Guild Wars 2

Blude.6812:

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Blude.6812:

You want the EXP, open up your wallet. If you don’t buy it, you will have the restricted F2P as it now is.
Hopefully ANET gives some break on the next Exp for those that paid full price 2x’s.
HoT just wasn’t worth the price, specially if you had paid for the core already.

You are not likely to get that, because you are not paying “for the expansion”, you are paying “for the expansion now”, which is a significant difference.

I’m sure xpac 2 will go on sale after three or six months, at which point you can get your discount. You just have to be happy that you didn’t get to participate in it for those months.

Semantics! I will have paid full price 3x’s with the ridiculous model Anet uses, a new player only once. Secondly, an EXP isn’t a full game, it is small ‘expansion’ to the full game. A new player to the game should pay more, those that already have the core and Hot, should pay less.

No, a new player should pay less, just like he does in WoW and EQ. Because every additional barrier to entry that exists for new players, the less likely someone will start. Sure it’s only one expansion and one game now, but soon it’ll be two expansions and the game, and the living story, if people want the story.

They’ll look at they’ll say $200 to catch up? Screw that and never start.

All MMOs suffer from natural attrition. People stop playing. They move to other games. New players coming in are what keeps MMOs ticking over. Removing barriers to entry is a vital part of maintaining a successful MMO. That’s why WoW doesn’t make you buy every expansion.

The reward for buying it is playing it when it’s at it’s busy peak and getting what you need from it early on.

New players are always playing catch up. They have less money. They have less people to play with. They’re always behind the curve.

That’s why it’s important to remove barriers to entry.

To put it another way, I wouldn’t trade the money and gear and achievements I’ve made in three years, to save a few dollars or even $50 on a game today. New players have none of that and have to start now. That includes achievements and skins they’ll never have, and content they’ll never play.

It’s right to make it easier to get new players into the game. Presumably existing players have gotten their money’s worth over 3 years times.

DarcShriek.5829:

Captain Superbacon.1954:

I’ve been trying to do the Gerent map event in the Tangled Depths to get the last mistward helm piece, but after 5 failures due to not enough people at several different times of day, I get the feeling that the event (and probably the other HoT map events) should be scaled down to reflect the reduced player counts in those areas. I can’t even lure the Gerent out, let alone kill it, with 2-3 people per lane at best.

Most of the people in those areas, including myself some of the time, are just there to get the skill points for their specialization. People aren’t really doing the big events. I know Anet wants to avoid trivializing the events, but the events should at least be possible.

Chak Gerent needs to be looked at. It’s getting more and more difficult to find a group to do it. I’ve gotten what I require from it, but it has to be rough for new players.

Then how come I do it five, six times a week?

My thoughts are you’re trying to draw conclusions from too few data points. However, Mike O’Brien did say that this time they wanted to have a shorter time between the announcement and the release, though I don’t remember where I saw it.

Which means your calculation is probably off anyway.

As they’ve announce things so far, free to play players will never have elite specs, or masteries, or access to raids. This can change but I don’t think that’s likely.

Crinn.7864:

Vayne.8563:

I disagree. I don’t think anyone was buying boxes in any real quantity at that point.

You don’t buy boxes in quantity. You only buy it once for your account. And there is always a buying pike when a pre-purchase is announced from those with high hopes.

The biggest box sales always occur before or on launch, post launch sales spikes don’t exist because the hype that drives sales doesn’t exist post launch and this is true for every game.

Box sales at that time would have represented the smallest dip. It only probably jumped when Anet offered it for sale for $10 which they did 3 times. Anyone who wanted it would have bought it then.

If what the earlier poster stipulated is true – that all HoT prepurchases where rolled into HoT’s quarter – then there would be 0 boxes sales for the previous quarter. That would have been a notable dip.

By the same token, whatever expansion hype there was would have brought returning players back to the game and people who bought the $10 deals would also be buying games and face it, some of those people would be newer to the game, rather than jaded veterans.

You’re putting to much into the $10 sales. Sales are for attracting the extremely skeptical, the less skeptical would have already bought in. Unless you are going to argue that almost everyone both new and veteran players are skeptics the sales aren’t going to be that huge.

So the gem sales could have indeed gone up.

Maybe, but I don’t think that they would have gone up so much as to offset the removal of box sales while also resulting in the massive revenue spike.

The pre-Hot revenue spike is almost certainly the pre-purchases. There has literally never been a case of expacs reducing revenue, which is what you have to argue if you want to keep the all-pre-purchases-went-into-the-HoT-quarter.

The likely cause of the HoT revenue drop is exactly what NCsoft said the cause was. That f2p players aren’t buying into the game, probably because of how extremely generous this game is to f2p players. When you have the entirety of the core game to explore why hurry to buy a expac?

I know you don’t buy boxes in quantity. That was sort of my point. At the Anet site, the game was $50 for an older game. Virtually every person who wanted to buy it at that price would have already bought it. I’m saying boxed sales make up almost nothing of the profits, compared to gem store sales. I’m saying gem store sales provide the overwhelming profit in my opinion. Whales buying black lion keys etc. So the boxed sales don’t really account for much…again in my opinion.

I’m also saying that when you offer a $10 sale at a show, while making a big announcement it drives sales. People do try it for $10 and there’s an add on affect of people calling friends and telling them it’s $10. People posting on reddit and forums that it’s $10. And for $10 a lot more people would have bought it than normal, because it wasn’t on everyone’s radar. Anyone who talks to other MMO players can tell you that Guild Wars 2 is not really considered a successful MMO even though it’s more successful than most of them.

Which means new players who are going to be playing AND spending money in the gem store, in addition to returning players.

And if you don’t think people excited about a new expansion don’t spend money in the gem store, I’d say that’s not true.

The age of the average gamer right now is 30 not 13. People have jobs, but less time. Want to catch up and get ascended gear? Buy some gems sell them, get the gold and buy the mats. That’s what some people would have done.

It’s simply not that clear cut. And we’ll never know unless Anet tells us, but there’s an argument for the gem store having higher sales.

FrizzFreston.5290:

Vayne.8563:

I find it very likely that gem store sales would have increased after the expansion was announced as people are excited and wanted to come back and play the game and get everything they want done before the expansion hits.

Or unlikely if you think that players would hold out their money to buy the expansion rather than gems. I remember at least some people complaining they didn’t think it was fair they needed to pay for an expansion after making gemstore purchases.

It’s not that obvious to make gemstore purchases as you’re waiting to buy the expansion. In fact most people probably have a limited budget.

Also, players coming back doesn’t mean players making gemstore purchases, though yeah, the chance is higher indeed.

Not to say that you’re wrong, I wouldn’t know. Just to provide alternative reasoning that could very well point the other way.

You forget the three $10 sales in my argument. A lot of players weren’t returning players but new players. Some of those guys will be buying stuff like bank slots. If you decide to play a game today, you often invest in the game. I have two kids in their 20s and I can’t remember the last time they bought a game that they didn’t spend extra money on the game.

People are being trained to spend more money on games as a default when they buy it. It’s why so many people ask how much they need to buy after they buy the game.

Crinn.7864:

Ashen.2907:

I can honestly say that I dont have sufficient record of what was being offered in the gemstore at the time of the drought in order to state that any spike was random.

I can say that players did not take possession of most of the goods at the time of prepurchase because the expansion itself was most of the goods. Only people who did not previously own GW2 received a full account. Nether of us can prove it, but I hope we both know that the majority, vastly so I am sure, of HoT purchases (pre or post launch) were by existing owners of the core game. ANet (or was it NCSoft?) has even stated that conversions from F2P to HoT were disappointingly low.

