Guild Wars 2

Djinn.9245:

We all understand that many players enjoy the challenge of HoT. We also can read that many players have the game time to wander around and figure out the maps. Or maybe some players are just really good at taking a path once and then remembering it. I knew someone who could drive somewhere only once and remember how to get to that place for the rest of his life.

Not all of us fit these criteria. When I started playing GW2 in Beta, it was a game that appealed to more of the common denominator. That was exactly why I chose to play it. They said no grinding and other things that appealed to me. GW2 seems to be going away from that initial vision of the game: more and more twitch / platforming, more difficulty in multiple ways, etc. Some people applaud the change while others wish for the GW2 they originally purchased.

No amount of “practice more” or “L2play” is going to change my opinion that I don’t like the direction the game is going.

The same complaints, or similar ones, were made about Guild Wars 1 though.

See in most MMOs as the game progresses they get harder… that’s the whole concept of having an end game. And while Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have a traditional end game, one of the biggest complaints about it, the longest and loudest has been that it doesn’t have an end game. So Anet added an end game.

They wanted an end game all along. Orr was harder originally, a lot harder. Anet nerfed it due to complaints, but not everyone was happy with that nerf.

Then they added Southsun Cove, which was a serious step up in difficulty.

The fact that Anet is adding an end game isn’t new. When Eye of the North came out in Guild Wars 1, the lowest level creatures you fought were as high as the highest level creatures you fought elsewhere. The game was significantly harder and it was originally met with some resistence.

No one group of players can have the whole game to themselves. No one group of players should say the entire open world should be simple to navigate, nor should be group of players insist that the open world should be brain-dead easy and most of it is.

The idea of dividing the zergs was started in Dry Top and the Silverwastes (you can’t really get to the max level rewards in either without dividing the zerg) and they were deemed successful.

The expansion was meant to raise the level and play and some people stepped up to that.

I’ve offered to guide people through the new zones on a number of occasions and some people have taken me up on that, and they’ve almost universally been happier with the expansion.

It blows my mind that so many people who judge it harshly refuse to accept any help at all in learning how to deal with it.

If people don’t have the time and they won’t accept the help (in a game that’s an MMO after all), I’m not so sure why content should be made for them at the expense of people who want an occasional challenge.

We have people in our guild who are in their 60s, who aren’t “great gamers” who run around HoT now. It’s really not that hard…but people have made it harder in their minds. They drew an immediate conclusion about it, took very few steps to make it better for themselves, and then come here and say the game was better when anyone could do it.

Well, as I recall, presearing ascalon was a lot easier than the rest of Prophecies, and that game got harder and harder as you went on, particularly before heroes were introduced. As I understand it people had to group to get missions done, much like they have to play together to get some hero points in HoT (not all of them or even most of them just some of them). As I understand it, Guild Wars 1, initially, before the introduction of heros, had an end game that was much much harder than the “open world” which you could solo.

And even back then some people complained. But it wasn’t that they couldn’t do it. It was that they wanted to be able to solo everything.

HoT isn’t that hard. Getting people to help you in a multi player game shouldn’t be an issue. And once people learn the zones and strategies on how to deal with them or get around in them it becomes a lot easier.

There are still some complaints about the difficulty of HoT, but I’ve personally seen too many average players get into HoT and tame it to take most of the comments its difficulty to heart.

To address the points, and it will come as no surprise to many, I disagree with many of them.

Hitting the same five skills for four years? You dont’ have a weapon swap? That would make at least 10 skills, or 20 if you’re on an elementalist and those are only weapon skills. And of course, some of us swap out weapons depending on the situation. There’s no law that says you have to use one weapon. Add to that some of us have new weapon skills as of the release of HoT, and we’re using new skills that are less than a year old anyway.

If you miss grinding for armor, you can grind for gold and buy anything you like from the trading post.

WvW isn’t zerg or die, because people do run havok groups and some are very good at it.

I’ve recently played an MMO with quest text and even fully voiced, I can assure you that for some of us, the freedom of something ocurring organically is tons better than a wall of text, or a quest hub that sends us out repeatedliy to do something task, only to return and get another task. I felt like I was back in time playing that kind of game and I don’t think I could ever play that kind of game again. You may personally like it better. I personally think it belongs in the past.

Waypoints exist in cities for a reason. No idea why you’re having problem with cities, unless of course you’re talking about zone completion. If you’ve been playing this game for 4 years and you find the cities too confusing I’m not sure what to tell you, except, don’t go to TD.

End game does exist in this game. It’s simply not a single track end game like most games have. I mean for some WvW is end game and for some PvP is end game, and those most certainly exist. What you’re really saying here is you prefer a TRADITIONAL end game, which is fine, I suppose if you like it. But considering I dislike traditional MMO end games, I’d go and say not only does end game exist here, but it’s superior to the competition as it gives you more options. What doesn’t exist is a breadcrumb trail that leads you around by the nose. That definitely doesn’t exist, for which I am grateful.

I don’t disagree with all your points. I think armor variety could be better, and I don’t feel I know enough about PvP to comment on balance.

But yeah, I think some of your points are opinions expressed in a deeply negative light.

I hope the new people you’re “telling what to expect” will not take at face value that they’ll feel this way when they’ve played for as long as you. Because I have quite a few people I know who have played since the first beta that don’t feel this way.

Torolan.5816:

Pretty much what Ashen said. If you are neither into jumping puzzles or exploration in general, every map of HoT is a pain with tangled depths being the worst offender. I don´t know how many times I ran around looking for this or that hero point or mastery point despite standing only a few inches besides them. Plain disgusting. Using a guide helps, but i don´t think it is a good design of a map if you have to seek outside help to actually complete it.

