is subjective. Some of my guildies breeze through the content, others need help.

Well this is sort of my point. Many of the people who are claiming it is hard, aren’t really interested in learning the game. It’s like saying a sixth grade reader is hard if you don’t learn English.

Mouse clickers probably find it hard, yes. People who keyboard turn, also probably find it hard. I agree with that.

But within the context of games generally, it’s just not that hard. Difficulty is a scale, people’s abilities not withstanding.

What makes something hard or easy is how many people by percentage can accomplish it. It’s a different definition of hard and easy.

Finding something difficult doesn’t necessarily make it difficult, even if it’s difficult for a specific person. That’s where the disconnect here is.

I’m not saying some people don’t find it difficult…but that doesn’t make the content difficult, just difficult for them. It’s a different statement.

There are things that I can’t do in real life that aren’t difficult They’re just difficult for me.

Orpheal.8263:

Nice and good, but I find it a bit pointless in this map to earn like way more crowbars via the events, than you will ever need to open the cargo..

Thats why i find it woudl make more sense to reduce a bit the ration of incoming crowbars and increase there a bit the income ofthe airship parts as compensation therefore, that they crowbars got rarer in numbers you gain

Ive always atm already a stackvof crowbars with me and everytime i do the events chains from day to night, i always end up with having alot of more crowbars, aside from having used up like 30+ of them in the meanwhile from just running around wildly in the map and opening each cargo on the way I cross and find.

I would finds it would make more sense, if these crow bars get a bit moe bang for their buck, therefore that they are made rarer and thus you slowly get lesser as you will earn lesser crowbars in a meta chain back, than you use up with opening cargos in the map.

Would make all this running less of a chore and would enable people also to concentrate more on the events, than running around at the maps for cargo, and thus also risking that not enough people at night are there, where they are needed – at the bosses to ensure that the meta is n success and not that the map is runnign out of time at like 4/5 kills not having enough time anymore for the last boss, cause of too many püeople caring rather for cargo, than for the bosses.

Thats personally also a problem ive with the map design, where you see, that Tarir as comparison is different, there you have all the runnign for loot first, once the meta was successful, it can’t interfere there with defeatign the bosses …

Your initial complaint was it’s easier to make currency in the other maps, which isn’t true. If you have too many crowbars, delete a stack, problem solved.

All the maps shouldn’t be the same. I don’t want to have to wait on or do a meta to get my reward. In this map I can get my reward any time. That’s a step up.

It’s good that the maps are different

Those who enjoy big meta events can do AB and Dragon Stand. Those who like event chains can do DS and TD.

That’s good planning.

I earn currency in VB faster than I earn it in almost any other map. I’m almost always sitting on 10,000 airship parts. Just do the day events in each of the outposts. And open chests with the crowbars you get.

You’ll be swimming in currency. No need to wait for night.

Healix.5819:

Vayne.8563:

I have beaten every single story instance on every single class, solo.

Then you should know just how much easier some professions are. I’ve gone through HoT close to 30 times now with random professions and builds, wearing only what the story provides (empty zerker rares), as they’re all throwaway characters I delete after. The two extremes imo are elementalist and necromancer, where what will 1 shot a zerker ele, the necro won’t even notice.

I don’t find it particularly easier on a necro than I do on a ranger or mesmer. I’ve never found it particularly hard on an ele. Sometimes I find it harder on an engie though because I play the class less/worse.

How you play your profession is as important as what profession it is, along with the build.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

The expansion did fine for well over a year, longer than WoW expansions hold their own The drop in profits only happened after a very long content draught in which the only PvE content coming out was raids. The indictment should be on the raid focus while ignoring the casual player.

Your memory is poor and your prejudice is showing. HoT launched in Q4/15. The content drought extended from its launch until July of 16. The first quarter in which revenue dropped below 20,000 Mn KW was Q2/16 which began about 5 months after HoT launched and included 3 of the last 4 months of the drought. That’s a fair bit less than a year.

By March, 16, people were complaining that there was nothing to do in general PvE. If HoT had done fine for a year, its content would have held peoples’ attention longer than it did.

As to the so-called raid “focus,” that’s where your prejudice is showing. Raids coming in intervals of a few months per wing was known before HoT launched. Access to raids required HoT purchase. Keeping to a schedule does not mean that they abandoned or ignored the casual player.

Other things occupied a lot more dev time than a couple of raid wings to which a small number of devs were assigned. What other things? Shatterer revamp; HoT revamp (bet that took a bunch of person-hours) , at least one balance patch, one L. weapon, two festivals and gearing up to be able to start cranking out Living Story on a more regular basis.

Raids were the scapegoat. A lot of people need to blame something. Some of the non-raid community are prejudiced against raids. Some of the raid community make statements that reinforce the stereotype of raiders as seen by non-raiders. Blaming raids was picking the low-hanging fruit. I guess I’ve grown to expect more from you, and I’m sorry to be disappointed in this one case.

Five months of a content draught is a long time, particularly for an expansion that wasn’t huge to begin with. If you look, at every other MMO they follow the same pattern. WoW subs start falling off after 3 months and by six they’re pretty low.

Raids aren’t a scapegoat. Raids are a very visible target that wouldn’t have been a target if something besides raids were coming out for the PvE crowd

You can’t take a casual PvE game with no raids, add raids and then ignore the rest of PvE for 9 months without actually experiencing some raid hate. Not necessarily because raids deserve it, but because they become a symptom of what’s wrong.