I think we are getting away from the original point I was making. I pointed out HoT prepurchases because people where comparing the quarter before HoT to the quarter after HoT and declaring HoT a failure on just that. I was arguing that HoT purchases went into the previous quarter. The “possession of goods” came up after a quote about law as to where a company can record it’s revenue.

The HoT pre-purchase revenue has to be in the quarter before HoT because the quarterly reports make no sense otherwise. Consider: Anet revenue comes from two places, gem sales, and box sales. Now lets assume that gem sales are relatively constant. (there is no real reason to suspect that they aren’t) Now remember that Anet took vanilla gw2 box sales off the market after HoT pre-purchase was started. If the other guy is right and Hot pre-purchase sales where not counted till HoT launch, then we should see a revenue dip once pre-purchase was started, and then a spike went HoT launched. What we instead see is a revenue increase in the quarter before HoT, followed by a dip after HoT which indicates that the pre-purchase sales went into the previous quarter.

I disagree. I don’t think anyone was buying boxes in any real quantity at that point. Box sales at that time would have represented the smallest dip. It only probably jumped when Anet offered it for sale for $10 which they did 3 times. Anyone who wanted it would have bought it then.

By the same token, whatever expansion hype there was would have brought returning players back to the game and people who bought the $10 deals would also be buying games and face it, some of those people would be newer to the game, rather than jaded veterans.

So the gem sales could have indeed gone up.

Haishao.6851:

Would still be worth it if it didn’t fail 99% of the time.
I only play HoT since November but I had never seen Octovine fail until before last patch. Now I never see a successful maps anymore. Some time it even feel like people are making it fail on purpose so I just stopped bothering with it.

Use LFG, get there early and it won’t fail. It fails if you’re just banging around maps hoping to get a good one. Now it’s like all the other metas.

I find it very likely that gem store sales would have increased after the expansion was announced as people are excited and wanted to come back and play the game and get everything they want done before the expansion hits.

I know a lot of guildies who’d taken a break in my guild came back after the expansion was announced, far more than came back after the expansion was released.

That could indeed account for an large increase in gem sales.

Edit: Not to mention the core game went on sale for $10 three times and many people bought accounts, or even multiple accounts when that happened. At the time we didn’t know the core game would be included in HoT.

TorsoReaper.8530:

LONGA.1652:

VB is super unfun to play solo . Many people detered from going there making it hard to Organize. Many people just looking for quick HP run and done with it.

And Mega server keep pushing people into a fresh map . Most people dont bother putting up LFG as well. So there we have a loop of Poor map to play with

Pretty much this. As soon as I got my elite, I get out of the HOT maps. I hate them. Then you have other people who bought HOT, hate it, and don’t even get their elite. Then you have people who maybe like HOT ok, but you need masteries to get around, but you can’t get your masteries because you can’t get around so these people get frustrated and leave. Then you have a group of people who love HOT maps and spend time there, but there’s not enough of those people to take VB to T4 on a regular basis anymore.

This is pretty much false. There’s virtually always enough people who play HoT to get VB to T4. This has nothing at all to do with numbers. It has to do with people understanding the meta, and nothing else.

I can’t remember the last time I was on a hot map without enough people to do it, if I was using LFG anyway.

The problem is people don’t know what to do and how to listen. The problem is people don’t use bar breaks at the matriarch so the fight takes twice the time it should. The idea is there’s no one organizing the map.

When someone does organize the map, there are enough people.

The real issue is that the rewards are such that there’s no reason to do the meta at all if you already have all three chest pieces. If the rewards were required by enough people, more people wouldn’t be doing it.

I admit when I’m on that map, most of the time, even if the meta is going on, I’m not actively participating in it, because I’m there for other reasons, either map completion or farming currency.

Doam.8305:

Vayne.8563:

FrizzFreston.5290:

Vayne.8563:

snip

Well he did say meta event “based”. :p Which was sort of true until they decoupled them, and now it is at least storywise connected to the meta. But yeah. It’s not like everything is necessary to be LFGed.

snip

It mostly boils down to: possible doesn’t mean enjoyable.

The problem is a lot of people also left the game because it was too easy and those four maps gave some people impetus to come back. This isn’t an all or nothing proposition.

The game needed maps like this. It needed some challenging, some complex open world maps. Now it has some. It gives more options and variety. I will always spend more of my time on these maps now than the original.

If it continued the way it was, there’s no guarantee that more people wouldn’t have walked.

As I’ve said many times, I don’t think any demographic has a clear majority. What we have here, in my opinion, is a bunch of largish minorities. Cater to one and another gets kittened off. That’s what happened to HOT.

How can you even make that argument when the sharp decline in revenue as well as a complete change in a number of regards happened only after HoT launched. The game existed for years prior to HoT so making the argument of people leaving due to the game being easy doesn’t hold any water at all. The game grew under those easy circumstances you say people were leaving and contracted when they decided to go the HoT map. From launch till HoTs launch the game has never been about hardcore content in PVE as people who sought difficulty went in PVP or skirmished in WVW.

Anet gave people who wanted harder PVE content there first bone ever with HoT outside of aetherblade and just like aetherblade it played to a minority. All the reports and all of Anets actions after completely clash with your argument that the game needed harder maps. Raids sure you don’t see raiders going on about PVE maps.

Current game shown by ls3 is comprised of casual maps with pvp, raids, and fractals for those looking for harder content. With WVW still awaiting the promised changes and dungeons dead. Easier more open HoT maps with harder mobs off the story path and to the side like lake Doric centaurs. In addition if the really wanted harder PVE maps they could have pulled a GW1 and used side maps. Guild halls could have been chucked into the mists and the existed Guild hall maps could have been flooded with higher level mobs for farming or a vanquish system.

I completely disagree to in that casual play is clearly the majority demographic as stated it’s basically been the game from launch up till HoT. They designed the game in numerous ways to clash with others with more hardcore elements since launch. No trinity, shared events, and so forth and there is even something that’s harder to argue against.

Anet devs use Reddit for all sorts of feedback they used these boards more often in the earlier days. But with Reddit you can see likes and dislike and thus a basic representation of numbers. From posts to highly upboted questions asked in their AMA you have a force that has successfully let the devs know their opinions on HoT and lead to the designs we see today in ls3. Casuals are the majority and these forums are for players helping players with the devs making there presence known with the community on Reddit.

The sharp decline in revenue has a lot of possible explanations. I don’t believe enough copies of the expansion sold, which means that people who play core get tired of the content faster and leave. There’s just not that much core content. But WHY didn’t people buy the expansion, that’s the question.

SOME may not have bought it because it’s too hard. That’s true. And some found it too hard and left. But other people stopped playing and buying for other reasons too.

Some people for example, thought the expansion was too expensive for the number of zones it offered, they didn’t see it as a season pass (which I said it was even back then) and those people didn’t buy the expansion. Some were angry that it didn’t come with a character slot. Some were WvW who didn’t like the new zone at all. This isn’t just a case of one reason is the reason this happened. That’s how I can say this.

You’re saying sales declined because of X. I’m saying sales declined for a ranger of reasons, X probably among them, but NO ONE can say what percentage of that X represents.

I’ve said this many times in many different threads. It’s more likely that there’s a number of factors that affected sales, including a 9 month content drought for everything but raids and PvP, and you don’t get all those people back.

How can you possibly know that the content drought didn’t affect more people than the difficulty of the expansion?

FrizzFreston.5290:

Vayne.8563:

HoT maps are not all meta events. There is a single meta event on each hot map and a bunch of event chains. I don’t just play for metas any more than I play the world for world bosses. Many of the events in the event chains can be soloed. Almost all of them can be done with two or three people.

Saying HOT maps are only metas is simply not the case.

