Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is by no means dying. Plenty of people still playing.

If you really want to play the game, you’ll eventually get HoT, because that’s how the game moves forwards. It’s the only way to get elite specializations. It’s the only way to get the new story. It’s the only way to get access to the new living story. It’s the only way to get full access to guild halls. It’s the only way to get access to the 9th profession. It’s the only way to get access to gliding. It’s the only way you can access raids.

You can play all the old content and it’s still fun. You can jump in, see if the game is for you and if it’s not, you don’t spend the money.

But anyone who hangs around for any length of time is going to end up getting HoT eventually.

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

Ryou.2398:

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Crica.1503:

well, thanks for posting this thread, OP, glad I saw it before buying the expansion now that there are character boosts…I sure don’t want to spend money on a game I can’t play if no one is available to play it with me!

Don’t believe everything you read on a forums.

Ditto, but this is true, pretty sure these guys never even venture into HoT, yet say its easy just to be spiteful.

That’s silly. I have a reasonably sized guild. Unless you think I’m lying, almost no one in my guild has any real issue with the difficulty of HoT.

We have one guy in his 60s who has vision problems who has difficulty with gliding and the 3d aspect. We have a couple of older people who need some help, again in their 60s. A guy with a computer so slow he might as well be running the game on a toaster., and that’s about it. Most people don’t really have that much of an issue.

I could show you personally if you don’t believe me.

I’m not even sure that’s possible is it?

Also i take it you have all masteries are in Ascended / Legendary gears and weapons.. So of course Hot will be easier..

I have Exotic gears and some green jewelry and well i just die in 2 to 3 hits from those frog things..

Its not like i never played GW2 before i spent a year and a half playing, my builds are out of date sure maybe but i’ve enjoyed all content Guildwars threw at me to a point.

I have tried to enjoy HoT but when your downed every mob you encounter your hands hurt from dodging and trying to survive obviously the game is no longer my cup of tea..

I left due to Fractals and Ascended stuff being added The difficulties and grind were imo was the direct opposite of what guildwars was about..

The break didn’t seem to fix anything here its basically been left to the hardcores and well not much else.

I haven’t even bothered logging in for 4 days now, and am probably just going to uninstall.

He also meant he can group with guildies everyone has an option to find a good guild there is a guild recruitment area on these forums and I think reddit has one as well, I havent checked but I know it has build ones and etc its not very active.

One of my gulidies saids he switches specs all the time depending on the content, maybe part of the issue is people are trying to use just one build for pve? I am just trying to help here, perhaps if you share your specs and gear someone might offer some help.

I use one build for PvE though. At most a switch a few skills, in very specific situations, but most of the time I don’t even bother. Yes, I’m lazy. And I can still solo most stuff.

Not lazy at all. Having a favored build is perfectly reasonable as long as you are not expecting meta performance in every possible situation. I tend to not use weapon switching if I dont have to because, if my concept is for an axe warrior, then he is going to use axes. Similarly, if my concept is for an archer, he probably will not spend much time using a torch.

Actually it’s because I’m changing situations so frequently that I don’t change builds. I’m always helping someone in the guild out somewhere. I don’t know where I’ll be in ten minutes. So it’s pointless to keep changing, it would take up too much game time.

I mean if I’m in the harpy fractal on a mesmer or guardian, yeah I’ll put up reflect skills, because that’s just logical. If I’m running TA and I want to clear out the poisonous blossums, I’ll throw a staff on my guardian and lead the way. But most of the time I just chug along. I seem to do okay.

Verdant Brink is all about outposts. Like all HoT maps there’s a meta to the entire map. Nothing you do is ever really in a vacuum.

There are outposts throughout the camp that need to be defended at night, and each of them has a relatively long quest chain during the day. If you start at Shipwreck Peak Waypoint btw, the first in the zone, off to the right as you’re facing the portal, a series of events start at the start of the day that chains into a series of 9 different events, which are pretty long and tell a story.

There’s also the personal story which takes you through the zone as well.

Masteries aren’t just about leveling materies, they’re leveling more access to the jungle. The more of the basic masteries you complete, the easier it is to traverse the jungle. It’s a progression, which people have been asking for.

Also it’s less of a grind now for any number of reasons. Anet has increased the amount of experience you get, added easier events with veterans instead of champs (not at every skillpoint though) and has thinned out mobs in some places.