I remember people saying the same thing about Kaineng Center in Guild Wars 1. There are now 2 maps in the game that are particularly mazy….hint, AB really isn’t, nor is DS.

Every map in the beginning of the game had some hard to get points. How soon we forget that.

So out of some 30 maps, 2 are mazes?

I’m not so sure that should be a major issue. Particularly because I’ve taught thiose maps to lots of people who ceased to have a problem after. Oh, and I’ve never used Dulfy or a video.

Like Kaineng Center, I just learned where to go by playing.

LoL NooBs.5076:

Vayne.8563:

I feel as if you’re trying to twist what people are saying to try to prove some point.

That’s funny. I always felt this way about you.

Djinn.9245:

I love the “L2play” responses. People are expressing their opinion that they don’t like something and others are responding “learn to like it”. LOL

Right on.

And just so we are clear, Heart of Thorns killed my interest in Guild Wars 2. The game has had big problems since the release of this so-called “expansion”. Deleting or downplaying our opinions won’t fix those.

There were negative opinions before the expansion and people who don’t like the difficulty of the expansion are downplaying the opinion of people who like that harder content.

LoL NooBs.5076:

Finally! +1 for this thread.
Guilds dead. Builds dead. What is there to do in this game? Glide? Chat? Wow. Such features.

Your guild may in fact be dead, but you can’t speak for all guilds. My guild is definitely not dead.

I’m not as excited with my wife after 14 years of marriage as I was when I first met her, but I’m still going to keep her around, because she’s a pretty good match for me. I feel the same way about Guild Wars 2. There’s no better MMO on the planet for me personally.

Sure the shine wears off, but I still love going into new zones and exploring. I’m doing more farming and less of the stuff I used to like because I’ve done everything, but that’s to be expected.

The thing is, and I’ve said this all along, this is a game of trickles. If you want to make money, make a legendary and sell it, and you won’t have to worry about the blues and greens. But the blues and greens add up over time, and the mats you get from them is money.

You get that stuff from almost everything. It’s true you don’t often get that “big drop”. But I don’t know that one drop worth 10 gold is better than 100 drops worth 10 gold if you get them in the same time frame.

It’s all a grand illusion.

Chyanne Waters.8719:

Paulytnz.7619
One thing I would like to say however. I did like the dungeon system better in GW1. That is you go in and clear out rooms one by one. None of this nancy garbage you do here “run past the mobs” “cheat this way” for faster clears! Perhaps anet could add a few more like this too!

I do not know what Guildwars you were playing, but that is far from what happens in dungeons. They were actually worse on people running them and going past mobs than Guildwars2. I know I used to run CoF in Guildwars. We used to speed clear Tomb of the Primeval Kings With a Monk a Ranger puller (sometimes two) A Blood is Power Necro an Mm Necro and two more support splinter weapon Rangers. And Tombs was the only place you actually had to clear an area out before you moved on to the next level.

Also FoW , UW, Tombs, Urgoz, DOA, and the Deep were not dungeons. They are Elite Missions Some people could run for example a get to the end reward FoW in about 7-8 minutes

I agree with this. There were so many trick builds, dual 600 monks and all sorts of stuff. We used to go into the Fissure of Woe with a perma sin and an ele and just use meteor storm while the perma sin held aggro. If it was done right, the ele never aggroed anything and the permasin couldn’t die.

You dont’ have to run past mobs if you can just farm them with no danger. lol

Astralporing.1957:

CETheLucid.3964:

Astralporing.1957:

Razor.9872:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/54038c/estimating_gw2s_population_size/

Based on this, i’d say the numbers from that reddit thread are a bit high.

a while ago, i gave my calculations to askagamedev. today, he replied, basically agreeing with my findings.

http://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/150776912525/does-your-population-estimation-trick-using-the

That was not an Anet dev, so he was just guessing. Which proves exactly nothing (for one, he may not have been aware of any GW2 statistics).

Vayne.8563:

Since we know HoT sales were lackluster originally, and we had a half price sale for HoT a couple of months ago, which according to some at least did pretty well, I wouldn’t assume the numbers are significantly less.

I haven’t said they are. I said, that they are unlikely to be higher now. And that they almost certainly were less during the content drought.
And even if there was some increase (even if think it unlikely), reddit estimation is around twice as high, which is pretty much absurd. No MMO that old can double their active playerbase outside of post-expansion high tide. Especially compared to the post-expansion high-tide.

I’d agree with you if the game hadn’t gone free to play. But there are plenty of people who will sign up for a free game that wouldn’t pay for a game.

It’s entirely possible that the number of free players have raised the population from where it was even a few months after launch.

Freakshow.1809:

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

Freakshow.1809:

Danikat.8537:

No one outside of Anet knows for sure.

They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.

And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.

As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption

I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.

But even WoW stopped announcing subscriber numbers. In fact, very very few MMOs announce their online populations. So trying to draw a conclusion from that is pointless.

I disagree, the thing is WoW’s numbers were dropping expansion after expansion. in fact it was only after they announced there lowest number of subscribers that they stopped publishing there numbers entirely.

But even before they stopped reporting subscriber numbers, they went from 12.4 million to 4 million. They were showing losses all the time and they were still reporting. And everyone knows WoW is the most successful MMORPG of all time, both financially and population wise. And even they can’t maintain a population. No other MMO has come close.

So using WoW as any kind of example of anything probably won’t work because nothing can compare to it. But if you look at the other “big” MMOs, which of them are publishing numbers?

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

Miku.6297:

Galtrix.7369:

Yes, blizzard stopped releasing their population statistics. However, they continued to release other statistics that implied either a growth in population or a decrease.