Well he did say meta event “based”. :p Which was sort of true until they decoupled them, and now it is at least storywise connected to the meta. But yeah. It’s not like everything is necessary to be LFGed.

Either way, regardless of whether people moved away from the game for whatever reason, there’s always the option to come back. The LW3 New maps are already not in HoT style, which just tells me that ArenaNet at least sees that, while some people don’t see any problem with HoT, a considerable amount does. And they are definitely listening to the people who say that HoT was not liked.

Really, you can argue all you like why HoT is easily soloable, and everyone you know feels the same, and it’s not true that this and that is a problem in HoT, and people are just giving up too early, or the ever popular “This game is not for you” (OP liked the core game at least, so uhh what??)
But in the end, no amount of arguing is going to help convince the people who simply disagree. And ArenaNet at least understands that in order to get players returning to the game is to steer the direction towards those opinions at least enough for them to reconsider.

It mostly boils down to: possible doesn’t mean enjoyable.

The problem is a lot of people also left the game because it was too easy and those four maps gave some people impetus to come back. This isn’t an all or nothing proposition.

The game needed maps like this. It needed some challenging, some complex open world maps. Now it has some. It gives more options and variety. I will always spend more of my time on these maps now than the original.

If it continued the way it was, there’s no guarantee that more people wouldn’t have walked.

As I’ve said many times, I don’t think any demographic has a clear majority. What we have here, in my opinion, is a bunch of largish minorities. Cater to one and another gets kittened off. That’s what happened to HOT.

This is definitely the hardest meta of the four to complete, but it can be completed, because I’ve done it. Recently. It takes patience. If it helps, think of it as RNG.

But yes, I think Anet needs to make a number of things clearer to people attempting the meta. There also needs to be a tutorial for break bars.

Doam.8305:

Vayne.8563:

AliamRationem.5172:

Doam.8305:

This topic is funny because this topic ignores reality

HoT has been out for some time now and it has failed they had far too few playable maps and didn’t follow MMO staples like low mob density roads/paths that people of all skill levels can walk to complete story while keeping high density areas off to the side and seperate. The butchered WVW and PvP while offering pure raid related content patches. No player input either just early access disguised as input for things like DBL.

Revenue is down the numbers are down and the people who didn’t like HoT have left and you can’t have a proper discussion if over half the people are gone. It’s like WoW legion expac which had tons of people unsub but if you ask WoW players today how they feel about it you’ll get praise because those that liked it still subbed and frequent forums. There are fan clubs for the Ford Pinto, licorice, and other disliked things the key is to remember that your in a box and progress can only be made from getting more perspective.

HoT is the only open content in the game the demands LFG it’s lfg content. Ls3 and ls2 and prior can be done without lfg as there are many more people playing and enjoying those maps. Ls3 has a road system with more difficult areas to the side like centaurs. People came back for and moved into ls3 you don’t need to use lfg for jades, wurm, or events.

HoT is failed content that demands lfg propped up by AB mm for awhile and quickly abandoned for newer more mainstream content. Defending it this late in the game is pointless as the games veteran base contracted with HoT while any expansion is credited to the f2p core maps. The sheer fact that so many new people got into gw2 due to F2p but revenue declined for three straight quarters speaks volumes. It also says something that an uptick in returning players and new players I’m seeing lately is due to ls3 which abandoned many of the core philosophies of HoT.

Clearly, HoT was not universally well-received. But making up nonsense about why doesn’t help. For instance, only the boss events rely on LFG and the exact same process unfolds for every single world boss in core Tyria. There is no shortage of players participating as evidenced by the fact that you can LFG your way into a meta map just as you can with Teq, TT, Shatterer, and so on. Further, the jungle is not clogged with enemies so that players can’t pass without fighting their way through. Not only that, but the vertical layouts make full use of gliding and other skills which allow for more freedom in how one chooses to bypass enemies.

I don’t personally like jump puzzles. That doesn’t make them failed content. Perhaps the failure was simply not enough content for those who didn’t like HoT-style maps? And perhaps if we had received nothing but core Tyria 2.0 it would have been an even bigger failure, as players have apparently been demanding more challenging content for some time.

I suppose your perspective will depend upon your bias.

Not to mention Hot revitalized the game for some of us. I was playing less until HOT came out. For me, HoT was a success. I don’t know what I’d be doing now if it weren’t for HoT or something like it.

HoT maps are all meta event based you can’t compared core world bosses to HoT metas. Saying that only the bosses need lfg doesn’t work for HoT when everything boils down to work torwards those bosses. Gerant, Mord, and so forth have LFG to get the basic ball rolling to get to thos bosses. A world boss is on a timer you know the time and you show up with lfg as a convenience as with it or without it there will be people to attempt it or enough people on the map to get it done. You don’t have people using lfg filling lanes for world bosses. Saying you enjoy HoT is nice but it’s an echo chamber those that dislike it left and pating yourself on the back in an empty stadium is great and all but your ignoring all the empty seats that used to be filled and without people the future is bleak:

HoT maps are not all meta events. There is a single meta event on each hot map and a bunch of event chains. I don’t just play for metas any more than I play the world for world bosses. Many of the events in the event chains can be soloed. Almost all of them can be done with two or three people.

Saying HOT maps are only metas is simply not the case.

fluffdragon.1523:

I guess I’ll put it simply:

If you liked WoW, you’ll love HoT. If you disliked WoW, you’ll want to rethink the expansion.

Basically it provides a massive shift away from Core Tyria gameplay with brand new mechanics, features, and significant changes to the feel of the game that are anything but what you were doing before the expansion. Yes, they might have fixed some of the grinding and even made the content a bit “more” rewarding (despite that all new maps basically have chests of loot everywhere in some capacity), but it isn’t the same game anymore in the content added since the expansion.

And it’s better to think of it as a $60 USD “season pass,” since it appears that a lot of content released with and since Heart of Thorns require it on your account to access. So for new players it might be more attractive since it means access to all current and future content (up to the next one).

A lot of us who are upset with the expansion and the changes to the game are veteran players from as far back as 2012 when the game launched, so dropping $60 for 4 maps (at the time) and elite specs and a lot of rushed content felt … bad. Most of us haven’t really gotten over that or how much it deviates from the game we had spent four years or more playing.

But that’s that, and it really all comes down to the kind of content you like.

Raids, huge-scale chained events, various big fights, and “unlocking” your progression throughout the maps — those can be quite attractive if you like classic action-RPG style gameplay.

However, keep in mind that a lot of points regarding changes to professions and other game modes are still quite valid. Things are not the same anymore, but for those who like the changes, it’s a lot better.

I disliked WoW and love HoT, so I can’t agree with your conclusions.

Edit: To be clear, I play HOT much the same way I played Core Tyria. There are exceptions. A handful of hero points I need more people to finish, which I treat like I did Temple events in Orr. I couldn’t solo those either.

But aside from that, I run around the maps I do events. There’s virtually no change from my playstyle except that I have to be on my toes more.

I’ll gladly help you if you’re on a north american server as well. I’ve run a few people through this instance. Just message me in game.

Healix.5819:

Vayne.8563:

Hell Silverwastes has been an LFG thing all along.

Only to farm it. 1 person per fort is really all you need to successfully do it all. If they removed the limiter, I could probably solo the lanes before it failed.

Silverwastes is an example of them actually going back and nerfing it. When the population died down, they added NPCs to help with the collections and later on, they reduced the health of the bosses.

I don’t know I can’t solo Silver and Gold and get through it.

Edit: In fact I can’t solo defend indigo.