Still the zones in HoT are really part of the story of HoT. Everything works together. If you play the zone and then move through the story you’re seeing the results of what happened and the story takes you through them. It’s actually pretty well designed.

A lot of people say the story is short, because they’re ignoring the part the zones play in the story. It’s all one big tapestry.

In VB, stay by outposts and follow event chains and at night, defend outposts till the choppers land, so you can get the bosses.

The achievements for VB will actually give you a pretty good road map.

Ryou.2398:

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Crica.1503:

well, thanks for posting this thread, OP, glad I saw it before buying the expansion now that there are character boosts…I sure don’t want to spend money on a game I can’t play if no one is available to play it with me!

Don’t believe everything you read on a forums.

Ditto, but this is true, pretty sure these guys never even venture into HoT, yet say its easy just to be spiteful.

That’s silly. I have a reasonably sized guild. Unless you think I’m lying, almost no one in my guild has any real issue with the difficulty of HoT.

We have one guy in his 60s who has vision problems who has difficulty with gliding and the 3d aspect. We have a couple of older people who need some help, again in their 60s. A guy with a computer so slow he might as well be running the game on a toaster., and that’s about it. Most people don’t really have that much of an issue.

I could show you personally if you don’t believe me.

I’m not even sure that’s possible is it?

Also i take it you have all masteries are in Ascended / Legendary gears and weapons.. So of course Hot will be easier..

I have Exotic gears and some green jewelry and well i just die in 2 to 3 hits from those frog things..

Its not like i never played GW2 before i spent a year and a half playing, my builds are out of date sure maybe but i’ve enjoyed all content Guildwars threw at me to a point.

I have tried to enjoy HoT but when your downed every mob you encounter your hands hurt from dodging and trying to survive obviously the game is no longer my cup of tea..

I left due to Fractals and Ascended stuff being added The difficulties and grind were imo was the direct opposite of what guildwars was about..

The break didn’t seem to fix anything here its basically been left to the hardcores and well not much else.

I haven’t even bothered logging in for 4 days now, and am probably just going to uninstall.

He also meant he can group with guildies everyone has an option to find a good guild there is a guild recruitment area on these forums and I think reddit has one as well, I havent checked but I know it has build ones and etc its not very active.

One of my gulidies saids he switches specs all the time depending on the content, maybe part of the issue is people are trying to use just one build for pve? I am just trying to help here, perhaps if you share your specs and gear someone might offer some help.

I use one build for PvE though. At most a switch a few skills, in very specific situations, but most of the time I don’t even bother. Yes, I’m lazy. And I can still solo most stuff.

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Crica.1503:

well, thanks for posting this thread, OP, glad I saw it before buying the expansion now that there are character boosts…I sure don’t want to spend money on a game I can’t play if no one is available to play it with me!

Don’t believe everything you read on a forums.

Ditto, but this is true, pretty sure these guys never even venture into HoT, yet say its easy just to be spiteful.

That’s silly. I have a reasonably sized guild. Unless you think I’m lying, almost no one in my guild has any real issue with the difficulty of HoT.

We have one guy in his 60s who has vision problems who has difficulty with gliding and the 3d aspect. We have a couple of older people who need some help, again in their 60s. A guy with a computer so slow he might as well be running the game on a toaster., and that’s about it. Most people don’t really have that much of an issue.

I could show you personally if you don’t believe me.

I’m not even sure that’s possible is it?

Also i take it you have all masteries are in Ascended / Legendary gears and weapons.. So of course Hot will be easier..

I have Exotic gears and some green jewelry and well i just die in 2 to 3 hits from those frog things..

Its not like i never played GW2 before i spent a year and a half playing, my builds are out of date sure maybe but i’ve enjoyed all content Guildwars threw at me to a point.

I have tried to enjoy HoT but when your downed every mob you encounter your hands hurt from dodging and trying to survive obviously the game is no longer my cup of tea..

I left due to Fractals and Ascended stuff being added The difficulties and grind were imo was the direct opposite of what guildwars was about..

The break didn’t seem to fix anything here its basically been left to the hardcores and well not much else.

I haven’t even bothered logging in for 4 days now, and am probably just going to uninstall.

Yes it’s possible and most of my guild doesn’t have full ascended. Only a small percentage of them do.

There’s a saying I repeat here quite often. It’s better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. I offered you show you and you’re still saying it’s not possible. Believe me it’s possible.