Implied growth and announcing population statistics aren’t the same thing.

Galtrix.7369:

And, I’d just like to point out that many, many MMO’s, when the population reaches a high point, release their population statistics. Aion, Lineage, Runes of Magic, and many other MMOs did this, yet GW2 never did. Why is that? Is it because the population fluctuates so much due to constant updates? Is it because people do the new content and then leave shortly thereafter?

A-net did release an account count when they hit certain numbers, which is about as valid as any other “population count” that other games have released. How long do you think that population count was accurate or remained accurate? What did they use to determine exact population vs inactive population? For subscription based games it’s easier to get a rough count, I say rough because not everyone paying their sub is actively playing.

Galtrix.7369:

There definitely is a reason that no numbers were ever officially released by Anet. I really don’t know what the reason is.

They did release some statistics like how many accounts were out there. So that’s a number that’s pretty much as valid as any other population release. Very few companies continue to update a count like that on a regular basis.

I’d have to disagree with you that account numbers are a valid way to evaluate the population, as this game is b2p whereas other games are p2p or f2p. I’ve seen that many people buy secondary accounts as either bank storage or for more character slots in GW2. 19 out of 25 guildies have 2 or more accounts. That right there tells me that the number of accounts doesn’t tell me a thing about the population. Feel free to do another study with your own guild.

I agree that companies seldomly release their statistics, but it is wise to release them when a large population is acquired so others will know the game isn’t dead. The only reason for not releasing them would be the fact that they’re scared of losing players because of a dwindling population. That’s why Blizzard stopped posting their statistics… because they lost around 100,000 subscribers and that’s when they stopped posting statistics.

And people who play Eve have multiple accounts, a lot of people serious about WoW have multiple accounts too. Some people multibox and have a dozen accounts or more. A game being buy to play doesnt’ stop people from having a lot of accounts, depending on how deeply they are into the game, and how profitable having those accounts actually is.

Multiboxing is a thing in most MMOs I know.

The thing is, the number of people having multiple accounts increases when the game is B2P or F2P, making population counts according to accounts meaningless.

Yes, there are people with multiple accounts that play WoW, but I guarantee that percentage is WAY lower than the percentage in GW2.

Not sure how you can guarantee that, because I’m not sure how many people in a game you can literally multibox might have more accounts. You might have less people with more accounts over all. Particularly if there are more people playing to begin with.

I definitely knew people how had more than 12 wow accounts and I don’t know anyone in Guild Wars 2 that has that.

Djinn.9245:

I love the “L2play” responses. People are expressing their opinion that they don’t like something and others are responding “learn to like it”. LOL

We’re not saying learn to like it. If the complaint is that it’s too hard for me to do and I keep dying then the reason why people don’t like it is they keep dying. Literally, the easiest solution is not to die as much. That’s why people say L2P.

No one is saying learn to like it. We’re saying if you don’t die so much you might end up liking it naturally.

I feel as if you’re trying to twist what people are saying to try to prove some point. You may not like HoT for a lot of reasons, but if dying too much is one of them, there are ways to play better.

I’m not sure why anyone would argue for their right to be worse at the game.

I don’t, and have never played meta builds. I just hang out with people who don’t care if I play meta builds or not.

Galtrix.7369:

Miku.6297:

Galtrix.7369:

Yes, blizzard stopped releasing their population statistics. However, they continued to release other statistics that implied either a growth in population or a decrease.

Implied growth and announcing population statistics aren’t the same thing.

Galtrix.7369:

And, I’d just like to point out that many, many MMO’s, when the population reaches a high point, release their population statistics. Aion, Lineage, Runes of Magic, and many other MMOs did this, yet GW2 never did. Why is that? Is it because the population fluctuates so much due to constant updates? Is it because people do the new content and then leave shortly thereafter?

A-net did release an account count when they hit certain numbers, which is about as valid as any other “population count” that other games have released. How long do you think that population count was accurate or remained accurate? What did they use to determine exact population vs inactive population? For subscription based games it’s easier to get a rough count, I say rough because not everyone paying their sub is actively playing.

Galtrix.7369:

There definitely is a reason that no numbers were ever officially released by Anet. I really don’t know what the reason is.

They did release some statistics like how many accounts were out there. So that’s a number that’s pretty much as valid as any other population release. Very few companies continue to update a count like that on a regular basis.

I’d have to disagree with you that account numbers are a valid way to evaluate the population, as this game is b2p whereas other games are p2p or f2p. I’ve seen that many people buy secondary accounts as either bank storage or for more character slots in GW2. 19 out of 25 guildies have 2 or more accounts. That right there tells me that the number of accounts doesn’t tell me a thing about the population. Feel free to do another study with your own guild.

I agree that companies seldomly release their statistics, but it is wise to release them when a large population is acquired so others will know the game isn’t dead. The only reason for not releasing them would be the fact that they’re scared of losing players because of a dwindling population. That’s why Blizzard stopped posting their statistics… because they lost around 100,000 subscribers and that’s when they stopped posting statistics.

And people who play Eve have multiple accounts, a lot of people serious about WoW have multiple accounts too. Some people multibox and have a dozen accounts or more. A game being buy to play doesnt’ stop people from having a lot of accounts, depending on how deeply they are into the game, and how profitable having those accounts actually is.

Multiboxing is a thing in most MMOs I know.

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

Freakshow.1809:

Danikat.8537:

No one outside of Anet knows for sure.

They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.

And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.

As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption

I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.

But even WoW stopped announcing subscriber numbers. In fact, very very few MMOs announce their online populations. So trying to draw a conclusion from that is pointless.