Lordareon.6851:

Hey people, we dont need to fight. My question was regarding how Hot turned out a year later and what you think of the more recent content and fixes the game has received. So i understand that it is now crawling back from a “not so good time”?

Some of us liked HOT from the beginning. Some people found it too hard. The biggest problem HOT had from the beginning wasn’t difficulty for a lot of people, it was the level of grind, most of which has been fixed.

While there are a number of loud voices here on the forums that complain about the difficulty of HOT there are plenty of people who play in those zones almost exclusively.

AliamRationem.5172:

Djinn.9245:

Captain Superbacon.1954:

I’ve been trying to do the Gerent map event in the Tangled Depths to get the last mistward helm piece, but after 5 failures due to not enough people at several different times of day, I get the feeling that the event (and probably the other HoT map events) should be scaled down to reflect the reduced player counts in those areas. I can’t even lure the Gerent out, let alone kill it, with 2-3 people per lane at best.

Most of the people in those areas, including myself some of the time, are just there to get the skill points for their specialization. People aren’t really doing the big events. I know Anet wants to avoid trivializing the events, but the events should at least be possible.

And deprive all the “its easy for me, L2P” people from one of their favorite pastimes?!

You really have a chip on your shoulder about this HoT difficulty, don’t you?

No matter how difficult it is, this is not a solo event and it’s completed successfully multiple times a day. People are annoyed by having to get on early and use LFG.

That still doesn’t mean it will always be successful, but it will definitely be successful at some point.

It doesn’t hurt that the reward for failing a decent run isn’t much off the reward for succeed, so at least I’m building currency.

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Vayne.8563:

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

the vast majority of people do not have these problems when you do

I don’t know why you would say this when you have no way of knowing how many people do anything in this game.

Djinn is right. We have no way of knowing how many people are having problems. The percentage of people who do not post to the forums is huge.

All I can say is that I’ve done this mission myself myriad times now, and I’ve taught other people how to do it who used to have problems. None of the people I’ve explained it to have had problems since, at least with regards to the updrafts.

I find it hard to believe that I can run this content 20-30 times in a row without bug, and reconcile it with the “buggy mess” that some people are claiming.

On the other hand, it’s extremely likely that some bugs exist.

The truth is usually somewhere between the extremes.

I have both completed this with muliple toons and have been part of groups that failed because we were down to one person left (me) and my Mesmer wasn’t able to get the breakbar down before it went back up to 100%.

Easiest solution would be to not allow the breakbar to regenerate until it has been taken all the way down. The add the normal timer to how long before it build back up.

Again just my opinion but seems like a more simple fix….

Mesmer is one of the easier professions to do this on, because mesmer has so many excellent ways to break bars. The trick with the mesmer is to kill all the adds first before you stand on the portal, which breaks the bar. You can have blink on to help you reach it quickly but you don’t have to. Signet of humility will break the bar the rest of the way and it’s only one skill. Put blink on your bar too, so you can move there faster, and use your great sword 5 skill or your focus pull skill both of which will help break the bar. My main is a mesmer and I’ve soloed this on a mesmer quite a few times. It’s my second easiest character to solo it on next to my ranger.

Also, if you go to the far end away from Mordemonth, you can get out of combat to change skills, which I had to do to beat it on my ele.

So there’s no reason not to be able to do it. You need to close the distance faster (every profession has skills that do that), you have to break the bar (every profession has skills that can do that) and you can then kill him.

If you don’t do a lot of DPS you’ll have to repeat that sequence four or five times, but it really doesn’t take that long. It’s definitely doable.

Djinn.9245:

Ashen.2907:

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i didnt say the same level, and it could take 5 minutes to learn an attack pattern to kill the frog, it could take an hour, it doesn’t really matter, my point was that it will be more rewarding than killing a bunny rabbit.

To you.

If all it takes for someone to feel rewarded is defeating harmless ambient creatures that do not fight back, and who are automatically killed with any attack….

Good news, there are lots of them.

<sigh>, I didn’t think I need to address the straw man. If there is an area that actually has “bunny rabbit” mobs that attack you, I don’t know of it. So I ignored the “bunny rabbit”, sorry for those who are obviously too literal. This is what I was responding to:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i didnt say the same level, and it could take 5 minutes to learn an attack pattern to kill the frog, it could take an hour, it doesn’t really matter, my point was that it will be more rewarding

Again, in your opinion.

Most of what’s said about HoT is in someone’s opinion. I’ve seen a few opinions that say HoT is too hard, a few opinions that say it isn’t too hard, and some opinions that say it’s too hard at first but then it wasn’t too hard after I figured it out.

Everyone has a different threshold on what’s too hard.

Likewise, everyone has something different that makes them feel heroic. When I know I’m overpowered for a zone and I romp through it indiscrimantly killing everything with us while I’m in no danger that doesn’t (and has never) made me feel heroic. Just the opposite.

I don’t see heroes as guys laying waste to weak stuff. I see heroes as people who try really challenging things and overcome them.

I know superman could probably be the hell out of me, but I’m really hoping he goes after Lex Luger. If Superman did beat the hell out of me, it wouldn’t make him heroic.

This is, of course, just my opinion.

We’ve had more than a few people post on this forum that they don’t like downleveling because they want to be able to go back to previous zones and one shot things. In almost every one of those threads, the biggest percentage of responses are in favor of downleveling. People don’t want to one shot stuff.

So it’s a threshold. Core tyria is just too easy to make me feel heroic. Even Orr.

AliamRationem.5172:

Doam.8305:

This topic is funny because this topic ignores reality

HoT has been out for some time now and it has failed they had far too few playable maps and didn’t follow MMO staples like low mob density roads/paths that people of all skill levels can walk to complete story while keeping high density areas off to the side and seperate. The butchered WVW and PvP while offering pure raid related content patches. No player input either just early access disguised as input for things like DBL.

Revenue is down the numbers are down and the people who didn’t like HoT have left and you can’t have a proper discussion if over half the people are gone. It’s like WoW legion expac which had tons of people unsub but if you ask WoW players today how they feel about it you’ll get praise because those that liked it still subbed and frequent forums. There are fan clubs for the Ford Pinto, licorice, and other disliked things the key is to remember that your in a box and progress can only be made from getting more perspective.

HoT is the only open content in the game the demands LFG it’s lfg content. Ls3 and ls2 and prior can be done without lfg as there are many more people playing and enjoying those maps. Ls3 has a road system with more difficult areas to the side like centaurs. People came back for and moved into ls3 you don’t need to use lfg for jades, wurm, or events.

HoT is failed content that demands lfg propped up by AB mm for awhile and quickly abandoned for newer more mainstream content. Defending it this late in the game is pointless as the games veteran base contracted with HoT while any expansion is credited to the f2p core maps. The sheer fact that so many new people got into gw2 due to F2p but revenue declined for three straight quarters speaks volumes. It also says something that an uptick in returning players and new players I’m seeing lately is due to ls3 which abandoned many of the core philosophies of HoT.

Clearly, HoT was not universally well-received. But making up nonsense about why doesn’t help. For instance, only the boss events rely on LFG and the exact same process unfolds for every single world boss in core Tyria. There is no shortage of players participating as evidenced by the fact that you can LFG your way into a meta map just as you can with Teq, TT, Shatterer, and so on. Further, the jungle is not clogged with enemies so that players can’t pass without fighting their way through. Not only that, but the vertical layouts make full use of gliding and other skills which allow for more freedom in how one chooses to bypass enemies.

I don’t personally like jump puzzles. That doesn’t make them failed content. Perhaps the failure was simply not enough content for those who didn’t like HoT-style maps? And perhaps if we had received nothing but core Tyria 2.0 it would have been an even bigger failure, as players have apparently been demanding more challenging content for some time.

