Guild Wars 2

Seyiwaji.4082:

I have been waiting for this.
Now continue to say the game is not dying.

Even those sales short before the end of 2Q 2016, didn’t change anything.
As it is now, this game won’t last long as worthy.

But you know Fan will say: The game is doing fine. That I laugh.

Do you know what a trend is? What will you say if you come back next quarter and the sales are higher?

Compare the sales of Wildstar and Guild Wars 2. Wildstar had a slight bump and it’s on steam now. That’s a dying game. This game is definitely not a dying game.

It is, however, a game under pressure to do better. If it continues to lose revenue, it could very well die.

However, having been involved in many businesses that had bad quarters, only to recover the next quarter or the quarter after, calling this game dying isn’t just premature.

It’s incorrect. This game would need to do a lot worse to be dying. But it’s definitely slumping.

A long content draught with nothing but raids will do that to you.

It depends on what you mean by solo. Can you solo every hero point in HoT? Nope, you can’t. But you can get them done with people without grouping. You will need other people around for some stuff. Think of the temples in Orr. You probably did some, but you didn’t solo them. But you didn’t group either.

HoT requires you to rethink how you do things. It’s not impossible to run around by yourself and get stuff done. By the same token you just can’t spam 1 and get through that content. You need to understand both your profession and your enemy.

Some creatures are easy to face if you’re not in front or behind them. So you have to keep moving. Other creatures require you to dodge their big attacks.

Some people solo their way through HoT without too much trouble. Some try to play the way they’ve always played, without thinking about changing up their build or using terrain, or learning the creatures, and they die more quickly and get frustrated.

Without knowing how you play it’s hard to know if you can solo HoT. But I can.

DonKotsos.6458:

No i dont but that doesnt mean i would throw a tantrum of something if i had nothing at my account. You seem to be a very competitive person since you think that every new person that joins a game is at a “disadvantage” . Its a game not a race. Believe it or not there are many people like me who play games only to have fun enjoying all aspects of the game.Leveling is one of those aspects i believe working to get their next gear upgrade is a purpose that keeps many people occupied and to be honest playing a game that i have few things to work for isnt going to keep me occupied for long. At least thats how i see it.

This has nothing to do with being competitive. This has everything to do with enjoying the game. I’d wager for most people, rewards are part of the game. People set goals and they go for those goals and they get those goals.

Goals might be stat based, like specific armor, or it might be a cool skin that I need to complete the look of my character, which is more my speed.

Leveling doesn’t keep most people busy, since most people in the game are 80. Relatively few people level and keep busy doing it, by percentage, at least from my observations. And there are probably as many people who hate leveling and just want to get to end game and look for ways to skip leveling or ways to level as fast as they can.

Anet isn’t going to make their decision on how to price the game based on any one person or any group of people. They’re going to consider what’s good for the game. In my opinion your style of play is an outlier style of play. I think more people do play for rewards and what they can get, even if they’re not actually competitive. Because I’m NOT competitive.

But, I am happy I got to experience the entire living world season 1, because it’s fun. New players don’t have that option. Or the Twilight Arbor forward up path which is no longer in the game. Or Orr before the nerf. These are experiences I have that new players won’t.

The difference between the ten dollar game that was being sold before the game went free to play is certainly worth those extra experiences.

I’m enjoying the game by doing stuff. I can do stuff new players can never do. That’s worth money, whether you want to admit it is or not.

DonKotsos.6458:

Actually yes when i return to a game after a long time i like to start all over again since i dont really remember how the game works and obviously after a year or two alot of things have changed.So a fresh start is how i approach a comeback to game…

You have no achievement points on your account? You deleted all your gold? You have no skins unlocked?

Because you can buy the expansion and get a free account by starting over with it. You don’t have to add the expansion to the account you have. Then you’d have two accounts, both of them getting log in rewards, which are pretty valuable.

Edit: Either way it changes nothing I said. ANY MMO needs to remove barriers to entry for new players or it dies. If the game dies, you don’t have a game to come back to you and your initial investment is worth nothing anyway.

All MMOs suffer natural attrition. People leave games all the time. So if you don’t do this, there is on game, whether you personally start over or not. You’re not losing out. More players means a better game.

Guild Wars 2 is a much better game for me now, over all, than it was in the past. Fractals are much better for me, because I don’t have to do 4. Dungeons are much better for me, because I like doing different dungeons and now I have to to get the gold reward at the end. Not that I ever didn’t want to do certain dungeons, but it’s helpful that other people have motivation to do some more obscure dungeon paths now over before.

The designs of the new zones are amazing. Not all that keen on AB, but all the rest of them are fantastic. I also like the new zone, Bloodstone Fen. I like being able to glide. I don’t think I could go back to this game pre gliding. It’s an amazing addition to the game.

I enjoy most of the new metas as well, again, AB being my least favorite.

And I like a lot of the new elite specializations.

There are definite differences. For example the new dungeon as you put it, isn’t a dungeon at all, its a raid. It’s specifically difficult content added for people who wanted difficult content. It’s not my thing so I ignore it. I’m not unhappy that people that like that style of play got some harder content, even though I know it means less content that I want to play.

Yep, I think the game is better now than it was 3 years ago.

DonKotsos.6458:

I have nothing against the price i just dont like the fact that i bought the core game for 40 or 45 euro (dont really remember) back then and now i will have to pay 50 euro more for the expansion and if someone else starts right now he will pay just 50 to get the exact same product as me… A bit unfair dont you think?

No, I don’t think it’s unfair at all. Not even a little unfair. Considering that this is how games work in almost every instance, that they go down in price.

I bought Guild Wars 1 for about $200 all up and now people can get it for $50. Is that unfair. No. Because I had a ton of time to play, the option to play before this.

In what world do you believe new people who are just starting now are at some kind of advantage? For example, depending on when you started playing, you could have played the entire first season of the living world for free. New people can’t play it at all.

If you logged in during season 2, you would have gotten all of season 2 for free. New players have to pay for that.

I’ve had experiences that new players will never have. I have items in my inventory new players will never get. I have a boatload of wealth from before inflation set in, where new players are playing catch up from day one.

The idea of removing barriers to entry for ANY mmo is normal and good. EQ doesn’t charge for any expansion but the current one. WoW doesn’t make you buy every single expansion, just the current one. Why?

To remove barriers to entry because new players in MMOs are at a disadvantage.

If you bought and played the game, experienced stuff, accumulated wealth, you’d be at an advantage. Do you really think you’d want to start over now, not having anything you’ve accumulated before now?

Because I wouldn’t take that deal.

Leiloni.7951:

Forcing us to essentially rebuy the base game since it was bundled in with HoT was a really kittenty move. They should have sold HoT just the expansion for half the price it was to those of us who already owned the base game. Would have made the mose sense, instead ANet decided to screw over the people that got them to this level of success to begin with.

It’s like people don’t even play games. I don’t get it.

I paid about $200 for all four original Guild Wars titles. 2 years later they were $70 for all of them. That’s like saying I overspent $130. I didn’t. I got two years of playing them.