After five months, sales fell about back to were they were and it took more than a year before they dropped to their currert low state.

Most companies would consider that a successful expansion

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

It’s not only possible on every class, but once you know the fights, it’s easy on every class, as long as you’re willing to change your build up, or your weapons, maybe take some food/utility buffs.

Only part I disagree with, mainly because easy is subjective.

I’m not so sure it’s subjective. People who play the game well and know the fights do find it easy. Obviously people who can’t dodge, or have lag, or old machines won’t find it easy. But the truth is, none of this stuff is particularly difficult.

The hardest of all of it is probably the last chapter of the Lake Doric story but after a few repeats, even that becomes easy. It wasn’t easy the first time.

Now it’s possible that some people don’t realize they can set snap to ground target on, to throw the shards without actually aiming, because that makes it a lot easier to break the bar. All you really have to do is move, avoid circles, range and you’ll get it down.

Some people refuse to range and that would make it more challenging.

Mostly every fight has an easy solution. My ability usually runs into finding those solutions. Not every fight can be brute forced though.

Healix.5819:

Tenelia.9035:

I have no freedom to adjust the difficulty or therefore scale the rewards accordingly.

Reroll necro for a much easier experience or you can bring a group into the story instances to trivialize it.

Tenelia.9035:

Making story chapters or instanced experiences unfairly hard means locking out casual gamers.

ArenaNet has never been for the casual majority like other MMOs. GW2 was meant to be casual, but only in the sense that they weren’t wasting your time. ArenaNet’s mistake was giving you false hope; a bait and switch. The difficulty of the core game was originally much higher, but it was heavily nerfed during beta because it was bad for business. Obviously the higher they go, the more they’ll lose, but it seems they’ve lost too much considering PoF is looking to be easier.

Vayne.8563:

The people who are saying it’s diffcult or not soloable are speaking as if they’re in some kind of majority.

Considering that, in general, the majority plays MMOs like single player games and that most MMOs are balanced similar to Queensdale, the majority probably didn’t like HoT. It would be simple to tell if most people did, since expansions are supposed to bring people back and increase profits.

Vayne.8563:

The real issue has always been that the core game never taught people how to play it.

The core game can be much more challenging than HoT. The problem is that you’re not actually forced forwards, as you would traditionally be required to level in appropriate areas.

The expansion did fine for well over a year, longer than WoW expansions hold their own The drop in profits only happened after a very long content draught in which the only PvE content coming out was raids. The indictment should be on the raid focus while ignoring the casual player.

The problem is, no one can say what the sales would have been like had Anet not had that content draught. I know I didn’t care so much when new raids come out, but I do enjoy the Living Story chapters. We didn’t have them.

Some evidence that Anet is thinking along the same lines is that Anet has said the new expansion will replace a living story chapter timewise and then the living story will continue much sooner.

Saying that the game didn’t do well when HoT launched isn’t really true, not at least according to the numbers. It did fine for a long long time after it launched.

I’ve offered to help people through this instance many many times on these forums (as long as they’re on a US server) and very very few people ever have taken me up on it. If people are so interested in getting through it, I’m not sure why that would be. I mean I have helped some people through, I’m just surprised more people haven’t contacted me about it.

Einlanzer.1627:

Ashen.2907:

The fights are great for solo players. Finally a use for our interrupts, CC, target prioritization, a reason to dodge and move.

Too bad about the actual map design.

Depends on your class. Something that gets talked about surprisingly little is how much variance there is in ability to solo easily from class to class. Personally, I think a lot of story bosses are just hellacious playing solo. Like I have almost rage quit the game on a few occasions, and I know I’m at least average in terms of play skill.

I have beaten every single story instance on every single class, solo. That includes personal story, living story season 2, HoT story and Living Story Season 3, except for the very last episode. I’ve done it on five classes so far. Four to go.

It’s not only possible on every class, but once you know the fights, it’s easy on every class, as long as you’re willing to change your build up, or your weapons, maybe take some food/utility buffs.

I’ve done pretty much all hte instances on a zerker ele. I’ve done them all on both condi and power rangers. I’ve even done them on both power and condi engies.

The real problem is that most people go in one time and they find it hard and they don’t know the fight, and so they struggle. Once you learn the fights, assuming you know your profession, it’s a lot easier.

The first try is always hardest though. If you don’t know how to beat a boss, the odds are it’s going to kill you.

Myst.9182:

Ashen.2907:

Myst.9182:

onevstheworld.2419:

Are you sure you cannot play ep 6? Is it available in your hero panel’s story journal to activate? Otherwise you can try teleport to a friend who’s on the map… it won’t work for eps you need to buy, but unlocked eps should work.

I double checked, and you’re right I can activate Ep6.

Is it 200 gems for each Ep or 200 for all of LS3?

This is very sad system for new players. Anet should be ashamed of this obvious milking of players. If you have paid for HoT, it should include the whole storyline up until the next expansion.

Every company should be ashamed of themselves for charging money for products they spent money to produce. They should just chain their employees to their desks and stop paying them.

I mean, you refuse to collect a paycheck for your work right?

The funny thing is that ANet did offer you the chapters free of monetary charge. You turned them down.

LS is part of the expansion which is already paid for. Do you pay for your groceries and then pay for them again?

No I thought not…

LS is not part of the expansion. LS bridges the gap between expansions. It’s DLC, that loyal players are awarded for being loyal players.