As far as the ascended stuff goes, there’s virtually no reason in the world why you can’t have ascended trinkets. None at all. It may take a while, but it doesn’t mean you can’t have them. Ascended amulets cost either 30 laurels or 20 laurels and 250 badges of honor. They’re easy to get as anything.

And though you can get accessories with laurels as well, they’re quite expensive that way. Guild missions, which are easy enough to do, would give you enough guild commendations to get your choice of accesories for 5 gold each. Rings are so plentiful in the fractals it’s scary and they’ve gotten a lot easier, My wife and I can often two many the low level ones.

Uninstall if you want, or take a chance and see if someone can help you figure things out, that’s your choice.

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Crica.1503:

well, thanks for posting this thread, OP, glad I saw it before buying the expansion now that there are character boosts…I sure don’t want to spend money on a game I can’t play if no one is available to play it with me!

Don’t believe everything you read on a forums.

Ditto, but this is true, pretty sure these guys never even venture into HoT, yet say its easy just to be spiteful.

That’s silly. I have a reasonably sized guild. Unless you think I’m lying, almost no one in my guild has any real issue with the difficulty of HoT.

We have one guy in his 60s who has vision problems who has difficulty with gliding and the 3d aspect. We have a couple of older people who need some help, again in their 60s. A guy with a computer so slow he might as well be running the game on a toaster., and that’s about it. Most people don’t really have that much of an issue.

I could show you personally if you don’t believe me.

When we talk about features, since Guild Wars 1 didn’t have a trading post, a mail system, a way to truly customize guild halls, a wardrobe system, or even jumping and swimming, I’d say the OP’s viewing Guild Wars 1 through rose-colored glasses.

As far as this being like every other MMO, that’s just not true. I think the confusion here is that the OP thinks Guild Wars 1 was an MMO rather than a lobby game. A lot of the changes in Guild Wars 2 have to do with the transition to an open world, as well as a larger player base with more diverse tastes.

Guild Wars 1 was focused. It was a niche game. In some ways Guild Wars 2 is a niche game too, but it’s a much bigger niche.

Crica.1503:

well, thanks for posting this thread, OP, glad I saw it before buying the expansion now that there are character boosts…I sure don’t want to spend money on a game I can’t play if no one is available to play it with me!

Don’t believe everything you read on a forums.

mauried.5608:

Is HOT a gear based zone?
How many people are playing in HOT with green gear or less and enjoying it?

Hot’s an 80 zone why would anyone use green gear anyway. Just leveling now you get rares and exotics.

Obtena.7952:

That’s fair enough. Unlike you, I was making light of the issue because while people are accusing you of using hyperbole to make it light, they are using sensationalism to make it heavy. There isn’t any reasonable way for Anet to appease the needs of people at either end of those spectrum AND make a business of it. People don’t get that.

Yeah, it’s all about doing the best you can without catering to outliers, because that’s a very dangerous thing for a business to do.

If they make everything in the open world soloable, the people like me who enjoy running around in small guild groups suffer. If they make everything for hard core players, everyone who’s not hard core will suffer.

But people often believe they’re part of some kind of majority even when they’re not. Because their feelings are so strong they believe others must feel this way too, en mass.

Of course, that doesn’t really happen. You cater to the largest percentage in the center and you adjust things (as Anet recently did) if it looks too hard or too easy.

I’m pretty sure, at this point, the balance is right for the majority of players…but the outliers are always going to be with us…unless they all go to Wildstar. lol

Obtena.7952:

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

DoctorDing.5890:

Vayne.8563:

You and the six guys that think it’s that hard are you and the six guys that think it’s that hard.

Would they be invented numbers, Vayne?

No because I said I was intentionally exaggerating, so it doesn’t count as numbers at all. Why truncate a sentence to try to prove me wrong when in fact I didn’t actually list a number at all except as something that’s obviously meant as humor?

You’d have to be pretty disingenuous to believe I think 6 people feel this way.

So you use hyperbole to try to make the issue less serious than it is.. Great job and the game is dying as i’ve said, whatever metrics they used to decide the difficulty in hot is working far worse against them..

Honestly just read the frustrations in zone chat daily, disagree all you want but after a 2 year break this game has a tiny population compared to when i left in 2012.

Actually, I think he was exaggerating … 6 sounds too high to me.