The core game, with restrictions, is now free. Free means anyone can play and download it. The price of the expansion itself is $50. That’s the price. There’s no monthly fee here. You’re not paying for the game, paying for an expansion and paying $15 a month.

So what are you really complaining about. Who did Anet hurt by giving us a couple of years of content without a monthly fee before finally charging for an expansion?

Nor is the cash shop pay to win like many free to play games. Nor does this game offer a “optional” subscription which is really required to do something.

Honestly I don’t know if people realize how well they have it. Go play Archeage or BDO, or any game with a sub. Go look at what you cant’ do with an optional sub in SWToR.

People will complain about anything.

Silmar Alech.4305:

That’s interesting. With one exception, I never detected that a side-story started in an instance is continued in the open world. It’s obvious now you say it, but I almost never felt it myself. The only exception is the Dragon Stand map with its meta event.
There is something missing in the storytelling mechanics: it should somehow connect the two story parts. In a game with a quest log, an additional secondary quest would open while you play the instance, and if you review the quest log afterwards, you see that there is some continuation of that part of the story in addition to the main quest.

In HoT, you are thrown back into the open map, with their difficult enemies, and most certainly the Pale Reaver event chain is not in a stage where you can just continue that part of the story. There are probably no Pale Reavers at the moment and no immediate event pending, so you move on with the next instance and forget about the Pale Reavers. Later, if you do more exploration of the map, you certainly get back to the Pale Reavers, but in the meantime I forgot about their part in the story instance.

I don’t know if you have a story about the Pale Reavers and a Pale Reavers event chain, not sure how you wouldn’t connect it. There are other examples as well, such as how the TD meta ends, and gives you the entrance to Dragon Stand. Or pretty much all of AB.

It’s not spoonfed….and I like that.

I’m a couple of hundred points from 30k, but I still have plenty I haven’t done. That’s because I don’t consume content as fast as I can. Mostly though, what keeps me going is my guild.

Since I like playing with them, doesn’t really matter much what I’m doing.

The content is new. There’s no reason anyone has to do every creature in one night. Ther’s no real reason to do every creature at all, unless you have absolutely nothing else to do or you’re so crazy about achievement points that you MUST do this event.

If you want the reward for the event, do the event, and take your time. If you don’t want the reward for the event ignore it.

In a week’s time the schedules will be down pat, the moa will be buffed (the only what that dies slow) and people will not even remember these comments.

But you know, it’s day one of a new series of events. Why does everyone feel they have to get everything done on day one and why do they make it sound like the end of the world when they can’t?

That said, I got it all done today anyway. lol

Matijo.4382:

Vayne I mean that you can play many rpg games and story is just more interesting. Dialogues, heroes, there is less patos and more realism. Some of the characters just feel bad, I wanted Trahearne to die from beginning >_> HoT is kinda better than normal story, has some more action and less stupid talks like : OMG WE’RE GOOD SIDE HERE WE GO TO SAVE THE WORLD.

I really abhor generalizations for this reason. I’ve played precisely 2 mmos where I thought the story was better and a good many MMOs when I thought the story was worse. In many MMOs there’s no story to speak of at all, in fact.

Comparing this to single player RPGs is completely pointless.

As for Trahearne, I did an interesting poll a while ago. Those who started playing Sylvari first, overwhelmingly had no problem with Trahearne. Those who played other races first overwhelmingly had problems with Trahearne.

The original story isn’t really linear, though you’re exposed to it that way. It’s more of a web, with different races providing different pieces of the puzzle.

Who is Professor Gor. For most races, he comes out of nowhere, but he’s in one of the early Asuran stories. Playing that arc first and the later arc with him completely changes how the end of the story plays. Traheane is introduced in the Sylvari story much earlier as not only a first born but as an expert on Orr. Many of the characters you meet later in the game, you’ll meet earlier in the game depending on which race you choose first.

With the HoT story, a lot of people say the story is short, but they’re completely ignoring half the story, because half the story is in the zones. The story of HoT is not only told through instances.

For example, the second HoT story chapter tells the story of the Pale Reavers. As soon as you leave the instance, the first event chain you’d run into continues the story of the Pale Reavers.

There are examples like this throughout the story and the new zones. If you’re only looking at instances, you’re cheating yourself out of a pretty good story.

That said, any good single player game is going to trump an MMO in story.

Zeivu.3615:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

The reason you can’t give away the Core game is that purchasing Heart of Thorns only provides one Serial Key. You can use that key to create a new account, or use the key to ‘upgrade’ an existing account.

It’s perfectly fine to give away a Serial Key that has not been registered; it’s not against the ToS.

It’s not against the rules, but it isn’t necessarily a good idea to buy the code from a third-party. Unless you buy an unopened, physical copy or get it from Steam, there really isn’t a way to find out if the code was used or not until you enter it.

Steam doesn’t sell Guild Wars 2.

Djinn.9245:

Redfeather.6401:

Vayne.8563:

Redfeather.6401:

Yesterday I decided to get my stealth glider mastery from 34% to completion. It took me all day!
I wandered HoT zones struggling to find events for the xp. I was so bummed out after a couple of hours that I asked in map chat what to do, and people said tarir meta event. So I farmed that. It took a while and got so repetitive that the second I got the stealth glider mastery I quit. Does the average person actually enjoy this type of game-play?

I have no idea why it took you that long to max it. In almost any HoT zone, I can max a mastery in an hour or two, from scratch.

Are you using any kinds of boosters, food, utiltiies, guild buffs, birthday boosters, celebration boosters?

Maybe that’s it. I wasn’t using boosters of any kind. I was also struggling to find events I could complete. I died many times trying to do certain events before giving up. I should have used lfg to find an xp train or something. I just wanted to explore on my own and enjoy stuff, and it backfired.

Yes, this is another problem with the HoT maps. In the pre-HoT maps, you can wander around and level your character as you like. In HoT the mobs are very deadly to the casual, solo player. And good luck soloing events.

Not all casual players lack skills. There are many MANY events that can be soloed by people who have a modicum of skill. Obviously you’ve have to be able to play your profession reasonably well, but there are plenty of events, that you could solo…this was true even before the April patch. There are more now.

Matijo.4382:

Gwilym I totally, TOTALLY agree … Those new map feel like not maps. I like some new features, especially those map lvls, but let’s be honest, that story is kinda lame …

I always loved to just STOP and watch the map. I liked icy maps with hills and good, nicely done enviroment. HoT is just a dynamic events hunt train. I’m lost with all those events, grinds etc. I remember how awesome was the event on one of those human maps with a giant to fight in a group. Srsly I liked it … You had walked slowly on the map, doing quest and saw some big creatures comming at you.

Vayne, those arrows, are just like the storry. So far I realised once that when I had done arah story I done my final story as well. I don’t know if I have ever lead it to an end. But there is a funny thing about hot, the heroes I didn’t like died, however I still don’t know what the story was about due to the stupid cut off episodes and events I didn’t participate … So far I know that there was a jungle and a dragon awoken.