Myst.9182:

onevstheworld.2419:

Are you sure you cannot play ep 6? Is it available in your hero panel’s story journal to activate? Otherwise you can try teleport to a friend who’s on the map… it won’t work for eps you need to buy, but unlocked eps should work.

I double checked, and you’re right I can activate Ep6.

Is it 200 gems for each Ep or 200 for all of LS3?

This is very sad system for new players. Anet should be ashamed of this obvious milking of players. If you have paid for HoT, it should include the whole storyline up until the next expansion.

What’s sad is people want everything for free. It’s not part of the expansion, it’s DLC after the expansion that loyal customers get for free.

You can play Final Fantasy or WoW instead, and pay $15 a month whether there’s new content or not. This game doesn’t charge people playing for new content, but new content still costs money to create.

I really think people have no idea how much money it costs to run an MMO.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Many who have been here all along, didn’t find HOT as difficult.

And many who have, did. It’s highly personal. You can’t really argue, i’m sure, that there was a spike in difficulty from core to HoT.

The people who are saying it’s diffcult or not soloable are speaking as if they’re in some kind of majority. This conversation is so prevalent, it’s stopped people from buying/trying the expansion because they thought it was harder than it was. This isn’t something I’ve seen or heard once or twice either. I’ve heard it a lot. People see people saying how hard the expansion is and they make purchasing decisions based on that.

If they keep hearing that everywhere, from many other sources, isn’t it possible you may be underestimating the number of people that found the content to be too annoying?

Vayne.8563:

A person with reasonable knowledge of their profession, who also don’t have a slow/old machine is probably not going to have that much difficulty.

Depend on what you consider to be a reasonable knowledge. Personally, i think the bar lies somewhere above average level.

Vayne.8563:

Is it harder than some of the achievements in LS Seaosn 2? Not really no.

Oh, i agree. All it means is however that some of the LS2 content was equally annoying.

They’re not hearing it everywhere. They’re hearing it from less than a dozen guys who repeat stuff over and over.

That is to say the amount of people saying it are not as much as the repetition would seem to support.

I’m not saying it’s not harder, because it is. But EoTN was harder than the early Guild Wars games too. Progression should up difficulty.

The real issue has always been that the core game never taught people how to play it. And not everyone played Season 2, which is another problem. The jump from Season stuff to HoT is not nearly as big as the jump from Core to HoT.

But there are a ton of players running around who really don’t know how to play well and that’s not a good thing. It’s the game’s fault. I think Anet wants the community to teach people how to play which only works if you’re not soloing everything and trying to remain immersed by never looking at website. Unfortunately there are people who play that way.

My guild is very very casual. And we did lose a couple of people due to either the difficulty of HoT or the map complexity, but it’s a very small percentage.

And there are in fact handful of people on these forums who will attack HOT at every opportunity because they personally don’t like it.

It’s a lot of noise that’s hard to ignore, which is why some people don’t try HoT. And it’s why I keep answering.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Many who have been here all along, didn’t find HOT as difficult.

And many who have, did. It’s highly personal. You can’t really argue, i’m sure, that there was a spike in difficulty from core to HoT.

The people who are saying it’s diffcult or not soloable are speaking as if they’re in some kind of majority. This conversation is so prevalent, it’s stopped people from buying/trying the expansion because they thought it was harder than it was. This isn’t something I’ve seen or heard once or twice either. I’ve heard it a lot. People see people saying how hard the expansion is and they make purchasing decisions based on that.

A person with reasonable knowledge of their profession, who also don’t have a slow/old machine is probably not going to have that much difficulty. Is there a learning curve? Sure. Is it harder than some of the achievements in LS Seaosn 2? Not really no.

bobsort.4097:

Vayne.8563:

I simply don’t find HoT maps that challenging.

….

I don’t see value in running around zones that I can beat with any build, predominantly using my 1 skill. It doesn’t make me feel heroic. I don’t feel like I’m in a war zone.

I complete VB and AB to relax before bed.

I suggest you join marines and have tour to Iraq for a real feeling of war, challenging and heroic. Games are for entertainment and leisure time to have fun and get away from daily stress at work, school, life pressures and not add to them

I don’t think you get to define what games are all by yourself. SOME people play games to relax. Others take games more seriously and play competitively. However, I find VB fun and relaxing, so in fact, I play games for the same reason you do.

Verdant Brink really isn’t that hard, and therefore it could be fun and relaxing if you had the level of skill to make it so.

Playing catch is hard if you have poor hand eye coordination, but some people find it relaxing. And some people start off not being able to throw or catch and then they practice and get better at it.

Ashen.2907:

Danikat.8537:

Ashen.2907:

Danikat.8537:

The main rewards in GW2 are cosmetic – that’s how the game’s always been designed (it was the same in GW1). You’re not supposed to be constantly getting better and more powerful equipment, just things which look different and potentially nicer/more interesting. That is of course subjective, but I think there’s a wide enough variety that everyone should be able to find something they like.

What if that, “something they like,” is best in slot gear for the various builds they like to run? Not increasingly stronger, just BIS. An average of one weapon per year does not seem particularly rewarding to me either.

Remember, ANet decided to implement a higher tier of gear, a performance increase, as part of the reward model of the game.