Yes, blizzard stopped releasing their population statistics. However, they continued to release other statistics that implied either a growth in population or a decrease.

And, I’d just like to point out that many, many MMO’s, when the population reaches a high point, release their population statistics. Aion, Lineage, Runes of Magic, and many other MMOs did this, yet GW2 never did. Why is that? Is it because the population fluctuates so much due to constant updates? Is it because people do the new content and then leave shortly thereafter?

There definitely is a reason that no numbers were ever officially released by Anet. I really don’t know what the reason is.

Most MMOs tell you what they’re making before they make it too and Anet seldom does. I think by now most people would stop thinking Anet is just a typical MMO company and stop making assumptions because of it.

I mean how many MMOs started off out of the box as buy to play? I can’t think of any. Even MMOs that became buy to play like TSW started off as sub games.

Anet started off neither free nor sub and that’s pretty unusual.

Most games have their highest player numbers after the launch of the first game. There’s just too much competition otherwise. Virtually all the new WoW expansions that come out see less people returning (the current one may be an exception) and sees them leaving faster.

Because there are more games than there ever were, and there are less people playing computer games than playing console games now. it’s unlikely you’re going to find any MMOs that go up in numbers regularly. Who has? SWToR? ESO?

All these games get a bump when they go free to play and then their numbers start edging down again. All these games get a bump when the come out with an expansion and they start edging down again.

You say this like this isn’t the rule in the industry, that somewhere MMOs get more and more players. I’d like to know which those are.

Astralporing.1957:

Razor.9872:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/54038c/estimating_gw2s_population_size/

According to the info Anet themselves announced (or, more precisely, info that we got from one of the MMO webzines, that was based on the info they got from Anet) in the month HoT launched we had around 1 million of active accounts, half of whose were f2p ones.
(it’s not clear what “active account” meant in that context, but it’s most likely it was “accounts that logged at least once during that month”).
That was just after expansion launch, remember, so i’d say it’s unlikely the numbers are higher now. Most probably they are lower (though definitely better than they were during the content drought before LS3).
Based on this, i’d say the numbers from that reddit thread are a bit high.

Since we know HoT sales were lackluster originally, and we had a half price sale for HoT a couple of months ago, which according to some at least did pretty well, I wouldn’t assume the numbers are significantly less.

Guild Wars 2 has always had people returning for living world chapters and these last two chapters have been pretty well received.

Galtrix.7369:

Freakshow.1809:

Danikat.8537:

No one outside of Anet knows for sure.

They’re the only people who have access to the data and with a few very rare exceptions (mainly from the first year) they don’t announce it. They may report it to NCSoft (their parent company) but since it’s not directly related to their finances it’s unlikely.

And it’s pretty impossible to estimate it from how many players you see in-game because there’s no way to tell how many copies of each map there are or how busy they all are. If you’re in a map and see hardly anyone else around it could be because there’s hardly anyone else playing in that area or it could be because they’re all in a different copy.

As much as I love this game…the way I see it, if they don’t publicly announce the number, they must not be too proud of it. Only leaving me to assume it’s a low number compared to other MMO games. Of course its only assumption

I completely agree. If the population were large, they would be announcing it all over the place.

But even WoW stopped announcing subscriber numbers. In fact, very very few MMOs announce their online populations. So trying to draw a conclusion from that is pointless.

Nefarius.9702:

SaltAndLight.4652:

The world is getting bigger, so the players are more spread out.

very plausible statement here.

Didn’t realize when I created this topic that some time has passed since HoT was released and at some times the maps are empty (more or less) cause new maps were added and many people already mastered most of the achievements / challenges HoT offers .

Guess I got a somewhat wrong impression cause im grinding hot maps atm to get my machined weapons done – ember bay seems always filled up tho (for example)

I really really hope the game will survive for a really long time. Its been over a decade since I put my passion into GW, and it’d be sad if this great game would be dying .

Well I know it’s only annecdotal by my guild is growing and quite a few people who had left before HoT, returned after HoT launched and are still here.

It’s been in the game for a very long time now. It works with many types of tickets. I remember back when they did this for the fused tickets in the early living world episodes. It certainly predates the LA rebuild by a good year, probably more.

LoL NooBs.5076:

Struggling? Just drop it like it’s HoT.
And never mind that money you paid. You are of no further use to ANet at this time, like the rest of us.

Or maybe, you should see what the OP posted later in the thread:

“I didn’t say the content was “too hard” or that ANet needed to nerf it. I simply said I was struggling and looking for advice. I got some advice, tweaked my build, and equipped a longbow. It did not get easier, but I got smarter on positioning and what not. I finished HoT and have now moved on the Out of the Shadows.
Thank you all for your input.”

Seems to me that unlike some of the posters in this thread, the OP found a way through HoT, using some of the advice in this thread.

As far as I can tell there are three types of players here. Those who didn’t find HoT particularly challenging to begin with. Those who found it very challenging and gave up pretty fast, without really trying to adapt, and those who found it challenging at first and figured out a way to get through it, or even into it.

Those groups of players probably have some crossover, but you get the idea.

Not everyone that found HoT challenging necessarily gave up. And I know people who found it challenging at first and now really enjoy it.

Saying the company doesn’t care about you, when they went to great lengths to make significant changes to HoT based on player comments seems to be pretty misleading to me.

6AB542C9-4925-485E-B5C2-15BA7972AF72:

No hard feelings at all.

I play video games to have fun. HoT is not fun for me at all. I’ll restate that “for me” part. As such, I am empathizing with the OP and all the others who have such disdain for HoT. I simply hope the next version is better, in that it appeals to my customer segment. Glad you OP types got what you wanted.