Yep, you don’t know what the story was about because you didn’t participate. I don’t know what most anime is about because I don’t watch anime. I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here.

The story is HoT is much maligned because people think the story is limited instances, but it’s not. Half the HoT story is in the zones themselves.

Naturally if you don’t play the zones you don’t get the stories.

Djinn.9245:

I have been chuckling at all of the self-righteous people stating that its so easy and so obvious. I’m glad that this experience has been easy for you. But telling people who are struggling with new content that it is actually really easy and L2P might not actually be what you want to do if you want this game to continue far into the future. GW2 needs to appeal to a variety of different level of player in order to be successful.

And just to clarify: it isn’t normal gameplay for NPCs to tell you how to play the game. It might happen once in a great while, but if people aren’t used to something happening (also like extra buttons suddenly appearing or entirely new mechanics suddenly appearing), they might miss it. And since only a tiny amount of player come to the forums, what do you imagine that most players who can’t figure out a game do?

This is stupidity on Anet’s part, not the players.

It’s VERY normal game play for NPCs to tell you what to do. It starts in the tutorial and there are examples of it throughout every aspect of the game. If you haven’t noticed it, you’re not paying attention.

Everything from watch the ledges, to NPCs telling you the area of the zone you’re about to go into is more dangerous than what you’ve experienced so far.

There are plenty of areas in the game where NPCs tell you exactly what to do.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

The ironic part? This is the very same discussion about certain HoT maps as well. And the answers are the same.

I’ll leave it at that.

The whole purpose of a forum is to communicate. If a majority of people have a definition of a word and you decide that your definition is different from the accepted definition using that word is not only misleading, but it becomes a barrier to communication. Much of this thread has been telling you why you’re wrong.

It’s okay to have your own definition of a word that means something to you and maybe a few other people like you. Using that word however, when you should have realized by now the word is at least ambiguous serves very little purpose but to add to the confusion. Which I assume isn’t something you’d want to do intentionally.

A map that’s being run consistently isn’t a dead map, even if there are times when you have to put some effort into doing the map. An event that’s done multiple times a day isn’t a dead event, even if you wish to use the word that way.

It’s like saying my friend moved further away and I have to make an effort to see him. He must be dead. That’s not really the way words are supposed to work.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

@OP – it doesn’t seem like you’re a completionist, so there’s something that might cheer you up. If you were a completionist like me, you’d be obsessed with finishing all adventures on gold even though I have enough points. At least all you need is enough points to finish your masteries. xD

This game cured me of being a completionist. lol

Silmar Alech.4305:

In my opinion, you have two totally different experiences with HoT these days:

If you enter HoT for the first time, your experience is (still) awful. You are crippled in every way due to missing masteries which are essential in the HoT areas, and very hard enemies that thwart solo exploing. You feel crippled almost the whole time until you max most of the masteries, and you don’t find your path in the confusing maps. Progress is tedious and not fun.

But if you enter HoT with maxed masteries and a bit of map knowledge, HoT is really fun. The maps are designed to be played this way.

The spring update changed one thing: it lowered the barrier between the beginner experience and the veteran experience. It shortened the time required to get your masteries high enough to not completely feel crippled. It shortened the “no fun” time, but it’s still there if you ask me.

I think this depends on a lot of things, including what you like in a game. I loved HoT from moment one, because I like that kind of game. I like figuring out where to go. I like it not being obvious.

You know the kind of stuff I don’t like. Giant green arrows saying go here. Drives me nuts. There’s a couple in stories where there’s only one way to go. There’s one way to go and Anet feels the need to stick a giant green arrow on the map saying go this way…and it’s the only way to go! lol

The new zones felt a lot like puzzles to me. I had to figure out how to get places. I loved that about them. The figuring out was actually the best part for me.

I never felt hamstrung. I felt like I was playing a more old school adventure game.

Djinn.9245:

Fluffball.8307:

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Given the age of the event and where everyone is now? Yes, very much dead. But that’s par for the course with old content when new content comes out. The zerg—and interest for that matter—moves on.

Good luck getting those achievements done.

Do you know what you’re talking about? Or are you just making things up based on what you believe? The wurm is killed SEVERAL times per day.

Let’s say “several” = 3 times/day. If you don’t happen to play at the times that those 3 times are running, you are SOL. And it sounds like most of the guilds that run it regularly might even be EU which narrows times down even more.

There are guilds that run it in pretty much every time slot. I’m on a US server, but live in Australia and I used to run it all the time with Evos.

There are several open communties that run it on US servers too.

Redfeather.6401:

Vayne.8563:

Redfeather.6401:

Vayne.8563:

Redfeather.6401:

Yesterday I decided to get my stealth glider mastery from 34% to completion. It took me all day!
I wandered HoT zones struggling to find events for the xp. I was so bummed out after a couple of hours that I asked in map chat what to do, and people said tarir meta event. So I farmed that. It took a while and got so repetitive that the second I got the stealth glider mastery I quit. Does the average person actually enjoy this type of game-play?

I have no idea why it took you that long to max it. In almost any HoT zone, I can max a mastery in an hour or two, from scratch.

Are you using any kinds of boosters, food, utiltiies, guild buffs, birthday boosters, celebration boosters?

Maybe that’s it. I wasn’t using boosters of any kind.

That’s definitely it. Boosters all stack. Many of them are free or cheap. There are a number of ways you can increase experience gain. In events with lots of adds, make sure you have a weapon that pierces or does AOE damage as well so you tag the maximum number of enemies.

The XP boosters, if you have any, don’t just give you kill XP bonus. they give you 50% bonus on events as well.

Would the events give stacked xp bonuses too? I would like to try and continue gliding masteries next weekend and it would probably help if the xp from events could be stacked to be double or more. :O

I think the most you can get on events is 50%. But what you can do it get to VB right at the beginning of day. Or even the beginning if night if you want. Do the night events and then follow the event chain, any of htem really, from the beginning. YOu’ll get like 9 events in a row plus kills.

If you’re on a US server, I’d be happy to show you how I do it.

Redfeather.6401:

Vayne.8563:

Redfeather.6401:

Yesterday I decided to get my stealth glider mastery from 34% to completion. It took me all day!
I wandered HoT zones struggling to find events for the xp. I was so bummed out after a couple of hours that I asked in map chat what to do, and people said tarir meta event. So I farmed that. It took a while and got so repetitive that the second I got the stealth glider mastery I quit. Does the average person actually enjoy this type of game-play?

I have no idea why it took you that long to max it. In almost any HoT zone, I can max a mastery in an hour or two, from scratch.

Are you using any kinds of boosters, food, utiltiies, guild buffs, birthday boosters, celebration boosters?

Maybe that’s it. I wasn’t using boosters of any kind.

That’s definitely it. Boosters all stack. Many of them are free or cheap. There are a number of ways you can increase experience gain. In events with lots of adds, make sure you have a weapon that pierces or does AOE damage as well so you tag the maximum number of enemies.