That ‘something they like’ was specifically referring to the different styles of equipment. I didn’t want to imply that there’s a set progression to the cosmetics – that newer or harder content will always award better looking items, because as I said that’s subjective. One of my personal favourites for my main character is the noble coat – a mid level crafted piece, another is the carapace coat. I haven’t found anything in HoT or Season 3 I like as much as those two.

But even if the newest/most ‘impressive’ items aren’t right for you I think there should be something available to suit anyone. (Although we are still missing some styles, like trousers on female light armour without random holes in the sides.)

Sure, but the OP only refers to gear tier in terms of what be considers rewarding. ANet introduced an increased degree of rarity for BiS gear rewards, making it part of, and for some people the primary element of, the reward structure in game.

I do think that five pieces of equipment in five years is a bit unrewarding.

Except that it can be crafted and the mats to craft it are easy to get. If it ONLY dropped that would be a problem. But it can drop and it can be crafted. In addition there are collections which can be done without too much difficultly for ascended weapons, such as all the HOT specialization weapons and more recently the calebolg weapons.

I haven’t gotten many ascended weapon drops, but I have a lot of ascended weapons.

Dashingsteel.3410:

You see it as progression. I don’t. Progression implies some sort of improvement and I don’t think Nintendo gaming is an improvement to gw2.

It is a different direction than vanilla gw2 but not necessarily a better direction.

Progression doesn’t imply improvement. It implies progression. You can make progress toward at goal, that’s true. However, the number progression 2, 4, 8, 16…that’s a progression too. That is to say that when something starts, it gets bigger, more complex, not necessarily better.

On the other hand it’s better for me. That’s the thing with opinions. Everyone has one and it doesn’t matter, unless we can know how many people don’t like something.

The problem with HOT is that it ticked boxes for different people. People who don’t know how to play their characters didn’t like HoT but some people wouldn’t have minded the difficulty of the mobs if the map wasn’t so confusing and some people wouldn’t have minded either if it wasn’t on a timer, and some people wouldn’t have minded any of that if it werent’ for the price. Dungeon runners got kittened off because their rewards were nerfed which had little to do with HOT at all, but it still cost the company players at that time.

A number of bad decisions were made early on which meant HoT never really had the chance to see if it was going to be a good expansion. There was too much noise around the launch that blocked any attempt to sell it. That’s down to Anet though.

Dashingsteel.3410:

vanilla gw2 did not require powerups(updrafts, mushrooms, wallows) to reach places…… Those are extra hoops you have to go through to get around competently in the HoT maps. Going from updraft to another updraft is just a time waster when in vanilla gw2 you could be moving directly to your destination.

I know some people enjoy this stuff but unfortunately I don’t

It’s a form of puzzle, thus the progression. That’s pretty much what progression means. Saying I can do these jumps as opposed to catch these updrafts is a style preference, but then, the game has been heading in this direction since before HoT.

Dry Top came out before HoT and you needed crystals to get to certain places. All we’re seeing is a progression

In the original game, there’s a vista or poi, I don’t remember which, that required you to talk to an asura who gives you a gun, the only way to reach it before gliding is to shoot yourself to it. There’s another vista in Diessa Plateau that requires you to do an event to use a cannon to shoot yourself at a vista.

And of course, there were three vistas locked behind jumping puzzles.

Progression means to take something futher. The game started with these things and now takes it further. You’re entitled to like or not like it but if you listen to what some of the people who don’t like it are saying, and you view it with any impartiality at all, you’ll see that the use of hyperbole is rife. That people who don’t like it will in some cases misrepresent the product.

We’ve seen people say that people aren’t playing HoT. We’ve seen them say HoT events aren’t being done. We see them saying that HoT is dead. We’ve seen them say it’s a platformer.

HoT is a progression of the game. We’ve had jumping puzzles no we have gliding puzzles. You’re right, you don’t have to like it, But it was always where the game was going. Expansions do expand the game. HoT is expanding the options dev have for creating the kind of puzzles some people obviously enjoy.

Opopanax.1803:

Didn’t they fix the fight so you are safe under brahams shield during the flight/ burning ground phase?

They did indeed.

Dashingsteel.3410:

@Vayne….. I agree that HoT is not a platformer. That is why I specifically said movement skill based game.

The problem is too many people do call it a platformer. Some quite often and loudly. This game has always had vistas you needed to get to that required a certain amount of high eye coordination, but you could still get portals. The same is true with HoT.

It’s an embellishment of what has always existed here.

Anchoku.8142:

I found Lake Doric to be the most sustainable map. The events are easily accessible, they have variety, and there is the leather farm.

Bitterfrost is the map I struggle most with. The NE corner is pointless to visit. There is too much junk that cannot be sold to a NPC. The cave is not worth the effort. The last POI required 35 BLC Keyes. The only parts of Bitterfrost that have repeatable value are the frozen chests, berries, and underwater unbound magic and that is just boring.

Off topic, the way to get to the ice cave is to use one of the lava tubes, which shoot you right up to it. You can avoid all combat by doing that in the Bitter Frost. You can get the POI you need there, unbound magic, a couple of chests and complete that part of the story with zero fighting.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I’ve been trying to do the daily events task when it’s in Tangled Depths as part of trying to learn my way around that zone. Here’s what I find frustrating.