In all seriousness there is a pecentage of people who do find HoT too hard. I don’t want to make light of them. But my suspicion is whatever that percentage is 5%? 10%? 15? whatever…it’s matched or overmatched by the percentage of people who left the game because they found the open world too boring. We’ve had plenty of those posts over time too.

So if a bunch of people left because the open world is too boring and a bunch of people find HoT to hard it all evens out in the end.

And again, I like some challenging content, but I’ll probably never be a raider. I appreciate the greater challenge of HoT. I might not always be up for it, but it’s a welcome change from the rest of the game’s difficulty.

Ayrilana.1396:

People have been saying the game has been dying since 2012. About 3.5 years later and it’s still here.

The real irony here is that the guy says he’s playing Wildstar and then claims Guild Wars 2 is dying. That’s pretty entertaining when you think about it. Not that I wish badly on Wildstar I enjoyed it.

But you can’t judge end game while you’re leveling anyway. Dante played Guild Wars 2 till 80 and enjoyed the difficulty level. It’s only when he hit real end game that he had an issue.

I can’t really imagine it’ll be any different in Wildstar.

DoctorDing.5890:

Vayne.8563:

DoctorDing.5890:

Vayne.8563:

You and the six guys that think it’s that hard are you and the six guys that think it’s that hard.

Would they be invented numbers, Vayne?

No because I said I was intentionally exaggerating, so it doesn’t count as numbers at all. Why truncate a sentence to try to prove me wrong when in fact I didn’t actually list a number at all except as something that’s obviously meant as humor?

You’d have to be pretty disingenuous to believe I think 6 people feel this way.

Funny you should mention obvious humour. I thought mine was more obvious than yours. Take a step back and chill matey ;p

Nothing said to me on these forums is obvious, even if I did assume you were joking. The fact is, there are plenty of people who wouldn’t see the joke and would take it seriously.

I already have one person who dogs me and tries to hold me accountable.

But this is really all off topic anyway. The topic of whether HoT is soloable has already been answered, considering plenty of people can solo it on every profession.

It’s really a null point. There are obviously people who don’t play as well, or have older computers, or bad connections, but you just can’t balance the game around them.

For the longest time, one of the biggest complaints about this game is that there’s no difficult content. So you might say that well they have raids.

But not everyone who wants challenging content wants instanced content. There are people, like me, who enjoy the open world and want some challenge in some areas. That’s what end game zones are for.

When Eye of the North came out, it was much harder than anything in the “open world” in Guild Wars 1, because it was all max level content. Creatures in the open world were more powerful, they ran in bigger packs, they had harder hitting skills and on top of that, they had higher levels. Even in normal mode, 24 th level creatures were the norm, when the max level in the game was 20.

This game has plenty of dead easy content. Harder content, not just raids, was needed.

Admittedly Anet didn’t scale it up gradually, and they put all their eggs in one basket which was a flaw.

But that doesn’t mean that the game didn’t need challenging open world content. It’s still soloable.

Khisanth.2948:

Vayne.8563:

TexZero.7910:

If you’re joining for anything other than WvW….just join any old server.

If you’re joining for WvW, you have the option in the short term of joining the server SBI is linked with, Crystal Desert.

Alternatively, you can just pray it opens up which likely wont happen until sometime really really early in the morning NA.

I was under the impression that since the change in calculation, logging in at different times will make no difference. That is to say, until Anet actually revisits WvW traffic numbers, the full servers will remain full no matter what time it is.

or a lot of people decide to move off the server and nobody moves back to fill their spots

That wouldn’t do it. It’s not an automatic thing anymore. All that matters at this point is the WvW population and, as far as I can tell, the status isn’t updated real time. It’s like they review it periodically rather than just react instantly.

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

DoctorDing.5890:

Vayne.8563:

You and the six guys that think it’s that hard are you and the six guys that think it’s that hard.

Would they be invented numbers, Vayne?

No because I said I was intentionally exaggerating, so it doesn’t count as numbers at all. Why truncate a sentence to try to prove me wrong when in fact I didn’t actually list a number at all except as something that’s obviously meant as humor?

You’d have to be pretty disingenuous to believe I think 6 people feel this way.

So you use hyperbole to try to make the issue less serious than it is.. Great job and the game is dying as i’ve said, whatever metrics they used to decide the difficulty in hot is working far worse against them..

Honestly just read the frustrations in zone chat daily, disagree all you want but after a 2 year break this game has a tiny population compared to when i left in 2012.

It’s not serious. The game isn’t dying and you have zero evidence that it is. None at all.