The rest of the game I love very much.

Empathize if you like, but it’s not as hard as you make it out to be. I’ve taught more than a few people how to navigate and get around in HoT, and just about all those people go from having negative feelings to really enjoying the zone.

Saying this zone is hard for me, because I’m not good enough, is a personal choice. Getting better at the game can be fun too, though. It’s your choice whether you want to get better or not.

Here’s the issue. In a game without raising the level cap, the only way you really progress is by getting better, or doing things that are harder. And since for many people, probably most, MMOs are about progression, getting better is part of the progression.

I’ll extend you the same offer I’ve made to many people. If you’re on a US server I’ll be happy to teach you how to deal with the HoT zones. It’s probably not nearly as bad as you think it is.

HoT brought us four new maps that are now approaching 1 year old. The new maps Bloodstone Fen and Ember Bay are babies compared to that. People are still enjoying the new maps. Why are people trying to judge the population of the game as a whole based on what’s going on in any given map?

Yes less people are doing HoT metas. That’s because players that used to be spread out in four maps are now spread out into six. That’s going to generally mean less players per map.

Use the LFG tool, get to a populated server, and you get still get the metas. The hardest ones to get are TD and VB, but I still get them pretty often.

However, most of my time is spent in Ember Bay, building up more karma for my next lot of legendaries. Plenty of people in both Bloodstone Fen and Ember Bay whenever I’m there.

I wouldn’t judge the population of the game by the population of any zone or even any set of zones.

SkyShroud.2865:

This is kinda off topic since OP didn’t mention full rep guilds but other people have been referring it.

I find it really puzzling, if repping guild is so unimportant as others claimed, why are people being salty about guilds having rep requirements, to the point of having to keep announcing so and so? At the end of the day, rep do matters regardless of whatever people say.

Repping a guild is useful. Having to rep only one guild, therefore, is impinging on the freedom of the player to maximize his potential.

The reason people are complaining is because repping a guild provides benefit. Allowing me only to rep a single guild and no other takes away those benefits.

Why are people bothered about people trying to limit their freedom in a piece of entertainment they paid for?

Because it’s ridiculous for anyone to do that, or even try to in my opinion.

My friends who play cards don’t insist I can’t play cards with anyone else. My friends who play baseball don’t insist I can’t also play soccer. My friends who eat out with us once a month don’t tell me I can’t or shouldn’t eat out with other friends.

Repping guilds is useful. Limiting what I can and can’t rep is more than anyone should be asking, unless they’re paying me of course.

That’s what a job does. It pays you to do stuff you might rather not do. When I log onto a game, no one is going to tell me what to do.

I prefer Ember Bay to Bloodstone Fen. I prefer a bigger, more spread out map with lots of nooks and crannies to explore. I even like the new JP. I like the lava tubes. Yes, I even like the mursaat fortress.

Bloodstone Fen has some fun stuff too, but Ember Bay better suits my play style.

You can do this event with fewer people than you think if those people are organized and everyone brings cc to break the bar.

Mea.5491:

Vayne.8563:

Some games are better to watch. Some games are better to play. This game is better to play than watch, for me anyway.

There are no games that are better to watch. :P Watching others having fun is not fun, lol. But then again, I hate watching sports too…

What I mean by this is that in game games its easier to follow the action. Less effect spam. Most clear objectives. It’s easier to figure out what’s going on.

Guild Wars 2, just on the basis of particle spam, makes it hard to figure out what’s going on at times.

Healix.5819:

Vayne.8563:

Maybe it’s because I look at a timer site, know when it’s coming up, get into a group before it starts and wait, maybe 5-10 minutes for the start.

The average player likely doesn’t follow timers, nor do they use LFG. For MMOs in general, most people just want to login and play, which is why most play solo, and they don’t usually take it outside of the game, like reading the forums.

Taxi’ing is the problem and something needs to be done about it. If nobody did it, every map should fill up to around 70% before a new one is created. When people taxi out, they’re killing their map, which overall, guarantees that a majority of the maps die out in favor of filling only a few of them. That 1 full map could easily split into 3-5 maps, likewise, the 5 dead maps could join into 1. People love their overpopulated maps however, which are generally more rewarding and support the AFK playstyle. In the end, there is always going to be that one last underpopulated map, which could be solved in various ways, such as balancing for smaller numbers or volunteering in reverse to split full ones. At this point, they should just take the easy road and implement districts, but they’re probably afraid of it revealing the active population.

The average player doesn’t have to play every single morsel of content. Timer sites have been a thing for years in this game. The average player would be better learning about and using both timer sites and LFG than ignoring it and hoping the game will change.

Some people won’t get it and those people will leave. But that’s true of things in almost any game. I’ve seen people walk away from games for all sorts of reasons.

Using a timer site is pretty easy. Using LFG is pretty easy and if you don’t want to do either you can always join a guild. Someone will be doing dragonstand and annouce it in guild chat and you’ll join them. So there’s another option as well.

Some games are better to watch. Some games are better to play. This game is better to play than watch, for me anyway.

If you got exotics all the time, you’d be bored of them too.

I get into dragon stand maps constantly with minimal waiting. Maybe it’s because I look at a timer site, know when it’s coming up, get into a group before it starts and wait, maybe 5-10 minutes for the start.

Timers are bad in certain ways and good in other ways. Showing up late and trying to get into a map though, is often (but not always) futile.

I think you might have something there, OP. Good thinking on your part.