I suppose your perspective will depend upon your bias.

Not to mention Hot revitalized the game for some of us. I was playing less until HOT came out. For me, HoT was a success. I don’t know what I’d be doing now if it weren’t for HoT or something like it.

VaaCrow.3076:

Vayne.8563:

Magira.6390:

Hot gave us:

- bad designet new WvW maps -> thankfully gone
- A new terrible PVP map -> thankfully gone
. A bad designet new class -> nobody plays it more
- Hopping PVE maps in the Super Marion style -> still available, but you can simply avoid them

I also play WoW, SWTOR and Overwatch. Hot is the worst extension I’ve ever seen. After all, they have responded and deleted their garbage.

Reality check. They didn’t delete anything. The desert borderlands still exist in the game. The PvP map isn’t gone, it’s just gone from tournament play because people were exploiting it.
People dont’ play the new class in raids, because it was OP and then it was nerfed. People still play revenant in the open world.
The HoT maps aren’t super mario style and they’re some of the best content in the game for some of us. Many of us stay on that maps pretty much all the time because comparatively the original game is a snoozefest.

Saying the stuff had been deleted is factually wrong.

They did however make some very needed changes to the desert borderland and remove it from rotation upon popular demand for a time because it was so awful.

Sure, which makes it better now. The guy asking his opinion of HOT doesn’t want his opinion of HOT at launch. He wants our opinion of HoT right now. I’m not sure the relevance of saying it was bad a year ago.

In the mean time, the person I was responding to said it had been removed and no WvW player plays on that map. Both statements are untrue.

Doam.8305:

No map should live or die on lfg and currently it seems only HoT maps are the only ones tied to lfg. World bosses, Ls2, and ls3 maps can be done naturally.

It’s not only feasible to scale them down it has to be done and in absence has already begun. So few people liked HoT that AB mm stuck around until we got enough new maps and lfg practically became mandatory. These days AB MM is gone and people spend more time in the new maps than HoT. Unusually high proportion in group content in HoT that is harder now than it used to be with fewer players in those maps.

Old content has to be nerfed in some form after the horde of players move on to new things in other games they increase stats, gear, and level so fewer people are needed to run old gear. In gw1 why had new skills and constant updates to hench, heroes, and mercy.

In Gw2 we have elites as old dungeons that hardly anyone plays can easily be 4manned. As for HoT its nerfs are coming via living world season 3 with easier to acquire ascended gear, new prefixes, and even a new down skill to use. All of these things are forms of power creep even the asc since you can choose newer prefixes.

Tc and those against the HoT events have been made easier with the new AoE down skill which is easy to see. You peg and knock down enemies in a large area. The death of any of the multiple mobs you peg will rally you. Less time rezzing, less time down, and less people required. As more and more new content is added and more and more abandon HoT it’s the new masteries that will make HoT more accessible.

Though I will say HoT could use more updrafts, leylines, nuhoch wallows, and even a thermal vent or two. Decreasing travel times across the maps would be nice and would go a long way in helping with fewer numbers.

Try doing triple trouble naturally. Or get the T6 meta in Dry Top. Hell Silverwastes has been an LFG thing all along.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

In fact, there was a poll on whether to delete the [Desert Borderland] map entirely and it didn’t go through.

To be fair, the vote may have been skewed by a developer statement that if people voted the DBL out, Anet would not attempt to develop any more new WvW maps. I know I voted for retaining DBL for that reason.

That said, I often see people on the DBL, though maybe not as many as on the ABL’s.

Just pointing out that the statement made was incorrect. I actually enjoy the desert borderland and I have a WvW guild affiliated with my guild who run it quite frequently.

Irensaga.6935:

Vayne.8563:

Irensaga.6935:

Haishao.6851:

Irensaga.6935:

Haishao, that explains it.

Ancient Magics is locked for me. When I mouse over it, it says I have to go to Ember Bay or Bloodstone Fen to unlock it.

Nuts…. like I said, I only bought HoT in November. I only just barely cleared the Verdant Brink map.

No fifth downed state skill for me yet I guess.

I thought you meant the special ability that people used to have trouble with during this mission, which is counter magic. The 5th downed state is in this mastery page too but it’s the last one at the bottom. Spectral Aid.

Naw, I was just confused. The special ability – counter magics is also under Ancient Magic masteries – so I can’t get that either.

Looks like I have to either blow a couple more repair canisters, or just give up on Head of the Snake for now and go work on Bloodstone Fen.

Except that I think you really need your glider masteries working to use that map well… so I’m probably off to Auric Basin instead.

Or you can ask for help. If you’re on a US server, I’d be happy to run it with you.

Can you bring grouped people into the instance with you?

Sure can. I play most stories with my wife. My guild does it all the time.

DaShi.1368:

I’ve played a lot less after HoT, and when I do play, it’s mostly PvP. HoT actually made most of all PvE less enjoyable for me. I used to do fractals regularly. Haven’t really touched them after HoT. It just exposed something about GW2 PvE that turned me off…a pity. There’s a lot of good things in this game (some really great things too), but it lost its charm with HoT.

And yet the changes to Fractals are hailed by many as a huge improvement. I’m relatively sure more people do Fractals now than before HOT.

Before HoT you had to commit to a longer four fractal run with a random element.You could get a bunch of crappy fractals and it would suck. Now you have more control over your Fractal experience and they’re more rewarding to play financially as well.

A lot of the improvements to individual Fractals like Cliffside and the Dredge fractal were a long time in coming. The people I’ve talked to like those changes.

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

i didnt say the same level, and it could take 5 minutes to learn an attack pattern to kill the frog, it could take an hour, it doesn’t really matter, my point was that it will be more rewarding than killing a bunny rabbit.

To you.

I’m not so sure killing a bunny rabbit would make me feel heroic, but that’s just me.

Magira.6390:

Hot gave us:

- bad designet new WvW maps -> thankfully gone
- A new terrible PVP map -> thankfully gone
. A bad designet new class -> nobody plays it more
- Hopping PVE maps in the Super Marion style -> still available, but you can simply avoid them

I also play WoW, SWTOR and Overwatch. Hot is the worst extension I’ve ever seen. After all, they have responded and deleted their garbage.

Reality check. They didn’t delete anything. The desert borderlands still exist in the game. The PvP map isn’t gone, it’s just gone from tournament play because people were exploiting it.
People dont’ play the new class in raids, because it was OP and then it was nerfed. People still play revenant in the open world.
The HoT maps aren’t super mario style and they’re some of the best content in the game for some of us. Many of us stay on that maps pretty much all the time because comparatively the original game is a snoozefest.

Saying the stuff had been deleted is factually wrong.

Djinn.9245:

vesica tempestas.1563:

the vast majority of people do not have these problems when you do

I don’t know why you would say this when you have no way of knowing how many people do anything in this game.

Djinn is right. We have no way of knowing how many people are having problems. The percentage of people who do not post to the forums is huge.

All I can say is that I’ve done this mission myself myriad times now, and I’ve taught other people how to do it who used to have problems. None of the people I’ve explained it to have had problems since, at least with regards to the updrafts.

I find it hard to believe that I can run this content 20-30 times in a row without bug, and reconcile it with the “buggy mess” that some people are claiming.

On the other hand, it’s extremely likely that some bugs exist.

The truth is usually somewhere between the extremes.

I a bit fan of the HOT content, but then, the open world of Tyria was always pretty easy and my focus has always been on the open world. I never liked the idea of squirreling myself away in an instance to do something challenging. I wanted something like HOT and HOT delivered.