• Wherever I am, I generally see an event on the upper right of the UI. However, it’s not on the minimap. Sometimes, it’s a long ways away.
• If I look on the main map, I can often see where such an event is. However, the way to get to it is at times unclear, and very often deceiving. There’s an awful lot of “can’t get there from here” in Tangled Depths.
• Doubtless, if you know the tricks and have spent two years playing the zone off and on, you know where to go to get somewhere. If you don’t, time spent exploring can be unproductive. It often has been. I’ve never seen that anywhere else in an MMO, and that includes the other three HoT maps.

I’ve not given up. I don’t want to have to admit to myself that I have not given the zone a chance. I am getting to the point where I will write the zone off, though, although I’d like to get some of the MP locked there. I have no interest in watching videos or being led around.

TD can be flat out frustrating at the best of times if you’re still in the learning process. I suppose if your play style is like Vayne’s, TD is fine. I rarely have the extended play time to play the way he presents himself as doing.

Doing the daily events is possibly the worst way to learn the zone. That’s because you’re always under pressure to get to one specific place fast and fast doesn’t always help you learn.

There are two “halves” to tangled depths. The east part starts with a waypoint called leyline confluence and it’s one of the two most important waypoints in the zone. From that waypoint, there are four lanes that make up the meta that sprout from it. Each lane has within it a nuhoch wallow that takes you to a sort of base camp that feeds that lane.

So for example, if you go down ogre lane, there’s a nuhoch wallow that takes you to ogre camp. If you go down Rata Novus lane there’s a wallow that takes you to Rata Novus. Same with Scar Lane and Nuhock lane. Each of those base camps has a waypoint as well. Using the wallows as teleports to and from base camps is how you get around about 2/3s of the map.

Teku Nuhoch is an importnt waypoint, accessed from Nuhoch lane, because it has a hub of three nuhoch wallows that take you to different places.

The easiest way to get to the central waypoint from the start of the zone is to get to that little stream, follow it down to where it falls and follow the water all the way down to the bottom. That puts you into Nuhoch lane. You can then run down nuhoch lane right to the wallow to teku nuhoch. They can you get that waypoint and come back and continue on to confluence waypoint.

The other important waypoint is at the end of ogre lane that takes you to the last waypoint in the zone by dragon stand.

Once you have the general layout the rest of the map is much much easier.

You’d have learned about 80% of the map knowing those areas. You’d have to learn three or four more easier areas from there, the great tree, the chak nest, the area around the troll HP (I forget what it’s called now) but most of it goes from around those hubs.

In fact, the best way to learn the area is to wait until a meta ends, and then stay in the zone because that begins the event chain from each of the outposts. So if you go to ogre camp you can go through the story of the ogres and what they do to prepare for the meta, Some of those event chains are very good.

I’d be happy to do them with you since I love those event chains. Two people is enough for 90 plus percent of them.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Op never mentioned HoT as being too difficult

He rather pointed out that it was more a chore than fun to play. He expressed dismay at HoT turning the game into a movement skill based game filled with powerups(mushrooms, updrafts, wallows, etc.) which are just extra hoops you have to go though to traverse the map as compared to vanilla gw2. He didn’t seem to enjoy the rat in a maze experience that HoT delivers.

This is not a “git gud” problem. This has to do with gaming style not difficulty.

That’s true, but it was covered the post I replied to. That person said he doesn’t like jumping puzzles or platform games and he’s not good at those but he’s learned to enjoy HoT, which he apparently doesn’t equate with those. He also said that he learned to enjoy the maze part.

It’s okay if you and a few others personally believe that a jumping mushroom that’s nothing more than a visual teleport is somehow platforming, but it’s not a fact. The OP can say it’s platforming but I’m a platformer and I can assure you it’s not For all intents and purposes there is very little platforming in HoT.

HoT maps are by far my favorite maps in the game. Even after zone completing TD on a dozen characters, I’m still finding better ways to get around. Great stuff.

Einlanzer.1627:

HoT’s maps are really polarizing. I think having 4 maps back-to-back with that degree of complexity was kind of a mistake, but all of them were really well designed individually. The problem was that, taken as a whole, the expansion felt like it pushed too much relentless tedium, and this was a problem especially for players with less solo-friendly classes.

I actually like TD the most, which almost no one else does.

I’m happy that PoF will have less verticality, although I expect and hope the occasional map to be as complex as HoT’s maps were.

I don’t think all four maps have the same degree of complexity. TD is very complex followed by VB. Dragonstand is actually less complex than both and AB is hardly in the same category.

TwoGhosts.6790:

Danicus.4952:

I agree with you bladezero. I see many familiar faces posting the usual fanboy smackdown on anyone that did not enjoy the supermario jumparound. Just wait till you try out the LS maps with a new mobility mastery over and over and over. I really miss the old game. I guess the platformer crowd needed an mmo space and GW2 became that. Hang in there.

Don’t confuse alternative views and different opinions with ‘fanboy smackdown’.

Some people don’t enjoy HoT (and LS3 I guess).

Some people on the other hand enjoy, or have come to enjoy, both.

Compared to my experience of the core game, HoT was a bewildering and terrifying place to me for quite some time (‘annoying’ and ‘too difficult’ some people might say). But gradually I improved my gameplay – how to gear, set up and play my characters better (coming to understand the game properly for the first time) – and then I mastered the maps.

By the time I came to the LS3 maps (which I’ve enjoyed just as much as the HoT maps) I was immediately able to dive right in and solo most of the content, thoroughly enjoying myself as I explored the new areas. Great fun!