Hapmuhr.2781:

Vayne.8563:

Hapmuhr.2781:

Vayne.8563:

Hapmuhr.2781:

There’s gonna be people saying “do this, do that, use this build, dont’ do that, play like this”

You know what my advice is? Run with a zerg, it’s the easiest way. Find a good populated map and just go with 50 other players, you will face absolutely no resistance and your XP bar will fill up in no-time. Do hero points and nab your specializations while you’re at it too. Really, I tried all the ways people said would be successful and it was mindnumbingly boring me to tears. Then I gave up and realized Hot = ZERG LOL and went with that. Also, Tarir meta = Massive XP, so find it and do it over and over.

Really, HoT isn’t hard once you figure out that a zerg is what these maps are created for and only that.

I don’t think I could disagree with this post more. Two or three people in a party is enough to do 90% plus of HOT. There may be one or two things you can’t do in each zone, but it’s minimal. Only the metas, which always need groups, require more people, and even then zergs aren’t required.

That’s the rub though, “could” as in doing it with lots of difficulty. It’s obvious that HoT is a collection of meta maps where you are supposed to run with a zerg to do most things. Going against that is just an excersize in frustration as far as I’m concerned. I mean, look at VB, you have your camps, all meta. Look at AB, same thing, tarir meta, pylons and what have you. Look at TD, chak meta. It’s all designed for large groups and denying that just ends up with frustration.

I can solo most of it. I do almost none of it with a lot of difficulty even if it’s just me and my wife. I don’t know why you find it difficult, because it’s not that difficult. If you don’t believe me, I’d be happy to show you.

Thank you, but no thank you.

I know the ways to solo it, but it always requires pidgeonholing into some solo meta or some tactic that I have no wish to learn when I can just play as I regularly do if I’m in a zerg. So soloing is just pure tedium in these maps, that’s my entire point. It’s doable yes, but why would I when I can make it easy on myself?

No, it doesn’t require pigeon-holing anything into any meta. I don’t even run meta builds. It requires knowing the enemy and knowing your profession and having a friend or two. That’s all it really requires.

My friends and I do it for fun. I’ve already trained all my masteries.

Hapmuhr.2781:

Vayne.8563:

Hapmuhr.2781:

There’s gonna be people saying “do this, do that, use this build, dont’ do that, play like this”

You know what my advice is? Run with a zerg, it’s the easiest way. Find a good populated map and just go with 50 other players, you will face absolutely no resistance and your XP bar will fill up in no-time. Do hero points and nab your specializations while you’re at it too. Really, I tried all the ways people said would be successful and it was mindnumbingly boring me to tears. Then I gave up and realized Hot = ZERG LOL and went with that. Also, Tarir meta = Massive XP, so find it and do it over and over.

Really, HoT isn’t hard once you figure out that a zerg is what these maps are created for and only that.

I don’t think I could disagree with this post more. Two or three people in a party is enough to do 90% plus of HOT. There may be one or two things you can’t do in each zone, but it’s minimal. Only the metas, which always need groups, require more people, and even then zergs aren’t required.

That’s the rub though, “could” as in doing it with lots of difficulty. It’s obvious that HoT is a collection of meta maps where you are supposed to run with a zerg to do most things. Going against that is just an excersize in frustration as far as I’m concerned. I mean, look at VB, you have your camps, all meta. Look at AB, same thing, tarir meta, pylons and what have you. Look at TD, chak meta. It’s all designed for large groups and denying that just ends up with frustration.

I can solo most of it. I do almost none of it with a lot of difficulty even if it’s just me and my wife. I don’t know why you find it difficult, because it’s not that difficult. If you don’t believe me, I’d be happy to show you.

Hapmuhr.2781:

There’s gonna be people saying “do this, do that, use this build, dont’ do that, play like this”

You know what my advice is? Run with a zerg, it’s the easiest way. Find a good populated map and just go with 50 other players, you will face absolutely no resistance and your XP bar will fill up in no-time. Do hero points and nab your specializations while you’re at it too. Really, I tried all the ways people said would be successful and it was mindnumbingly boring me to tears. Then I gave up and realized Hot = ZERG LOL and went with that. Also, Tarir meta = Massive XP, so find it and do it over and over.

Really, HoT isn’t hard once you figure out that a zerg is what these maps are created for and only that.

I don’t think I could disagree with this post more. Two or three people in a party is enough to do 90% plus of HOT. There may be one or two things you can’t do in each zone, but it’s minimal. Only the metas, which always need groups, require more people, and even then zergs aren’t required.

mauried.5608:

Well I just tried to do the Mordren attack on Tarir event and there wernt even enuf people to attack the gates, let alone kill the Octovine.
This event needs some kind of auto scaling because its starting to fail due to lack of people.
Most have moved on to the new Ember bay zone or are in Bloodstone Fen.

Did you use looking for group? Because I’ve done this event at least once a day, off hours, every single day this week. Just open LFG, get yourself to an active map doing the meta. Profit.

Edit: To be clear, every single time I’ve done it there are at last four other maps that have done it, since I’m in a multimap group.

macon.4065:

HoT isn’t amateur. There are people who didn’t like HoT and came back to find after giving it another chance, they did like it.

So knowing that a book isn’t written by a pro on the first page isn’t really the best analogy for the situation. Clearly some people really like HoT. It’s not like Anet is submitting a ms. to a publisher and it got rejected.

HoT isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but then, some people found different ways to approach it and some of those ended up liking it.