The XP boosters, if you have any, don’t just give you kill XP bonus. they give you 50% bonus on events as well.

Redfeather.6401:

Yesterday I decided to get my stealth glider mastery from 34% to completion. It took me all day!
I wandered HoT zones struggling to find events for the xp. I was so bummed out after a couple of hours that I asked in map chat what to do, and people said tarir meta event. So I farmed that. It took a while and got so repetitive that the second I got the stealth glider mastery I quit. Does the average person actually enjoy this type of game-play?

I have no idea why it took you that long to max it. In almost any HoT zone, I can max a mastery in an hour or two, from scratch.

Are you using any kinds of boosters, food, utiltiies, guild buffs, birthday boosters, celebration boosters?

Ayrilana.1396:

Astralporing.1957:

Ayrilana.1396:

You kind of did say that it was easy. You said:

in order to do the escort event you need people to already have raid masteries unlocked. So it’s pretty easy, except for the fact that you have to join a raid group who has already unlocked masteries.

Okay, read that again, but this time look at the part you missed:

in order to do the escort event you need people to already have raid masteries unlocked. So it’s pretty easy, except for the fact that you have to join a raid group who has already unlocked masteries.

Yes, it’s easy if you’re getting carried by raiders. Not so easy if you try to unlock the mastery track on your own though.

It was not missed. The bolded part of yours was just a redundant part of his post which was a repetition the first part. I also said nothing about getting carried. Having a few people that have the mastery does not equal to being carried.

Astralporing.1957:

Ayrilana.1396:

The only exception being finding a group who have already unlocked the mastery.

That’s a very big exception however.

Not really. No more difficult than a group of players trying to find someone able to open fractal 100 or fractal 72. Had nothing to do with the actually difficulty of the encounter which was what I was talking about in my post that he responded to.

Astralporing.1957:

Ayrilana.1396:

If you had not done the escort then I don’t really see how you can state whether it is easy or not. I am confused though since just earlier you said that you had done it. So which is it?

Vayne.8563:

What’s misleading is saying it’s easily accomplished, like this is somehow easier than doing a raid boss. It’s difficult, you have to get a group to do it and it sucks. I know cause I tried it with my guild.

I see Vayne saying he attempted it. Do not see him claiming he did it succesfully though. I assume that trying it, but without success is what he meant.

My take on this encounter: doable, but with a problem that if done by people new to raids, all people with experience with the encounter will end up in the tunnel group. Which will likely cause a ton of wipes before the other group will learn what to do.

No. In his earlier post he said that he did attempt it with his guild. In his recent post he said that he has never done it. How are those two statements the same? They’re not.

My initial post was me stating that the escort itself is pretty easy to do. I’m not the only one who have agreed it’s one of the easier encounters to do in the raid. At the end of that post I gave a disclaimer that you either need a mesmer with the specific mastery or a few people with it.

He then responded that I was being misleading because in order to do the raid, players need the mastery. He also repeated himself saying that they needed to join a raid group with it unlocked. This was also where he did state that the encounter was easy with the exception of creating the group which has nothing to do with the actual encounter. Would Arah be considered a difficult dungeon to beat because it’s not as easy as AC to get a group together? No.

He completely disregarded my post where I stated that only a mesmer for a few people actually need the mastery. I pointed this out to him by telling him to read that specific part of my post which I had bolded. I was also speaking about the encounter itself in my original post.

He responded back by saying that I was being misleading by saying it was easier to accomplish than any other raid boss. He’s wrong as it is quite easy to do in comparison and many other players have agreed. It’s often one of the encounters ranked as the easiest before any of the actual boss encounters. He then went on again about getting a group for it which has nothing to do with the difficulty of the encounter itself.

I then responded back to him that he had stated that was easy with a group of players who had the masteries. I also reminded him again that I was speaking about the difficulty of the encounter which had nothing to do with getting 1-3 players who already had the mastery unlocked.

He then responded back that he didn’t state that it was easy to do with a group that has the mastery despite him stating just that in the earlier post. He then goes on about the accessibility of raids which has nothing to do with what I originally said.

I’m running late so I’m going to wrap this up. I pointed out that he said that it was easy. There were several contradictions in this thread between his posts. And then there was your post.

I attempted it, but never completed it. Is that clearer for you?

I wasn’t going to post since it’s been covered quite nicely but I think at this time, it’s better than it’s ever been, particularly with the addition of the new living story episode. I really enjoyed that, and I like the zone that came along with it, even if it is on the smallish side.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Vayne.8563:

MithranArkanere.8957:

TheShniper.1852:

Look at guides. Most of them are easy once you have studied the guides. Only a few are near impossible for most people.

Guides are utterly useless.

Take Fallen Masks. You look at any sort of guide, or watch any video, and nothing listed in the guide actually happens. You see them quickly zipping from a mask to the nearest one, when you play fallen masks, they appear so far from each other so often that the average run from mask to masks is several times longer than the ‘guide’.

Scrap rifle? You see guides, and the enemies gather neatly and most get killed with just one shot, and those that do not die instantly die shortly after because of conditions. You move exactly the same with freaking Viper gear, sigils of Malice and even freaking damage boosters, and they not only take 3-4 times longer to kill, the conditions last NOTHING on them, and instead gathering like in those ‘guides’, they scatter like swatted flies, move away and stand still without chasing you at all.

Shooting gallery? In guides they cleanly and quickly shoot all targets that appear always in range, and their bullets pierce obstacles like grass, boxes and beams. When you do it, the gun takes AGES longer to fire, the random targets always appear the furthest possible from each other, and every flimsy object on sight stops the bullets.

Several adventures are broken, they do not check for impossible situations, they do not override the AI of the enemies to make sure they behave how they are supposed to behave, they do not behave the same for the same players, and way too many can be trolled by doing things like getting defeated at some point where players need to use something, so they start reviving instead using what they needed to do.

It’s as if they were designed to fake difficulty by purposely making them impossible randomly. So only a small random number of players can actually make them.

They must be fixed, or they will only be a source of constant frustration. And we don’t need any more of that.

And yet you can get all your masteries trained without getting any mastery points at all from the hardest adventures. Just don’t to those and do the ones that are easier.

I was hoping to see a response to the specific points this poster raised because they’re interesting points. I don’t know about the guides he mentions but I have tried to follow guides on Sanctum Sprint and they make use of a trick which now appears to have been nerfed by anet. Maybe the guides he’s seen likewise were filmed before some changes were made to adventures.

I’m not saying his points weren’t interesting. I’m saying he’s making is own life harder than he needs to.

If you want a PvP reward, and you hate PvPing, or you’re on an old slow machine, you go to a daily room. It’s not really PvP in the truest sense of the word, but it’s a way to get those rewards.

I’m not thinking this is a person who loves adventures and really wants to do them. He’s going to suffer through adventures to get them done, so he can get the mastery points behind them.