Some people in these threads (I think Vayne among them) have pointed out that they often reply to negative threads in the hope that an alternate, more positive viewpoint might help potential new players decide whether they’d like to try the game. I think this is a good thing; more players is good for a company that produces a game that I enjoy playing.

You’re not going to convince me that I don’t like HoT/LS3, and I’m not going to convince you that you do. That doesn’t make me a ‘white knight / fanboy’ and it doesn’t make you a ‘hater’.

It’s not a problem, it’s just a difference of opinion.

~TG

PS – I’m not a ‘platformer’ (and I’m terrible a JPs), and I’ve never played Super Mario or anything like it in my life.

Thanks for this. People use terms like white knight or mindless fan boi to dismiss the opinions of others far too frequently on these forums.

I run a casual guild, ultra casual and I’ve seen a lot of people who started like you did, scared of the jungle, having trouble making headway and most of them…a vast majority have become better players due to it and very very few remain scared of the jungle and quite a few visit regularly.

It feels like people are defending their right to not get good at the game sometimes. HoT does have a relatively high learning curve, but it can be learned

Glad to see you’re enjoying yourself.

I’m always chipping away at something. 3 weeks is almost too soon. I had hoped to have the new legendary sword before PoF launches, but I doubt that will happen, unlless I buy the rest of the amalgamated gemstones I need from the TP. I have other achievements and collections I’m banging away on as well. And I want to make a few more ascended weapons for various characters.

Yep, won’t get everything I want done before the expansion comes out. At least I got the legendary trinket. That’s one big thing off my list.

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

It’s called an attrition mechanic. Running back means you’re not good enough to advance past that. It encourages you to rethink your strategy. Figure out what you did wrong. Maybe change your traits or skills. With no penalty at all for failure (and there’s little enough of that in this game) there’s no reason to get better. That’s why.

Vayne, you have a very stern way of looking at what is considered entertainment. I do respect your options.

We’ll have to agree in disagreeing on what is an enjoyable experience in those open maps

[Edited to remove an unnecessary remark on my part]

You only think it’s stern because you either haven’ t played or don’t remember how other games/MMOs handle it. In Guild Wars 1, every time you died you lost 15% of your health and mana cumulative to 60%, so it became harder every time you die.

In WoW you have to run back to your corpse or pay to rez at a cemetary which may or may not be close to your goal (and when I played it those were few and far between).

The fact is the death penalty in the game is very small. The trip back to the same place lets you practice what you learned until you’re almost never dying at which point it doesn’t matter.

I played most MMOs with the exception of the very fist like Everquest or Ultima Online and I still think the HOT maps are the most annoying open world content out there.

In both GW1 and WOW those penalties were actually fair because I could choose my own battles and not be ambushed every other minute while roaming around. In GW1 from what I remember there were some points/shrines in which you could remove that health penalty and they weren’t locked/constested. And in WOW I don’t remember having to make long runs back to my corpse – it wasn’t that big of a deal.

What I’m trying to say is that I don’t consider open maps – that you travel through for normal questing / story progression / vistas / mining … whatever, the place to put that type of content. I can’t really remember a lot of moments in those maps in which I could stop and just enjoy the scenery

I feel that good games need to have a nice flow/rhythm with different intensities for the players to go through like a roller-coaster ride. When your roller-coaster ride is mostly using segments in which you are upside down… ready to throw up, it’s not very enjoyable for most.

If you can’t pick your battles in HoT, you’re not playing very well, because 90% of the time I pick my own battles.

And there were some hellishly long runs in WoW back to your body in the old days.

In Guild Wars 1, if you knew the zone, you could definitely pick your battles. But you had to play the zones to learn the zones.

If you played HoT enough you’d learn the zones and you’d be able to pick your battles.

People want to know the zones while investing no time They come to the zones to get a hero point, not to play the game, and then they complain because they can’t reach that hero point. That hero point is one goal, it’s not all of HoT.

Those who play HoT more holistically, more as a regular map getting stuff as they go and learn it are always going to know it better. Saying you can’t pick your battles in HOT is mostly false.

I know where all the outposts are in VB where the big events spawn at night. I know where all the event chains go in the day. I can absolutely pick my battles…in much the same way I could in Guild Wars 1.

Edit: Anyone who played the War in Kryta content in Guild Wars 1 (again end game stuff) and went to try some of those bosses and got totalled know just how annoying the run back from the shrine could be.

The difference between a legendary weapon and the backpack is two-fold. A legendary weapon could not be obtained in the game for free. Essentially the backpack simply dropped in the dungeon and if you were lucky enough to get it, you go it, end of story Done deal. You could have gotten it on the first run.

A legendary weapon is something that takes time to craft for someone. Someone put the time and energy, months and months and hours and hours to craft a legendary. It wasn’t just lucky drop that someone benefited from, so a precusor would have been better for that analogy.

If someone gets a lucky drop and it goes down in price…shrugs. If someone works hard for something for six months and it is worth a fraction of a price, that’s different.

I woudn’t care very much if a precusor I got dropped in price, because stuff like that has happened.

In fact, at one point I was saving a skin to sell and it came out in black lion chest again and dropped significantly in value. I shrugged it off because no matter what, the skin cost me very little comparatively.

You always take a chance when you invest. That’s how I see it.

onevstheworld.2419:

I’ve seen others say the branch does indeed disqualify you from the achieve.

My Migraine PUG was nice enough to re-run the mission and let me cheese FoF.

I got mine using the branch…but it was quite some time ago. No idea of that’s changed or not.