Sorry to bust your bubble on this guy but many of the people also didn’t like HOT. To be specific we lost a lot of people ad many have not come back yet. We hope but the problems are not corrected to get them to even think about coming back. And many, many still don’t like it – The Dev’s launched it with many people on the forums telling them to wait to hold off until it was fully developed. Many saw problems because of past expansions that Guildwars has released. It was too much too fast for the community and we are still in a mess with several of the issues yet even after all this time of the HOT launch. As a matter of fact some of the review boards went so far as to think this might be a huge blow to the budget of Guildwars 2. I heard and read it all from Reddit to the boards. I still think it can be fixed and will always hope so but its clear that their are somethings that they launched with HOT that was not favored by the community as long as these things stay your loosing gamers. For example this Mastery System, They tried to add new maps for WVW (people stopped playing WVW until it was changed back and it was changed back), so in a nutshell the community warned everyone about these situations before it occurred the company choose to ignore it and as a result they are getting exactly what they wanted. I just can’t help but wonder if the blow was so severe that we are now faced with instead of one dragon on an upcoming expansion we are in fact getting 2. Why the rush now for 2? Folks need to start looking between the lines and look at some of the past to see what is being repeated, none of this is really new happened with Factions, Nightfall redeemed them to the community and they Eyes of the North and the announcement of Guildwars 2. I would just think if we were doing so well we wouldn’t be offering free accounts, rushing product, changing a system that folks are still complaining about and getting extra money out of players for things that would take forever and a day to farm within the game. It still seems that farming looks more like a job to me and a lot less like having fun?

[/quote]

People not liking HoT doesn’t make it amateur. Lots of people don’t like opera, but that doesn’t make a professional opera company amateurs. One thing has nothing at all to do with another. It’s simply a form of hyperbole.

HoT didn’t resonate with everyone that’s 100% true. Doesn’t make it amateur and I can’t see a reason to support that kind of hyperbole whether you like it or you don’t.

Let’s keep in mind some people love HoT, including me and a fair portion of my guild. I don’t mean like it. I mean it revitalized the game for them. Surely that wouldn’t happen if it was amateur.

That’s a description that borders on insult and I don’t see a place for it on these forums.

Not liking HoT is fine. Maligning the work of the company who made it because you don’t like it, in a way that borders on insulting, is what we’re talking about.

Galtrix.7369:

I want to know how there are people on here that say HoT is full of people all the time. Auric Basin, sure. But the other maps are dead 99.9% of the time.

Back when I played this game 8+ hours a day, I spent all of my time in tangled depths and I never saw more than a few people running around…. not even enough people to get a decent group started.

It seems as though there are two types of people here. There are the people that say HoT is full all the time, and the people that say HoT is completely dead all the time. Both are wrong, but the “HoT is dead” argument is becoming increasingly more true.

I don’t know. It’s sort of like the original zones to me. You run around and there’s nothing going on until a world boss shows up and everyone shows up and does it. HoT works the same way.

When the TD meta is on there are people in the zone. When the TD meta is not scheduled to start for a while, there are less people in the zone.

You won’t see people because people are scattered. If two people are doing the ogre chain and two people are doing the scar chain, they’ll simply never run into each other.

I’m on those maps all the time and I don’t see less people on those maps than I do in core Tyria.

But of course, with two new maps out, that’s where the bulk of the people will be. This has always been the case.

If you’re on a US server, hit me up in game. I’ll show you how to get around and deal with HoT. You dont’ need another class. You might want a long bow or rifle though.

I’d welcome mounts if they were added. It’s another thing I can do to customize characters. What mount a character chooses says something about who they are. I don’t like games though where mounts are just horses. I like a selection to add to my help broaden my character.

The speed thing never really bothered me, but the coolness factor is something else entirely. I’ve always enjoyed having mounts in other games.

Not so say I think Anet will suddenly introduce mounts, but I’d like to see them regardless.

nickhimself.2739:

Hexinx.1872:

Skill points or whatever they were originally called were automatically converted into spirit shards on lvl 80 characters with excess points long ago when shards came out.

The only way you can grind that 200 (and i’ve done it many times) is dailies, and converting tomes of knowledge on lvl 80 characters into shards. Basically how i look at it, I can make 3 from a daily, and about 5 a night in WvW from tomes.

gotta grind, and i don’t know any other way to do it faster with little time spent (I only play after work and kids go to bed, so my time spent daily is limited to about 3 hours a night)

While I don’t have kids, I’m in a similar boat. I work all day, and after I come home and my wife and I get dinner cooked, finished, cleaned up, and then we go about our evening bedtime routine of showering and whatnot, we each get to play from 8pm – 10:30pm. That mostly means I have enough time for dailies and not much else. The weekend at least allows us to play the entire day, so if I’m so focused I can grind out an entire WvW reward track… but still, the Spirit Shard return is pretty dismal.

I really envy you guys who’ve been playing for so long because this isn’t a problem for you.

Why does it take you 2.5 hours a night to do dailies?

Seera.5916:

Roundabout.1752:

For me a 100% repping Guild would be an obstacle. I play at odds times and having US based and Aussie based Guild allow me to play with a group no matter what time I’m on. What reason is there for 100% repping ? Now that influence isn’t a thing why would a Guild care how many you belong to ?

To generate a sense of community and loyalty.

To me, as long as the rules of the guild do not violate the TOS of the game, guilds can make up whatever rules they want. If a guild wants to require all members only play male asura elementalists, that’s just fine. I don’t even care what the reason for it is. As long as they make it clear to potential members what the rules are.

So 100% rep guilds to me are fine as long as they make sure players asking to join are aware of that and what it means.

If a player needs to rep something 100% in order to be loyal to it, something is wrong. Loyal doesn’t equal exclusive.

I’m loyal to my friends from school, I’m loyal to my friends from work but I see both groups seperately as they have nothing in common. I go to pub trivia night with one group of friends and I go hiking with a different group. Why should they care? If I’m spending time on trivia night with friends, my hiking friends don’t tell me I can’t hike with them anymore.