It’s simply not necessary in most cases. Certainly not the ones that are terribly hard.

I’m just trying to solve the problem. Yes, some videos aren’t accurate and some just suck and some are done too quickly. So find a guy that does them well and subscribe to that channel. That’s really the only solution.

These videos aren’t necesssarily made by professions and not everyone understands how hard these adventures are for those not used to them.

I run into this all the time when I teach dungeons or fractals. I often go ultra slow, to try to include everyone. Some people don’t need that but many do. Not everyone is going to be able to follow a video guide in the first place.

Also guides like that are much easier if you’re running two monitors

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Fluffball.8307:

Do you know what you’re talking about? Or are you just making things up based on what you believe? The wurm is killed SEVERAL times per day.

Let’s say a group of one-hundred people out of the entire joined servers kill the quest in question daily. Multiple times per day. This requires LFG and sitting in the specific zone anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour to get the quest done. Just to secure your place in said quest.

Now compare this to what is happening in the new zone where nearly all the server is farming all the events for said daily.

Yes, I know what I’m talking about. And no I do not make these things up. But I’m also not blind to common sense. In comparison, yes the event is dead. Please note, I did not say it could not be done.

And given the responses and advice above? Yes, it’s no walk in the park these days to get a successful group to gain said success and/or achievements. And let’s not split hairs. Even you know it unless someone else said this:

Fluffball.8307:

If you’re not on the map that is completing it, literally no one will be doing it.

Again, compare Triple Trouble to Bloodstone Fen’s legendary guardian. I stand by what I said. Yes, the zerg has moved on to greener pastures. Even you acknowledge that. Don’t know why that’s suddenly a point of contention.

How can an event be dead when it’s done daily? That doesn’t make sense.

Dead isn’t a comparative state. Something is either dead or it’s not.

The OP wants to do the event. Saying it’s dead when it’s not helps absolutely no one.

yamay.8075:

I returned to the game after a couple of years of break and there are a few things that bother me about the mastery system, which I’m not going to list here as they’ve already been mentioned.

I just can’t help but wonder, though…what if we only needed mastery points OR filling the exp bar to master a given mastery? I am horrible at jumping puzzles and timed events, but I don’t mind doing the pve grind. I’d totally just do events all night long instead of falling to my death over and over again just for a single mastery point (yes I fail at gliding). Also, am I correct in assuming that the mastery points are finite? I wish they’d implement a daily system where you can farm a mastery point or two each day doing a type of game mode we enjoy.

Another thing I’d want to see is the ability to skip masteries you are not interested in. For example, I don’t want stealth gliding but I want the one after that. Basic mastery being mandatory is fine, though, but after that it should be player choice, imho. Just keep the cost higher for more advanced training, but give us choice depending on how we want to play the expansion areas.

Why not just enlist a friendly mesmer for help? I help people get stuff they have trouble getting quite frequently. I have a mesmer, I enjoy jumping so why not?

It’ll save you time and frustration. It’s a win for everyone.

Ayrilana.1396:

Vayne.8563:

Ayrilana.1396:

Vayne.8563:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zalani.9827:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zalani.9827:

Its not the end of the world but it is pretty bad design to not account for it in this type of game imo.

“I don’t like it” does not equate to “bad design”.

Its bad(or perhaps poor?) design to force people into a game mode they have no interest in when everything else can be completed in the open world. I can see it in games like WoW but It’s not needed in a more casual game like Gw2.

And I never said I don’t like, im actually pretty neutral since I don’t care about spirit shards. I’m merely making a comment on it with how I see it.

Legendary weapons have “forced” players into other game modes since launch. Achievement hunters have been “forced” to do other game modes to maximize their AP count. It is not poor design to have systems that cross over several areas in a game to encourage players to play in those areas no matter how brief it may be in comparison to their usually mode of play.

The escort event is pretty easy. We almost beat it within a couple hours with random players (most had no prior experience with it) with random builds/classes. We easily saw the progression that we were making and would have beaten it within the next few attempts. One of the key things is for players to actually pay attention and to realize that the red rings are bad since the traps kill you. You will need a Mesmer with the the raid masteries, or a few other players, as the tunnel requires a certain mastery.

Okay this is very misleading. I in order to do the escort event you need people to already have raid masteries unlocked. So it’s pretty easy, except for the fact that you have to join a raid group who has already unlocked masteries.

Of course, I didn’t find that out till I tried to do it with my guild tonight. They were not happy.

It’s not misleading. Read the bolded.

What’s misleading is saying it’s easily accomplished, like this is somehow easier than doing a raid boss. It’s difficult, you have to get a group to do it and it sucks. I know cause I tried it with my guild.

Your entire response to mine was about the masteries and not about the ease of doing the raid escort. You yourself even said it was easy if you have a group with people that have the masteries.

No I didn’t say it was easy if you had a group that had masteries, because I’ve never actually done it.

The problem is, if you have a group that has the masteries you’ve probably raided before. It’s not that easy to get a group to together that has masteries, just to get that done.

People who don’t raid don’t raid for a reason. Many of them are casual and don’t do things that require getting organized in a group of ten. Many don’t pug. And often people who raid aren’t interested in people who have no idea about raids and don’t care about them.

There’s nothing easy to a casual about getting into a raid to get that done.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

The meta has a time window during which it starts on every server. Not everyone is going to start it on every server. However, it’s available TO start on every server.

Some servers are people running hero point trains, or just doing adventures or farming mats too. Doesn’t change what I said at all.

If you go into VB or you go into TD while the AB meta is going on, you’re never going to find a meta going on in those two zones.

Edit: go to a site like gw2timer.com that shows upcoming metas and world events. You’ll notice that the metas are listed not by server, they’re simply listed. If they didn’t come up on fixed times on every server, how would a site like that even work?

I see what you mean. So they start at the same time but can last different lengths because of the players taking different amounts of time to complete them. So it just sucks I don’t get put back in the same instance after a disconnect.

This is why people group up or join squads. Anyone who does this stuff regularly gets into a squad. It helps. Cause than you can rejoin on your map….most of the time anyway.

MithranArkanere.8957:

TheShniper.1852:

Look at guides. Most of them are easy once you have studied the guides. Only a few are near impossible for most people.

Guides are utterly useless.

Take Fallen Masks. You look at any sort of guide, or watch any video, and nothing listed in the guide actually happens. You see them quickly zipping from a mask to the nearest one, when you play fallen masks, they appear so far from each other so often that the average run from mask to masks is several times longer than the ‘guide’.

Scrap rifle? You see guides, and the enemies gather neatly and most get killed with just one shot, and those that do not die instantly die shortly after because of conditions. You move exactly the same with freaking Viper gear, sigils of Malice and even freaking damage boosters, and they not only take 3-4 times longer to kill, the conditions last NOTHING on them, and instead gathering like in those ‘guides’, they scatter like swatted flies, move away and stand still without chasing you at all.