The funny thing is, I didn’t realize what the game was missing until it provided it. I wasn’t sitting around waiting for harder content. But it’s not just the foes that are harder. The maps are more complex and interesting to me. Figuring out how to get around is a pleasure. The kind of thing I used to have to do in older games before everything was an arrow and a green star.

Daddicus.6128:

Vayne.8563:

You’re assuming people see your question, which is a terrible assumption. I’m not always reading mapchat if I’m in voice with my guild for example. Or people are helping other people, or fighting and don’t have the time to answer that question. Doesn’t make them unhelpful.

At any rate, I see plenty of questions in map chat replied to. If someone else replies than I don’t have to, but I would if no one else replied.

I compared it to the same scenario in core Tyria.

I chat more in core Tyria than I do in HoT because I can hit 1 in core Tyria, and autoattack everything to death, without worrying about having to move.

I sure wouldn’t try that in most places in HoT. Yes, HOT makes you pay more attention to the game.

Core Tyria, you can type, do your taxes and eat lunch while playing. That’s definitely more engaging content.

Klowdy.3126:

Vayne.8563:

Klowdy.3126:

Obtena.7952:

^^ No, I can’t accept that … because if a player refused to change their spec/build, they STILL had other options to proceed and complete HoT content … by teaming. People get carried ALL the time. Some people I know ONLY team. People must stop ignoring player co-operation as a strategy to complete content, especially in an MMO.

First, I think you are taking this too seriously. The OP stated solo play very strongly, and I only wished to convey a glimmer of hope, for again, solo play. I read the OP and wanted to help him out, that is all. No need for you to accept anything, some people don’t have the ability to play in a group,. If you have to walk away randomly and often, grouping with randoms is pretty much out of the question.

To Ashen, I think you underestimate your ability in this game. You sound to be better than I. I had better gear, and did worse starting out in HoT. I have the majority of things down now, but I still die way more than I should running solo.

All I wanted to do was give the OP hope that things get easier, it seems like people are focusing on certain parts of my post, and picking it apart. Everyone has different situations, and skill levels, and groups aren’t an option for everyone, which is why I assume the OP posted solo in all caps twice.

I have a lot of respect for those who want to help others out, so props for that.

As for running solo if you AFK a lot, I have a lot of people in my guild who have to AFK for one reason or another. That doesn’t mean they can’t run stuff with people it just means they have to find the right people.

I personally help people all the time, some of who are older or have kids or have real life situations and I have no problem hanging out and farming stuff till they get back.

So if you’re in that kind of position and want a tour of any of the HOT zones, feel free to look me up in game.

I may have to take you up on that offer if you were extending that to me as well, lol. I have a new daughter on the way in a week (wife is being induced, so we have a pretty spot on idea when she’ll be here), and I can only imagine the random AFKs in store for me.

Seriously if you’re on a US server, I get great enjoyment out of helping people through the jungle. I’m massively patient with people who have real lives, because I’ve been in that position.

Egrimm Van Horstmann.7921:

Healix.5819
I’m well aware of the wall hug path. Once you manage to work through the mass of mobs from both the buildings and that move around I can be made with a high healing tank style toon. I didn’t know about the path by Harvest Cascades the first couple weeks so I traveled that path many times. My hunters did it but there was always a mass of mobs even solo they rock. I got through it with Scrappers because I was unaware of the workaround. It’s just a real slog with half the mobs with knock down or being veterans.

OriOri.8724 I guess a work around is to respec just to make the jump, just the gate doesn’t make sense. I have max gliding and the final jump is just a bit too far without the boost. I don’t mind jumping puzzles, but requiring certain buffs to reach an every day daily seem counter-intuitive.

Mulzi.8273 Yes the peach daily. The final gliding jump to reach the upper ledge of the central platform is just too far without a speed boost, you loose elevation too quickly without it to make the landing.

Not sure what profession you’re playing, but most of them have ways of doing it without respeccing, maybe changing a single skill.

Necro, ranger and thief have signets you can just slot in to run faster. That leaves only 6 professions. Guardians have staff and at least 2 speed skills. That leaves a five. Warriors have banners, and leaps. That leaves four. Mesmers who are chronomancers have built in speed. Others have access to a signet or a focus both of which give swiftness. THat leaves three. Engineers have a skill that gives swiftness and shotgun five skill is a ground targeted jump. I’m sure eles have a way to do it too, but I don’t play an ele that much. Also revenants with their elite spec have a skill which gives you swiftness.

So if anyone can fill in ele and revenant, there’s no real issue here, except having to change a skill or swap out a weapon.

Klowdy.3126:

Obtena.7952:

^^ No, I can’t accept that … because if a player refused to change their spec/build, they STILL had other options to proceed and complete HoT content … by teaming. People get carried ALL the time. Some people I know ONLY team. People must stop ignoring player co-operation as a strategy to complete content, especially in an MMO.

First, I think you are taking this too seriously. The OP stated solo play very strongly, and I only wished to convey a glimmer of hope, for again, solo play. I read the OP and wanted to help him out, that is all. No need for you to accept anything, some people don’t have the ability to play in a group,. If you have to walk away randomly and often, grouping with randoms is pretty much out of the question.

To Ashen, I think you underestimate your ability in this game. You sound to be better than I. I had better gear, and did worse starting out in HoT. I have the majority of things down now, but I still die way more than I should running solo.

All I wanted to do was give the OP hope that things get easier, it seems like people are focusing on certain parts of my post, and picking it apart. Everyone has different situations, and skill levels, and groups aren’t an option for everyone, which is why I assume the OP posted solo in all caps twice.

I have a lot of respect for those who want to help others out, so props for that.

As for running solo if you AFK a lot, I have a lot of people in my guild who have to AFK for one reason or another. That doesn’t mean they can’t run stuff with people it just means they have to find the right people.

I personally help people all the time, some of who are older or have kids or have real life situations and I have no problem hanging out and farming stuff till they get back.

So if you’re in that kind of position and want a tour of any of the HOT zones, feel free to look me up in game.

Story is pretty important to me. If my character isn’t motivated, then I don’t want to do stuff. Parts of the story, writing-wise, are not as good as others, but over all I really enjoy the story.

It would probably help if you could tell us which story step you’re up to and which NPC you can’t find.

TorsoReaper.8530:

Yea, it’s definitely genocide and we’re like a sicko from a Silence of the Lambs type series where we skin them. But don’t worry, if it makes you feel better, nobody will be killing the centaurs within a few days. The leather farm is such a failure that leather prices are already back to pre-patch levels.

Two leather farms on LFG right at this second and it’s definitely not prime time. I’ve almost never seen a time when there isn’t an active LFG for it. How do you define fail?

Daddicus.6128:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Daddicus.6128:

Second, there’s an attitude among HoT players that those who don’t know things (unique to HoT) simply need to learn how to play better. You can see this attitude plainly on these forums.

there’s is no such thing as a ‘hot’ player, there are only players. The facts speak for themselves, if you are unwilling to learn and adapt then you will not in fact not learn and adapt

Consider that It’s not actually other peoples attitude that is at fault here, they are over there happily grouping up with others or doing whatever they enjoy doing.

Thank you for displaying my point so well.

He didn’t make your point at all. He explained why someone might not answer, which doesn’t necessarily make them unhelpful. In order to answer a question you have to see/notice a question.

I don’t always have time to read map chat, which doesn’t make my unhelpful. I answer every question I can, when I see them.

Ashen.2907:

Healix.5819:

AliamRationem.5172:

You can’t make HoT palatable to players who find Queensdale challenging and still attract players like me.

They could, but it’d require splitting the maps. Vertical progression is how other MMOs handle it, where the content is only challenging while you’re progressing through it. Without vertical progression, the alternative would be blanket nerfing the content with the next expansion.