If I want to do more than one thing, I should be able to have more than one guild. Any guild who doesn’t understand that doesn’t deserve my loyalty.

You can now farm karma at least by killing mobs, which is a big thing for me, anyway. Buy the karma upgrades in Ember Bay and kill mobs for random karma drops. You need about 16,000 unbound magic to get all three upgrades, but even after a thousand, it starts paying off.

Healix.5819:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I rarely use the LFG, and I’ve never found The Silverwastes empty.

Personally, I only go there when the daily wants it and have seen the Vinewrath pop 3 times in the last few months. Each time I came in half way to fail, where lane 1 was stacked with ~5, lane 2 was half that and lane 3 has always been empty. I just end up soloing it, which feels rather nerfed compared to doing the same back in the day.

It’s too bad that events don’t show you how many are nearby. I can manage two bosses in the limit, so it’s sad to see a 4/5 breach fail.

Well of course there are less players doing it than there were before HoT. That’s a given with almost all older content. It’s over a year old, people move on.

That said, think about what you’re saying. On a day that it’s a daily, it spawns numerous maps for people who just come in to get the daily. If that’s the day you go in then the amount of people going in to get four events and leave is huge. It creates a lot of extra maps.

There are still maps on those days doing the Vinewrath that advertise in LFG but most people aren’t interested in waiting around for the Vinewrath…at least very few people in my guild are.

We just in, get our events, or mine or farm and we’re gone. History.

Doesn’t mean the Vinewrath doesn’t get done. It means it doesn’t get done on every server during a daily day.

fourhim.3584:

This is semi-related. I got the expansion last night and was impressed at first, and then realized how HARD so much of the new zone is for a single player in rare/exotic gear like myself. There were not a bunch of players in that starting area to help me out.

But my example is concerning Silverwastes, actually. It had been a year since I played, because of PC problems. I noticed last night that I never completed SilverWastes, because I still need that Vinewrath section. Of course, I couldn’t get in there, so I researched it online. Apparently its at the tail end of the storyline events for that area? The problem is that no one is in Silverwastes anymore. This is the first time that I’ve ever not been able to complete a map (and likely never will) because the content cannot be soloed. From what I hear, this is what I have to look forward to in HOT as well, more grouping or following the “zerg”.

I sure wish they had advertised this “feature” better before I made my purchase

People do the Silverwastes every day. People farm the Silverwastes. You need to learn to use the LFG tool to get to active servers. That’s your only real issue.

OriOri.8724:

@Vayne I get why they are HoT mastery points as opposed to central tyria mastery points. But when you go commune with the points in Ember Bay they still have the text congratulating you on your mastery over navigating the jungle, which is out of place considering the environment in Ember Bay. All they need to do is update the text, not change the mastery points, I never asked for that.

Okay I get it and agee, but you should probably post that separately since this is a website thread not an in game thread.

Anyone who said that two weeks in didn’t know how to use the LFG tool or didn’t know how to be where stuff was going on when it’s going on. I complete stuff in HoT on new characters all the time. I help show new guildies around HoT a couple of times a week. There’s plenty of people doing HoT content.

OriOri.8724:

Sort of related, but can you update the text on the mastery points in Ember Bay to not reference the Maguuma Jungle?

I don’t believe this is an error. The Heart of Maguuma points are those related to the HoT expansion. If it wasn’t the same, people couldn’t use Ember Bay points to finish filling in their HoT masteries.

This is done for playability. It doesn’t matter if the in game name for it is Ember Bay or Maguuma. Right now we have two different types of mastery tracks and my guess is when the next expansion is released, there’ll be a third.

I deleted my earlier post, since I wasn’t sure it wasn’t breaking forum rules. I’m still here. Enjoying the game.

Lots of new content, so I don’t have as much time to post. When I do post, I prefer reddit to the official forums for reasons. lol

Lethalvriend.1723:

I’ve always been against dailies, but my biggest issue with the repeatable hearts is that you must complete all in one day to get map completion. The current ones are simple enough so they are fairly easy to do, but they are not really fun to do all the time because they tie you to one place. Furthermore if this becomes a trend (which seems to be the case, just look at Bloodstone fen daily extravaganza, now Ember Bay…) it may start to cause issues in having to finish too many just to map complete a place. I don’t want to ignore a certain part of map completion just because I know I can’t finish the whole map that day because of x y z. At least in Tarir I can choose to do west, east, north, south or a mix and still get rewards. I really prefer the reward structure of HoT maps by far, SW/Dry Top aswell. Give people their long term goals and give them the option to progress at their pace.

Just get the rest of the map first. You can then complete the hearts on any day after. All five hearts won’t take half an hour.

Behellagh.1468:

Well Gift of Battle can only be gotten in WvW so yes, it does force people to participate like 6 to 8 hours in WvW to earn it from it’s track. This is a relatively recent change as in the past you could simply buy it with Badges of Honor which you could have gotten from other non-WvW activities. So that complaint is valid.

Or would be more valid if the original legendary format didn’t require you to map complete all 4 WvW maps which could take weeks or even months. This is actually easier and less painful than that, and I know because I’ve done that on 4 characters.

I’ve gotten 3 gifts of battle following the zergs around in EoTM.

Oldirtbeard.9834:

Seriously I take one month off from GW2, have been perusing the forums for a week and one name is precariously missing; did something happen to Vayne?

I thought Vayne on this forum was sort of like Cliff or Norm from Cheers.

Seriously the dude helped me get through Heart of Thorns and kept me from quitting the game; regardless of people’s differences with him he’s a strong mentor if you need him.

Thanks for this. I really am always happy to help. I offer a lot, but very few people take me up on it.