Shooting gallery? In guides they cleanly and quickly shoot all targets that appear always in range, and their bullets pierce obstacles like grass, boxes and beams. When you do it, the gun takes AGES longer to fire, the random targets always appear the furthest possible from each other, and every flimsy object on sight stops the bullets.

Several adventures are broken, they do not check for impossible situations, they do not override the AI of the enemies to make sure they behave how they are supposed to behave, they do not behave the same for the same players, and way too many can be trolled by doing things like getting defeated at some point where players need to use something, so they start reviving instead using what they needed to do.

It’s as if they were designed to fake difficulty by purposely making them impossible randomly. So only a small random number of players can actually make them.

They must be fixed, or they will only be a source of constant frustration. And we don’t need any more of that.

And yet you can get all your masteries trained without getting any mastery points at all from the hardest adventures. Just don’t to those and do the ones that are easier.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Funny because none of the metas overlap timewise. You can only do one HoT meta at a time.

Well of course you can only do one at a time because you cannot be in two places at the same time.

I do not know if the meta’s do not overlap in time but I don’t think they have the exact same timings on each server instance. The reason for that is that sometimes I’ve seen a meta event happening, I log out and back in and I am on another instance where there is no meta even going on at all on the same map. So I do not believe that all the different instances are synced. So I would think that if guildies are on different server instances that it is possible that 2 meta’s are happening at the same time…just not on the same server. That is assuming your statement is correct. I have no evidence for or against that statement.

Yep they have exact timing without overlap. They go in order. Dragon Stand MIGHT be an exception if you get a really long run, but DS, TD and VB are never ever going at the same time. And it happens at the same time on every single map as well.

There are NO VB metas happening when AB and TD metas are active, period. There are no AB metas happening when VB and TD metas are happening. And there are no TD metas when AB and VB are happening.

The metas happen at the same time on each server and they don’t overlap each other by design. They don’t have the same meta time in different maps.

Well, then you’d have to explain to me why I can be in the middle of the meta in Auric and get kicked from the game, I log back in in seconds and find myself in Auric without any meta happening at all (dormant) and then I log out and in again to find myself in Auric where the meta is happening but a step earlier in the meta than the one that I got kicked from originally.

This happened to me yesterday.

The meta has a time window during which it starts on every server. Not everyone is going to start it on every server. However, it’s available TO start on every server.

Some servers are people running hero point trains, or just doing adventures or farming mats too. Doesn’t change what I said at all.

If you go into VB or you go into TD while the AB meta is going on, you’re never going to find a meta going on in those two zones.

Edit: go to a site like gw2timer.com that shows upcoming metas and world events. You’ll notice that the metas are listed not by server, they’re simply listed. If they didn’t come up on fixed times on every server, how would a site like that even work?

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

A significant niche of the modern MMO (yes, I know what it stands for) is the solo player. It makes no sense whatsoever to require groups for open world content. The current game in HoT is not solo friendly—at all. And, you can know this from the common solution to solo problems—find a group. I hope GW2 will, at some point, design for all playstyles: easy grouping for those who desire it, and solo-friendly content for those who wish to play solo.

But you and the OP are the only one in the thread saying this. Most people can either solo the hero points they need, or get people to do them very easily. You don’t have to group to get people in map to come help you with a hero point. I do it all the time.

Determining a minority or majority here on the forums is generally used as a rhetorical device. That is, you are obviously in the minority and therefore your opinion doesn’t matter. This device avoids entirely the discomfort and work of actually engaging with the issue at hand.

My position depends upon the solo player in MMO’s being a niche of concern. Do you think there are people who like to play solo? If so, do you think they might have a problem with content that is not solo-friendly? You know, that content that people say well just group up to complete. And, is HoT group-centered? Ha. It’s nothing but various groups running around.

The point is there is no need to niche it when designing for the modern MMO. You can meet the desires of many constituent groups at the same time. Why not be aware that there are a niche of solo players and include them in the design. This is what they did brilliantly in Central Tyria.

I have a guild full of people who play solo who made it through all their elite specializations, by simply doing something very simple. They say something in map chat.

The problem is your definition of play solo. Most people who play solo aren’t worried about seeing someone else on the map helping them. What they mean by play solo is not having to party. Most of the people I know who play solo would never consider soloing a champion.

This game has never been solo friendly in the definition of the word you seem to be using, which is doing it by myself without any other players around at all. Because you couldn’t get Orr temples that way, and they’ve been in the game since launch.

Not to mention a lot of hero points are communes anyway, but that aside, you can get those hero points without ever grouping, which is what most people mean.

If you want to take a small percentage of the people who solo and say the game doesn’t support those people in every instance, I’d just shrug and suggest that a single player game might be more their style.

Because I have a guild full of casual people who say they solo…but they don’t mean by it what you’re saying solo means.

Gehenna.3625:

Vayne.8563:

Funny because none of the metas overlap timewise. You can only do one HoT meta at a time.

Well of course you can only do one at a time because you cannot be in two places at the same time.

I do not know if the meta’s do not overlap in time but I don’t think they have the exact same timings on each server instance. The reason for that is that sometimes I’ve seen a meta event happening, I log out and back in and I am on another instance where there is no meta even going on at all on the same map. So I do not believe that all the different instances are synced. So I would think that if guildies are on different server instances that it is possible that 2 meta’s are happening at the same time…just not on the same server. That is assuming your statement is correct. I have no evidence for or against that statement.

Yep they have exact timing without overlap. They go in order. Dragon Stand MIGHT be an exception if you get a really long run, but DS, TD and VB are never ever going at the same time. And it happens at the same time on every single map as well.

There are NO VB metas happening when AB and TD metas are active, period. There are no AB metas happening when VB and TD metas are happening. And there are no TD metas when AB and VB are happening.

The metas happen at the same time on each server and they don’t overlap each other by design. They don’t have the same meta time in different maps.

Djinn.9245:

Gehenna.3625:

Going through HoT the first time can be a somewhat challenging but once you unlock some masteries it gets more and more fun. I just unlock the level where flight doesn’t cost endurance anymore and now it’s much nicer and my alts will start with the masteries unlocked as it’s account based. So I do enjoy these maps.

The events, well that depends for me. It’s a bit hit and miss. Some nights there are people doing the events, some nights it’s pretty dead.

Yep. I see Guildies calling for help with a meta and others respond that they’re busy with a different meta.

Funny because none of the metas overlap timewise. You can only do one HoT meta at a time.

curtegg.5216:

If Anet is so hyped up about adding more currencies why isn’t there a complete currency exchange mechanism to convert any currency into another?

Pretty sure the purpose of the currencies is to keep people returning to different zones to get different things. If you could exchange everything, that might be good for individuals but might be bad for the game over all.

Just like dailies and collections send us into earlier zones,. there won’t be a currency exchange, other than maybe something like the one that already exists in HoT.

I haven’t seen a lot of complaints about the new zone being too grindy. Believe me when people think stuff is too grindy, they say so.

This is one of the very few complaints I’ve seen. The currency is easy to get, the dailies make it even easier. You only have to grind if you want stuff now. Or you can do just a little bit at a time, when you feel like it and chip away at it.