We’ll see how dead the game is when the next quarterly report comes out. Until then there’s nothing to suggest the game is dying. In fact, I think you’re the only one I even see saying it.

I haven’t even seen people mad at HoT claiming the game is dying…except for you.

TexZero.7910:

If you’re joining for anything other than WvW….just join any old server.

If you’re joining for WvW, you have the option in the short term of joining the server SBI is linked with, Crystal Desert.

Alternatively, you can just pray it opens up which likely wont happen until sometime really really early in the morning NA.

I was under the impression that since the change in calculation, logging in at different times will make no difference. That is to say, until Anet actually revisits WvW traffic numbers, the full servers will remain full no matter what time it is.

DoctorDing.5890:

Vayne.8563:

You and the six guys that think it’s that hard are you and the six guys that think it’s that hard.

Would they be invented numbers, Vayne?

No because I said I was intentionally exaggerating, so it doesn’t count as numbers at all. Why truncate a sentence to try to prove me wrong when in fact I didn’t actually list a number at all except as something that’s obviously meant as humor?

You’d have to be pretty disingenuous to believe I think 6 people feel this way.

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Rap Tiger.1257:

Dante.1508:

Rap Tiger.1257:

Dante.1508:

Ryou.2398:

Im not trying to be rude here but from my understanding heart of thornes was meant for group content in the first place, the content needs to lasts for one, for two its meant to be an mmorpg, for three it was meant to be challenging/rewarding. we can solo enough content in this game as it is, I get people like the option so solo. But it sounds like some people here want a single player game.

No people want the option to play solo, all through the story and map content, i understand dungeons, fractals and raids are group content and i’m cool with group content being in open world but the map completions, the getting around for fun, most events should be complete-able solo as well as grouped…

So all types of customers can enjoy the content, if not then half the player base is doing things they don’t want to or worse actively avoiding it.

Sure i can’t complete shatterer solo, but i can save a town from harpies solo, in Hot i can’t even do that most times, i’m dead.

I can’t even kill a veteran mushroom solo without going downed state a few times then dying..

So you and the other little friends who can not kill a veteran is a shame, I say this because even discouraged seeing a guy here in this forum say that you can not kill a smokescale veteran and then talk that can kill, not knowing if you really can or not.

Please these PVE players who believe that HOT was hard, believe they are the same that will claim in PvP because they could not get the wing because it is difficult.

ArenaNet nor should hear these kinds of players who want to make this game something casual to harm the hardcore who likes to challenge.

I walked all the map again and I did not die once so easy that is.

Even the 3 champions of Verdant Brink almost done solo because it’s easy, but not just because soloing appeared 2 more to help and I dc at the end when it appears the legendary boss

These maps are increasingly empty because now those who have no skill can do this by pressing 1 and without help.

What class do you use in hot… And agreed a smokescale veteran can take 2/3rds of my health in a second and i barely kill it… I’ve died to a normal Smokescale..

My main issue is the insane frogs, i cannot kill them at all i died 10 times yesterday on the same two frogs, teleporting, un-hit able, instant kill cheap kitten… that’s not fun, that’s actually harassment when you are just trying to get past..

Seriously its just no longer fun to play anymore.

I play but ranger, have played a little warrior too, but not on the maps of Tyria, which class you play? How long has the game?

If you want one of these days can follow me and see how I can get along in the HOT maps, it is very rare to end up dying. My nick is Raplion with ranger.

I’m a Daredevil, but i tried Ele, Ranger and Engie with all similar issues, i played GW2 for a year and a half and just returned two weeks ago because i purchased Heart of Thorns in a sale at EB games…

I very much regret it now and am considering looking for more casual mmo over GW2, its no longer enjoyable.

But you also claim you have terrible lag and bad skill lag, and you’re judging the game based on issues you have. I mean yes, I know you’re in Australia but many people, including both me, my wife and my son, have played this game from Australia and don’t have your skill lag.

Every time you say something is too hard, well yeah, if you are reacting too slow because of lag, of course it’s too hard. How in the name of the six do you think leaving that info out is fair to anyone?

You may not be the best player or you may be, but no one could function in this game with the latency you describe.

Nor should Anet balance the game around a person who has 2-4 second skill input lag because if they did that, it would be far too easy for everyone else.

If you’re in Australia and your lag is that bad, either get better internet, get a better computer, or figure out what’s causing your lag.