STIHL.2489:

Vayne.8563:

Everyone wins except for people who want to run raids casually which might be as many or more people as want to run them seriously.

My guild has done the escort. Some weeks we can’t field 10 interested people but we’ve beat it four times. We’d not even be able to try it if you set the bar too high.

This entire concept is elitist and the reason I was against raids in the first place. Only the ones who want to pay to price up front should be able to attempt content? Sorry but no.

Raids were never meant for the casual player, or to be run casually. The were intended to be GW2 hard content, and should be treated as such. While I think raids were a bad Idea to start with, that not an excuse to forgo putting them in correctly and in a way that is best for the community as a whole.

If that means your guild that can’t even gather up 10 people to show serious interest do not raid, then that is what it means.

Raids were never supposed to be a casual affair in this game, but the lack of a gate makes people think they are.. which is exactly where everything went wrong.

To that end, Gating the raid would have helped your guild see who was serious from the start, if you were a tight knit small guild, you could help each other get ready, have it be a bonding experience, and maybe even get more of your members to take the raid seriously.

Otherwise this reads like a “I don’t like that”.. which I already said, I don’t care if it’s simply about your feelings.

Raids were added to a causal game as part of the expansion. No matter how they were intended, they were given to an audience that is largely casual. Saying all those people should be ignored in favor of a small percentage of people who want what you want is probably bad for business.

I do agree raids didn’t belong in the game in the first place, but that ship has obviously sailed. Giving the casual community more reason to be annoyed by them, ie to feel excluded, is just bad for business in my opinion.

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

It’s called an attrition mechanic. Running back means you’re not good enough to advance past that. It encourages you to rethink your strategy. Figure out what you did wrong. Maybe change your traits or skills. With no penalty at all for failure (and there’s little enough of that in this game) there’s no reason to get better. That’s why.

Vayne, you have a very stern way of looking at what is considered entertainment. I do respect your options.

We’ll have to agree in disagreeing on what is an enjoyable experience in those open maps

[Edited to remove an unnecessary remark on my part]

You only think it’s stern because you either haven’ t played or don’t remember how other games/MMOs handle it. In Guild Wars 1, every time you died you lost 15% of your health and mana cumulative to 60%, so it became harder every time you die.

In WoW you have to run back to your corpse or pay to rez at a cemetary which may or may not be close to your goal (and when I played it those were few and far between).

The fact is the death penalty in the game is very small. The trip back to the same place lets you practice what you learned until you’re almost never dying at which point it doesn’t matter.

STIHL.2489:

vesica tempestas.1563:

STIHL.2489:

zoomborg.9462:

As with every thread in this forum the answer is and always will be ez mode raids! Here called it first. The answer to all our problems!

snip

since a fraction of the player base plays or cares about raids i hardly think more gates or elitist attitudes is the answer to the lack of participation. There is a reason why WOW turned to more inclusive balance levels as well as tightly tuned.

What I am about to say may be against what you currently believe, but hear me out on this.

By gating the raid content with a hard fixed gate, a mechanical gate, this would ensure that anyone even remotely looking into getting involved with raids would need to be serious about their game play and game progression. This helps both groups, because it makes it so that the people who do raids or want to do raids, know that the hard fixed mechanical requirement means that pool they are picking from is only going to be occupied by other people that are equally invested into the game, or at least serious about doing raids. This helps eliminate the elitist attitude that many endure because it ensures that everyone walking into even trying to do a raid, is a serious player. It removes all problems of someone looking to “dabble” or “see what they are all about” or playing some “fancy fun” build.

By putting in a mechanically set high bar to even walk into a Raid would establish that everyone involved would have a predetermined seriousness about raiding that we currently do not have. That serious intent, hat drive to work towards being ready to even enter a raid would eliminate all the people who basically are not even remotely close to being ready to raid and yet try anyway, which forces the player base to put in their own requirements and demands, and thus we have that “elitist” attitude problem.

While it is very elitist to be just dump hate and scorn upon anyone you feel is ‘below’ you, it’s not elitist to want everyone who enters the encounter to be up to par.

Case in point, I’ll use fractals, it would be snotty and elitist to say ‘No rangers’ in a fractal run, and I’d agree with that, even more so if it was like a T2 run, however, it is not elitist to expect everyone who joins a T4 fractal to have the AR to be there. And getting that AR requires looking into how to get it, and getting the gear and items to make it happen.

While it does not eliminate people spouting off elitist drudgery upon this forum about ‘noobs’ in T4 fractals, the reality is that it is so painfully rare it’s laughable to read it, in fact I can’t remember a single time I had to deal with a under-geared individual in a T3 fractal, thanks to that AR hard requirement, while I have had to kick people for not meeting it, I don’t view that as elitist, the game set that hard requirement, I don’t feel bad about expecting everyone in my group to meet it. In fact this has led to me teaching people about how to get AR and be ready or next time.

Thus the hard AR Requirement helps new players or players looking to get int Fractals by giving them a direction to work in to be ready, it motivates them to look up what they need to do, and often enough, because it requires research and expensive/time consuming gear upgrades, they will also look into making the best build possible for doing fractals (there are always exceptions, but.. thankfully they are the exceptions., not the rule), as well as maybe look into what Fractals are about.

But without that gear requirement, I suddenly become the ‘bad guy’ for kicking someone who had no place even being in a T4 fractal to start with.