I mean do you NEED a bloodstone node in your home instance? There’s plenty of nodes in the zone anyway.

I’ve leveled over 30 characters to 80. I’ve never had these problems. I don’t know why you have these problems.

I go into a zone, I do the stuff I want, and I move on.

Leveling is a transitive process. Simplest example is that no one can do your hearts for you. So you can do your hearts without interference from anyone. Hearts are a main part of leveling up by which time you’ll be 80 or close to it and none of this matters.

Gathering gives XP and no one can steal my nodes. If someone 80 is killing something and I get hits on it, I get XP and rewards.

Now I could shoot the same thing 8 times and kill it (and there’s no challenge to most of it anyway), or I can shoot it twice and get the same credit. That’s not an issue for play, that’s a bonus for leveling.

In fact, when I level, I tend to look for people who are playing so I can get kills faster. It’s not more challenging or more enjoyable to do everything myself. If I wanted to do everything myself I’d play a single player game.

Here I’m not THE hero but I’m part of a world. And other people live in that world.

If I were fighting bandits and other people were helping to fight bandits, I’d be happy that other people where helping to fight bandits, not sad that they were killing them so fast.

Nope, don’t see a problem here at all. Maybe it’s just a matter of perspective.

Gehenna.3625:

General Health.9678:

The solution can’t be just a toggle to disable the bar surely. Just because you can’t see the lack of masteries and waste of Xp doesn’t mean they’re not happening. Is that what people would really want? Out of sight, out of mind?

That’s also not what I suggested. For me a toggle can go both ways, so also toggle it back on depending on what you want to gain xp for.

I really like this idea, and I hope they do it. The only single downside I can see is people not realizing they have the wrong one toggled and so they’re thinking they’re working on a mastery and they’re actually just getting spirit shards. That’s bound to annoy people. What they would need to do is make the mastery bar look drastically different from the XP bar, because it’s easy to not notice that bar at this point in time.

If a game can’t field 50 people to do a meta, then it has bigger problems than map design. At least so far, this hasn’t been a problem. Meta event times are staggered for a reason. You can’t do DS and AB and VB at the same time. At any one time there’s only one HoT meta going on at one time.

And people are in fact doing them, even with the fall off from the new zone. It’s like anything else. I still get into T4 servers on Dry Top. I still see people in the Silverwastes. I still can take temples in Orr.

This would be a bigger problem if the megaserver didn’t exist.

sophiewhite.3149:

General Health.9678:

Djinn.9245:

The objection is how the game has gone from being able to get XP for your character by doing anything you want in the game, to not being able to get XP/Spirit Shards unless you follow the very narrow path that Anet has dictated.

Maybe many players don’t mind this lack of choice. Or maybe Spirit Shards aren’t something that they need or want. But going from complete freedom of choice to a single path for progressing my character is not fun game play for me. I prefer choices.

Apples and oranges, you can’t compare pre-hot to post-hot and add shards.

I’m really unclear whether you’re complaining because this is affecting you or if you’re complaining on behalf of everyone because the wider playerbase doesn’t seem be complaining about this, it’s mentioned in a couple of places and people are either “do a simple raid”, “who cares about shards” or “oh my god this game sucks because anet forces us to raid (or whatever flavour of the month thing it is people suddenly take offence to)”. If you personally need to raid as the last thing to unlock spirit shards and you really, really want shards.. join a guild that offers training raids and just run one. It’s one tiny thing being blown out of all proportion.

Maybe there will be another way to get spirit shards in the future, maybe there’ll even be a need for them in the future.. in the meantime, try raids, might even enjoy them. Chances are if you are already frustrated by the rest of HoT you will not be able to but plenty of people here will show you round the HoT maps if you ask and the metas are really good fun, missing out if you’ve not tried them.

honestly im not sure how people can hate raids when they clearly never gave them a chance. find a guild. theyll group you up and youll never need to do it again.

But I have done raids. I don’t hate them, but I don’t love them either. I’d simply rather not spend potentially hours doing something I don’t enjoy. Why would I want that?

Reiterating something since it was deleted…

I’m at mastery level 170, which means I’ve maxed every single mastery in the game.

Here is a list of adventures I didn’t get gold or silver on:

Shooting Gallery
A Fungus Among Us
Sanctum Scramble
Scrap Field Rifle Test

Here is a list of adventures I didn’t get gold on, but did get Silver on:

Tendril Torchers
Flying Circus
Bugs in the Branches
Fallen Masks
The Floor is Lava
The Ley-line Run
Haywire Punchomatic
Beetle Feast

In addition I only got 2 masteries from raids, even though 11 more are available.

The mastery system is meant to be a long term goal but the stuff you need to play isn’t hard to get. And you can get all of it without doing a good portion of the adventures at all. You can certainly do it without getting gold on most of them.

Just thought I’d clarify this since some people don’t seem to realize this.

Ayrilana.1396:

Vayne.8563:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zalani.9827:

Ayrilana.1396:

Zalani.9827:

Its not the end of the world but it is pretty bad design to not account for it in this type of game imo.

“I don’t like it” does not equate to “bad design”.

Its bad(or perhaps poor?) design to force people into a game mode they have no interest in when everything else can be completed in the open world. I can see it in games like WoW but It’s not needed in a more casual game like Gw2.

And I never said I don’t like, im actually pretty neutral since I don’t care about spirit shards. I’m merely making a comment on it with how I see it.

Legendary weapons have “forced” players into other game modes since launch. Achievement hunters have been “forced” to do other game modes to maximize their AP count. It is not poor design to have systems that cross over several areas in a game to encourage players to play in those areas no matter how brief it may be in comparison to their usually mode of play.

The escort event is pretty easy. We almost beat it within a couple hours with random players (most had no prior experience with it) with random builds/classes. We easily saw the progression that we were making and would have beaten it within the next few attempts. One of the key things is for players to actually pay attention and to realize that the red rings are bad since the traps kill you. You will need a Mesmer with the the raid masteries, or a few other players, as the tunnel requires a certain mastery.

Okay this is very misleading. I in order to do the escort event you need people to already have raid masteries unlocked. So it’s pretty easy, except for the fact that you have to join a raid group who has already unlocked masteries.

Of course, I didn’t find that out till I tried to do it with my guild tonight. They were not happy.

It’s not misleading. Read the bolded.

What’s misleading is saying it’s easily accomplished, like this is somehow easier than doing a raid boss. It’s difficult, you have to get a group to do it and it sucks. I know cause I tried it with my guild.

misterman.1530:

Serious question: do a lot of people still play in the HoT maps? I haven’t been in one in ages except DS – was farming Crystalline Ore to buy a Guild recipe for a greatsword (I thought the skin was cool – then I saw what I needed to make it and now I’m all “meh”). I saw one attempt at the meta that failed because there was not, in anyway, enough people.