The trick though is that HoT isn’t challenging, it’s simply entirely group content. I doubt anyone would have a problem if the zones were constantly zerged, but that’s not realistic.

The simple solution to the story at least is to remove gear damage and buff the player after every few deaths (as in +3% outgoing damage, -8% incoming damage every 3 deaths, stacks up to 10 times).

No, HoT is not entirely group content. Yes it has group content in it, but it is not all group content.

To add to this, if you take two people with you, a group for three can do virtually all of HOT. I can solo most of it anyway. There are always a couple of hero points in each zone that need a group, but there are only a handlful of really hard ones.

Two in VB, one in AB and two in TD as far as I can tell. Every other hero point can be done with three people quite easily, and many of them if not most, can be soloed.

Every waypoint and POI on the maps I can get solo with the exception of 1 in AB, and some in dragon stand, which require the meta to be completed.

Dragon Stand is the one map where you really do need people, however, it’s done every time it comes on up at least one map and often more than one.

Max level in this game is indeed different form Max level in other games. But then, this isn’t other games, as we know. In other games, the game is hidden behind instances and the open world is mostly about leveling. Once you level you sit in cities and wait for queues to do instances. This game is more centered on the open world, which means the open world requires an end game.

Surely there was content between the launch of the core game and HoT. Southsun is a newer zone (and harder than anything in core Tyria). Drytop and Silverwastes both have upgraded difficulty over core Tyria too.

Likewise, dungeons have existed from launch and Fractals from shortly after launch. These are harder.

The Living Story Season 2 stories, particularly the later ones, are harder then the stuff in the personal story.

New people don’t have a roadmap in this game which explains to them, that HOt content is harder than core content and require more preparation and knowledge and maybe that warning should be in game.

Before you play HOT maybe a window should pop up to say this is end game content and you’re expected to know your profession, how to move while casting, how to dodge, and how to break breakbars.

That should link to tutorials for each, particularly break bars.

That kind of warning should be in the game.

But having played through Living Story Season 2, and doing not only the bosses but the achievements, I felt better prepared for HOT stuff than a new player might.

Which doesn’t mean HoT can’t be soloed.

I bought my wife a raid run from a reputable guild for our anniversary. That unlocks the track and you can level it anywhere. Terrible solution but it’s there if anyone has lots of gold.

Tumult.2578:

Jumping into this multiloot several times and seeing how it progressed, I was impressed by the players ability to shape and reshape it to better fit their goals. This is the only place where I have seen this happen anywhere in the game. Sure, guilds and parties can work well together to accomplish great tasks but this was players exploiting the game in numerous and ingenious ways. Anet didn’t call it an exploit, they called it exploity, meaning there were likely even more ways players had not yet come across.

Sure there should not have been the ability to begin with, but many games have the sense to create open area’s where the players can create some of the game themselves and then the game takes full advantage of the players creation when it proves enjoyable content.

I see these as not a lot different. No economy crashed. Everyone was able to make their own choice to take part or not. So, I too to bid a fond farewell to the creativity that was the AB Multiloot.

Just to point this out, there were many ways the community has come together to get stuff done, or found creative ways to pass certain obstacles, particularly if you were part of the dungeon or fractal community.

There was one part of the harpy fractal where you could use an engineer skill to destroy a pile of rocks barring your way, and you could skip the an entire part of the fractal just by having an engineer with you. Needless to say that was fixed.

There are still probably people who run all three paths of Ascalon Catacombs in one run without leaving the dungeon.

Djinn.9245:

“MY gliders worked perfectly, nya nya!”

I don’t see the point in people talking about how they DIDN’T have any problems with this instance. What are you all trying to say – its not possible for some people to get a bugged instance? Or maybe its not possible for the internet to affect your experience? Or any number of other factors that could happen?

Gliders aren’t the only issue with this instance. What about the boss being stunned at 5% health? Is some kind of research required for players to figure out that part of the fight?

I’m saying that people are trying to jump into it thinking it’s an updraft and they won’t work that way. I’m saying if you walk into it, it will propel you into the air 100% of the time in my experience and the experience of other people I’ve talked to who said it was bugged. I’m saying it’s far more likely not a bug, but bad messaging on the part of Anet, who put in water spouts, which everyone believes are updrafts.

If you walk into it it’ll work and no one has ever told me otherwise. Once you’re in the air, you hit your wings.

I’ve had easily a dozen people tell me they were bugged, in my guild, who I then told how to do it, and when they did it that way, they found it wasn’t bugged. It was simply a case of bad messaging.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

Vayne.8563:

And yet I did this today with people and the gliders work perfectly. You have to walk into the spouts (they’re not updrafts) and if you walk into them they work every single time. Naturally once you’re in the air you have to press space bar.

…and this different mechanic to what we were trained over four HoT maps to do … sucks. It makes me sad.

It’s not inherently wrong, it’s just super-confusing, and easy to, eg, see people try and jump in because you normally jump-glide-updraft to get in the air.

So, yeah, people mistake “I don’t know how to do it” for “it’s broken” all the time — see the rift stabilizer “events” that people assume are broken for the same reason.

I agree with this 100%. People try to jump into it and if they’re not on the ground, they don’t go up. It’s not an updraft, it’s a spout. It looks different too. I needs much better messaging.

That’s one of the biggest issues in this game….consistency.

kdaddy.5431:

@ vayne i understand what you are saying about the OP learning to play but he and torso reaper are saying the same thing.

Also i wasnt interrupting it differently i was breaking it down to the basics.

You talk about timers, i remember when GW2 first came out and how you did things. It was called Guild chat and go to LA. Before the mega servers, i used to say hey guys claw is up in guild chat. If no one was on i went to LA, there use to be a reason to sit in LA. We use to do the same thing for WvW.

So no you didnt have to use timers before, also you can do many many of the bosses with a few people. Its why i dont say you can blame VB because if you have 2-3 friends with you. You can go after a boss at night with a small group.

Cant do that with in the other 3 maps, the OP is trying to solo. Torso Reaper above me comments on the trains you do to finish Maguuma.

Thats not how it should be, if HOT was actually harder they bosses and monsters you face would be actually stronger. No instead all the HOT content is group based.

Then they throw a bunch of monsters out who have simply 1 shot mechanics or SP with monsters with tons of HP.

Like ive said before, im ok with saying HOT isnt for everyone. Telling the OP to L2P in a system that requires X to do Y to do Z which helps you do X is terrible.

The idea that LFG system TOOL is necessary to learn, to do things says something about the 3 maps. Your doing what Anet did to eles in PvP. Learn to play shout/support/healbot or play something else.

And I don’t use timers now. I say in Guild chat hey I’m going to do the meta in TD anyone interested and people who are interested join. Same with AB and Dragon Stands. The rewards aren’t interesting enough in VB to make anyone annouce it though. If you get T4 you get a chest piece for the armor set which most of us got a long time ago.

The point is, there’s no difference between a timer for Jormag or a timer for TD. WE’ve had timers long before HoT. You can announce HoT events in guild chat. So besides you not liking HOT what’s actually the difference?

I’ve done trains twice to finish maguuma. I’ve finished it on six characters, and that’s completing all four zones.

I’ve completed VB on over 20 characters. I’ve finished AB on nearly that many. I don’t train.

You can duo upwards of 90% of the content. You don’t need a train to do it, any more than you need a train to do temples in Orr.

You need a timer site, and you need LFG tool to get to metas, if you have to do the meta.

For example, a lot of people still think you need to get to night to get to the canopy in VB, which isn’t true. There are NO POIs in AB that require the meta to get. None. Zero.

There is exactly ONE POI in VB locked behind an event which occurs after the meta. Two people that are good can do that event, but three people certainly an do it and it’s done all the time. How is three people a zerg.