Thus, that hard Requirement helps everyone. It gives the person looking to get into higher level fractals something to work towards, assuming they even want to do so, they may decide that it is too much work, and just stick with T1 fractals, much respect for that. On top of that, it saves that player who is not really ready for the content nor has the seriousness about putting in the work to do it from dealing with any of the elitist attitudes that are prevalent in the higher level fractal areas.

Everyone wins.

Without the hard mechanical requirement it’s too easy for people to want to get involved in raids without any serious intent, without knowledge, proper build, without a clue, and what happens to people that walk into content clueless.. that’s right, they often get hazed.

A Firmly Set minimum to even enter a raid would stop the majority of players from walking into them woefully unprepared, with some illusion that they should be able to do them.

In the end, a hard meter to pass helps everyone involved. if gives people looking into getting into raids a direction and a demand to meet to allow them to judge if they are serious enough to want to do this, and it ensures that to the people doing raids that the people looking to join them at the very least, put in the work to be ready for this.

I do not see any downside to putting in that fixed requirement, in fact it would help everyone in the long run. If you feel there is a downside, I am willing to hear it, but, it would need to a logical rational downside, not simply that you do not like it.

Everyone wins except for people who want to run raids casually which might be as many or more people as want to run them seriously.

My guild has done the escort. Some weeks we can’t field 10 interested people but we’ve beat it four times. We’d not even be able to try it if you set the bar too high.

This entire concept is elitist and the reason I was against raids in the first place. Only the ones who want to pay to price up front should be able to attempt content? Sorry but no.

Feels the same too me, May be a bit more responsive, but the feel itself is pretty much the same.

Sylent.3165:

On this huge wall of comments i doubt anyone or even anet will read my comment but….

To the op I agree

Silverwastes I thought wss by far the greatest map in this game. The goal was very clear and made sense. I loved defending blue base and loved knowing each time I did it greatly helped the meta. Then fighting all the bosses with team work at the bases and going to other bases if needed was great.

Then we got to pick lanes and fight through while others faced bosses and then your lane was up was great.

After that the rewards felt great and the skins you got from the map are awesome and the rewards felt nice and while waiting for the meta to start again there was the pac man event going on for more loot.

I truly wish the new maps were more like this and player driven over these horrible timers that are all over now. I miss the Silverwastes alot and want more maps like this.

The Silverwastes are the reason Anet changed things, most likely. Too many people use LFG to jump in at the very end and don’t participate in the during. The new system doesn’t allow people to hop from map about to win to map about to win again.

Me, I like doing the events from the beginning, so I’m going to make less profit than someone who takes short cuts.

Devata.6589:

Vayne.8563:

ElectricGoat.8253:

How do I get more of those boxes? I used the first one up and got a sprocket out of it. I want more sprockets.

I’m guessing the only way is through the gem store?

Only way to get sprocket is the gem store, but many of the individual items are on the TP right now as well.

You see Vayne, this is another example of why I have a problem with this system. ElectricGoat wants an item, and if those items where available in game he could now be doing dungeons, fractals and so on… the content that did reward that type of items he is after.

And when he was after the next items, there would be other dungeons or content rewarding it that he would go after.

But instead the only approach he has is grinding gold (what tends to burn people out) or buy it. MMO’s are for a big part reward driven games, if you then sell those items or put them behind a boring currency-grind that is negative.

Anyway, I just notice your reaction on this great example, and because we talked about this so many times I wanted to point this example out to you.

Ah but you see, the items weren’t really supposed to be back at all. The content attached to those items is no longer here. There are indeed plenty of items to go for in game, which you seem to ignore.

Furthermore, anyone can farm gold in game, by doing fractals and dungeons and content, and then use the gold to buy gems. So yes, you can play the game to get them. I’ve heard your argument before again and again. I didn’t agree with it then and I don’t agree with it now, for the same reason I’ve never agreed with it.

You have zero proof the company could support itself your way

Ashivan.5216:

Vayne.8563:

Well, if someone is finding something difficult that others find quite easy, then they either have bad machines, bad internet connection or not as much skill. That’s the only conclusion I can come to.

I can live with you labeling me bad at the game. But I’m not the only one that found the HOT maps frustrating. Also, it’s not really about how hard the mobs hit – it’s the density of them (so you can’t catch a break, understanding your surroundings), the constant barrage of CC skills of some of them and the maps confusing layouts.

I don’t have anything bad to say about the events in those maps, just the general annoyance of having to navigate them.

Vayne.8563:

Some people feel if they die they’ve lost. This is probably a holdover from older games, where you couldn’t save your progress and had to get to the next checkpoint or start over I hated that too.

Death is Guild Wars 2 just isn’t that costly. I think people would rather give up than learn to play their profession better.

It would have been fine to die if that allowed to resurrect in that area. But having contested waypoints so you have to get back to the very first WP you started from… while not even close to my goal… why should I spend my game time doing that?

Also did no one saw the irony of having masteries that let you cross those maps easier – like using shortcuts? It looked like the designers understood the annoyance of having to deal with those maps and added tools to skip them. Looks like a freemium mobile game scheme ^^

Anyways all my comments are mostly from my time spent playing around 2 months after the HOT release.

It’s called an attrition mechanic. Running back means you’re not good enough to advance past that. It encourages you to rethink your strategy. Figure out what you did wrong. Maybe change your traits or skills. With no penalty at all for failure (and there’s little enough of that in this game) there’s no reason to get better. That’s why.