This is one of the concerns I had about the HoT maps. Once people got what they wanted, would they return? So, the ones that are playing in them, have you noticed a decrease in populations?

People play HoT maps all the time, but a disproportionate number are found in AB since there’s a loophole in the meta that allows you to farm multiple instances for loot, after successful completion of the meta.

That said, you don’t need 100 people to do Dragon Stand. You know probably 50 or 60, maybe less. The events scale.

The trick is to use the LFG tool to get to active servers. In the last couple of weeks I’ve successfully completed metas in every single HOT zone.

This week it’s been slower because everyone flocked to the new zone, but I already see people going back to the HOT zones. Once people are doing farming the new zone for what they need/want, they’ll also be back to the HoT zones.

This happens every time new content comes out.

battledrone.8315:

Vayne.8563:

Djinn.9245:

JustTrogdor.7892:

I certainly hope Anet will get away from this vertical, overrun with massive trash mobs map in the next expansion.

Ever since Dry Top, GW2 has been progressing toward being a platformer. Since Anet has not introduced any open world PvE content since Dry Top that WAS NOT platform-oriented, I hold little hope that the game will ever get any better in that respect. Someone in charge or toward the top in the GW2 team thinks platforming is the way to go. It is unfortunate because this is very niche. As the game gets old and starts losing population it will not be appealing to as many people. This will make it die more quickly.

Are you really saying the Silverwastes is platforming?

not only that, it is platforming on a timer too
the very first mission there took me quite some time and effort, because i really suck at platforming
1: miss those jumps, and you cant progress
2: they even change your skills for that platforming session
i know, not all of the zone is platforming, BUT THE WHOLE ZONE IS LOCKED BEHIND A JUMPING PUZZLE

There’s no jumping puzzle in the Silverwastes, except for the one undergound they added later. I don’t know why you think there is.

You’re clearly confusing the Silverwastes for Drytop. But the Silverwastes came after Dry Top.

If the guild leader is honest, it’s fine. But there’s no way to cross check that he is. I’d bail, personally. Not my cup of tea.

In all my years of running a guild I never asked for people to fund it, or anything in it.

Behellagh.1468:

But it’s not about saving, just convenience of having just about every service within a hop skip.

Yep, this is the real thing. I do crafting every day on at least a couple of characters. I use the forge often enough too. Having everything close together is a convenience thing. I usually use it on different characters than I’m playing so I don’t have to get back, because I have characters that basically live in that area, like my cook.

Raine.1394:

A significant niche of the modern MMO (yes, I know what it stands for) is the solo player. It makes no sense whatsoever to require groups for open world content. The current game in HoT is not solo friendly—at all. And, you can know this from the common solution to solo problems—find a group. I hope GW2 will, at some point, design for all playstyles: easy grouping for those who desire it, and solo-friendly content for those who wish to play solo.

But you and the OP are the only one in the thread saying this. Most people can either solo the hero points they need, or get people to do them very easily. You don’t have to group to get people in map to come help you with a hero point. I do it all the time.

Djinn.9245:

JustTrogdor.7892:

I certainly hope Anet will get away from this vertical, overrun with massive trash mobs map in the next expansion.

Ever since Dry Top, GW2 has been progressing toward being a platformer. Since Anet has not introduced any open world PvE content since Dry Top that WAS NOT platform-oriented, I hold little hope that the game will ever get any better in that respect. Someone in charge or toward the top in the GW2 team thinks platforming is the way to go. It is unfortunate because this is very niche. As the game gets old and starts losing population it will not be appealing to as many people. This will make it die more quickly.

Are you really saying the Silverwastes is platforming?

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

It’s times like these that I’m reminded of Edwin Abbott Abbott’s “Flatland”.

That was an amazing book.

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Vayne.8563:

Raine.1394:

Galtrix.7369:

Vayne.8563:

Galtrix.7369:

I already said this in the german forums, but I do hope that not all future maps will have the look and feel of the latest ones. They’re really cool, but they wear on you after awhile. Especially when you glide all the way down to the ground, only to find out that the point of interest you were looking for was somewhere between where you started and the ground.

You do realize that the point of interest if you mouse over it shows you how far above or below you it is.

Yes, but sometimes you have to be flying right above the poi or the mastery point, otherwise, if it’s placed on a cliff or on a tree branch, it’s very easy to miss and fly by (for me at least). I also forgot to mention the ones that are underground and up in the canopy… those are really difficult to find and as a new player, I got completely confused.

I’ve come up with a new name for our current game genre: platformer obscura.

Edit: And I already don’t like the new genre.

If you think these maps are like platforming, you need to try some actual platforming. jumping on top of a mushroom that places you exactly where you need to be….not platforming.

Googled platform games. First hit was the wiki. First sentence: “A platform game (or platformer) is a video game which involves guiding an avatar to jump between suspended platforms, over obstacles, or both to advance the game. These challenges are known as jumping puzzles or freerunning. The player controls the jumps to avoid letting the avatar fall from platforms or miss necessary jumps.”

Perfect description of advancing the game through HoT. And, the perfect description of HoT. I did add the “obscura” to platformer as I believe HoT has added obscurity as a unique feature to the platformer genre. Usually the next platform is observable and you make the jump to it. In the case of HoT the destination of the next jump is usually not observable and your next jump is to youtube to find out how to get there: platformer obscura.

Gliding isn’t jumping. There were always things in this game you needed to jump to. That’s a very different thing than glide to. I could see you saying some of the adventures were platforming. It’s a good thing you don’t have to do them to get most of your masteries.

The HoT zones themselves, you have to do very little jumping. Jumping mushrooms don’t even count as jumping because there’s literally no skill involved bar standing on them. I’ve played platform games most of my life. There are minor examples of platforming in Heart of Thorns.

However, the same elements also exist in core Tyria. Jumping puzzles, vistas, they exist in core Tyria.

There is less jumping in HoT, therefore less platforming in HoT.

There are two things essential to a platformer in terms of its definition.

1) Purposive, skill-based navigating from one platform to another.
2) And, more importantly, advancing the game thereby.

There was a heated debate very early in the game about jumping puzzles. They were wildly popular as they had a very talented developer developing and championing them. There was concern that they would become central to the game. Anet assured the players that they would always be ancillary to the core game. They were there if you enjoyed them but they would never be required to advance the game. Perhaps I should offer an example of advancing the game. That would be collecting hero points, general map completion, etc. Now, there always were vista’s and poi’s that verged on jumping puzzles, but I never felt like I was playing a platformer completing core Tyria maps.

HoT is quite different in this regard and I do feel like I’m playing a platformer in order to advance the game. That’s because I am playing a platformer when I’m playing HoT. (Of course, I don’t actually play Hot because I don’t enjoy platformers.)

They’re still ancillatory to the game. And you feeling like you’re playing a platformer doesn’t make it a platformer. I’m not even sure why this conversation is continuing. It’s like you’re talking a textbook definition to try to prove a point. Very little in this game requires precision jumping to get anywhere. Probably less so in HoT than in Core Tyria even.