You’re talking through your dislike of the map, but I’ll put my money where my mouth is. I’ll show you how to do it if you don’t believe me. I’m relatively sure we can 2 man most of the zones.

There are two hero points in VB that are done regularly just by saying something in map chat. Or taking a third person. Or making sure you can break bars efficiently with two people.

You do not need to zerg, you don’t need full map, and you can go through all the HOT zones. Look I’m not saying it’s as easy as the core game. But saying you can play Guild Wars 2 without timers in the past because you can announce something in guild chat is just silly. What’s stopping anyone from announcing HOT content in Guild Chat.

The fact is more people will say I’m doing Dragon Stand in my guild than are saying I’m doing the Frozen More or the Shatterer.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I never stated it wasn’t one. Just that it understates the issue. Learning to play with a bad teacher is not always very enjoyable.

The game doesn’t do a great job of teaching how to handle stuff, if you come in new with HoT and don’t play through all the older content.

Living Story Season 2 instances are much harder than the open world but most new people will bypass that, unfortuately.

Southsun, the Silverwastes and Drytop are all harder than the core world but the personal story doesn’t take people there.

However, dungeons and fractals do exist and people can do those. And solo people should spend some time in the Silverwastes before they jump into HOT, or find someone to teach them the game (which I do often).

The game has never really been good at holding your hand. For some people that’s a real issue. Other people like it.

However, the difficulty curve from core game to HOT is pretty bad, I’ll give you that.

kdaddy.5431:

Plautze.6290:

28k AP or not, Vayne got it right. OP complains about not being able to play his SOLO STORY.

Proof:

I start up my SOLO play story line. Let me say this again.. SOLO PLAY Story line. To find out that not only do the NPCs get absolutely annihilated leaving you alone to fight 15+ mobs, but you yourself get zerg gibbed in 2 seconds. Yes i dodged, Yes i tried to avoid everything. At some point you have to try and hit them and thats when you get gibbed.

After dying and grinding my way through a few solo missions and getting to the point where I had to defend the frog village only to once again have every single npc dead within seconds and dying over and over i gave up.

The SOLO PLAY story line is simply not designed properly. Its garbage. And thats it for me, I was COMPLETELY enjoying the game .. right up until the expansion. Solo play is just not balanced properly.

In that 2nd paragraph you will see he started to try and play the story part which is story that happens in PvE.

In the part you didnt highlight the OP is complaining about the glider and mushroom masterys.

Some of the story in HOT is PvE and actually alot of it is getting experience points for masterys int he circle they Anet created. To use tunnels to expand the story you need to play PvE HOT. They are trying to do the story mode solo and are struggling big time because everything is tied together.

Let me say you guys keep bringing in other factors.

Vayne brought in examples such as triple threat, which i agree needs a timer but 3 out of 4 areas of HOT do as well. For example lets say OP gets a bad AB map, they cant win and hes stuck outside trying to get in. Struggles to find another route in and then gets frustrated since he doesnt want to do the meta event to get into tarir but simply wants to do the story, for someone new like the OP this will get frustrating.

Lets say OP learns a little, really wants it and learns the meta events. Uses the LFG tool sees its 1 hour away decides to do some PvE grind for experience points. 30 minutes away finds that 1 map filled up for which ever meta event. He gets into the 2nd map and finds out there are limited people who dont know how the event works and it fails. More frustration.

You are taking the 1 small line the OP says and you dont break it down.

OP of thread is struggling with the difficulty of HOT. They now have to figure out the new masterys to play the story, they need to PvE to unlock masterys, they need masterys to progress threw the personal story.

The OP unlocks gliding realizes they need mushrooms, tries to move on in the story realizes he needs tunnels, ran out of mastery points and runs back etc etc etc.

Vayne in his post even talked about how OP of thread is probably playing axe warrior.

You guys have the right to blame OP for being very new but you can not defend a system like this. We have 1 meta event in TT that really needs multiple zergs coordinated. Im sorry but i and my guild mates were able to take down temples back in the day when we only had exotics. Just because we found it easy doesnt make it easy for everyone.

There is a place for certain things. This player first time coming into HOT and he struggled badly.

Like i said before, If you are new tot he game and your a bronze level warrior and match making puts you against me a plat level warrior how is that fair?

Right now HOT (the 4 maps) are only for people who love to farm. The new system is a circle system meaning one needs the other. The OP can not escape until he/she figures it out.

Its one thing to say L2P and its another when HOT itself is just a bad set up which many have complained about.

Okay first, the OP said he kept getting overwhelmed by 15 enemies IN THE STORY. That’s what he said. One would assume that’s he’s charging into the middle of a bunch of guys without trying to pull at all, without a ranged weapon and possibly without condition removal.

Secondly, ALL world bosses and meta events except the ones in Orr need a timer. How are you going to do Jormag if you don’t know when it spawns. Or the Shatterer? Or the Shadow Behemoth.

Timers have been a part of this game for years. HoT continues what already existed. Your blame is misplaced.

I feel you’re misrepresenting what the OP said to make some point of your own. He said he couldn’t do the story. He needs to learn how to play his character if he wants to do end game content.

FrizzFreston.5290:

I know that everyone measures according to their own standards, but just because you can play the game (and enjoy it) doesn’t mean it’s “just a L2p issue”.

Learning by itself can be full of challenges, and while it’s hard to accommodate for everyone, GW2 is far from ideal regarding this aspect.

I don’t think someone who played from the beginning of the game has the same experience as someone who started a few weeks ago.

Right, so someone buys the game, plays it for a few weeks, has done none of the end game content, skips to the expansion content, which was always going to be end game content (just like Eye of the North was in Guild Wars 1), and says he can’t solo the story an therefore it’s garbage.

The fact is, if you’re only playing a couple of weeks, maybe there is stuff to learn and if you need to learn stuff…about playing the game, that’s the very definition of learn to play.

When I fail at something in a game, any game, I don’t assume immediately the game is garbage and come to the forums to make abrasive posts.

I see if maybe there’s something I’ve missed, particularly if I’m new at a game.

The OP worded a post about the difficulty of a story in an abrasive manner, and that type of hyperbole helps no one, including the OP himself.

But if players who are playing the game longer can do it, because they know more, that’s the very definition of a learn to play issue.

Plautze.6290:

28k AP or not, Vayne got it right. OP complains about not being able to play his SOLO STORY.

Proof:

I start up my SOLO play story line. Let me say this again.. SOLO PLAY Story line. To find out that not only do the NPCs get absolutely annihilated leaving you alone to fight 15+ mobs, but you yourself get zerg gibbed in 2 seconds. Yes i dodged, Yes i tried to avoid everything. At some point you have to try and hit them and thats when you get gibbed.

After dying and grinding my way through a few solo missions and getting to the point where I had to defend the frog village only to once again have every single npc dead within seconds and dying over and over i gave up.

The SOLO PLAY story line is simply not designed properly. Its garbage. And thats it for me, I was COMPLETELY enjoying the game .. right up until the expansion. Solo play is just not balanced properly.

He even capitilized solo. I have a 60 year old woman with a bad computer in my guild who can beat the story.

What I’m guessing the OP’s problem is is that he spent all of core running into a million mobs with a greatsword or duel axe on his warrior.

It probably never occured to him to equip a bow or rifle. He probably never had to pull a few guys at a time or use the terrain to his advantage, all of which can be done solo.

He might not even have condition removal on his bar.

So yeah, it’s soloable by most people, I would think at least up to the last part. Then it’s a mixed bag. The last chapter is long and difficult by comparison. The first chapters, shouldn’t really be much of a problem.