Because saying over and over again the game is too hard, after saying you have this terrible lag is, at the very least, misleading.

That is no longer an issue my ISP fixed it, doesn’t fix the difficulties in game though..Nice dodge on the horrible HoT difficulty though, all those deaths were with no skill lag and 220 ping.

Dante.1508:

Dante.1508:

I’m a Daredevil, but i tried Ele, Ranger and Engie with all similar issues, i played GW2 for a year and a half and just returned two weeks ago because i purchased Heart of Thorns in a sale at EB games…

I very much regret it now and am considering looking for more casual mmo over GW2, its no longer enjoyable.

Maybe find some friends to play with, use LFG, join a guild.

Problem is, there’s no game that has the same quality as Guild Wars 2. GW2 is pretty unique and plays and feels unique. Once I switch to other games it’s never the same.

Maybe great if you want something completely different, but not when you want a more casual version of GW2.

But hey, I heard Runescape upgraded its graphics engine once again. (no more Java/browser) If you want casual and something entirely different.

Well i’m trialing Wildstar, it seems a lot more casual and the maps aren’t so over the top like HoT and more like core tyria, obviously i’m low level so i cannot judge end game, i will say how straight forward it is is refreshing after GW2 and they have a lot less collection stuff which is a plus.

If it doesn’t work out i’ll go back to the secret world i always loved that game it just had a tiny population last i checked, heard its boosted again.

Anyway enjoy the “unique” GW2 Grind.

You and the six guys that think it’s that hard are you and the six guys that think it’s that hard. Obviously this is an exaggeration but…though it’s harder than core Tyria, it’s really not that much harder. I have the same ping you do and sometimes more and I don’t find most of it hard.

I have a guild full of casuals and only a tiny percentage of them find it too hard.

I have no idea what you’re doing wrong, but there are far more people saying it’s not that hard than saying it is that hard.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

All i have is what i see, i know after being away for 2 years the population is about 1/3rd what it was when i left..

No idea if that’s normal for an mmorpg over 2 years or not, but its a lot less people now.

You have NO evidence for this at all, and I really wish you’d stop saying this. There are probably as many people now, if not more, but they’re more scattered. People who are raiding you’ll never see….because you don’t raid. More people are in dungeons and fractals now than before. You won’t see them unless you do them.

My guild has more activity now than it did both two years ago and 1 year ago.

And you have no evidence to say they are wrong either, numbers are clearly down on certain things, the clear WvW server merge shows this, the fact they had to merge servers to keep numbers up says a lot, the PvE side of the game maybe doing better than other places, who knows, the only true fact is, that unless ANET themselves come on here and say numbers are up or numbers are down, then its only speculation, as like you stated, people in instances will not be seen in the open world,

You keep saying your guild is more active now than 2 years ago, good for you, you must have 1 of the only super active guilds in the game, as guilds that i know with 400+ members are struggling to get more than 25-30ppl online at a time, and some of them haven’t had members on for months, you need to realise that your experience is not the same as someone elses, but you fail to get that point, if people don’t agree or see things how you do, they must be wrong.

I don’t NEED evidence that they’re wrong, because I’m not quoting a number. There’s a huge difference between pulling a number out of thin air and quoting it and some one saying there’s no evidence for it, and stating in a post myself that this is the number.

He can say I believe the population is going down. The third of the population is complete fiction however. It’s not even plausible fiction.

For one thing, we’ve following profits from month to month year to year, and they haven’t gone down nearly that much. If it was a third of the players, I’d expect a much bigger drop in profits.

The short answer is they won’t tell you. That’s because they won’t announce stuff before it’s absolutely ready to ship.

The longer answer is the new raid wing will likely be available in June if it follows the pattern of the old raid wings, and the living World Season 3 is scheduled to come out after the third raid wing.

We should get the next PvP tournament in the interim, though. The next “big” patch should be in July.

Dante.1508:

Rap Tiger.1257:

Dante.1508:

Rap Tiger.1257:

Dante.1508:

Ryou.2398:

Im not trying to be rude here but from my understanding heart of thornes was meant for group content in the first place, the content needs to lasts for one, for two its meant to be an mmorpg, for three it was meant to be challenging/rewarding. we can solo enough content in this game as it is, I get people like the option so solo. But it sounds like some people here want a single player game.

No people want the option to play solo, all through the story and map content, i understand dungeons, fractals and raids are group content and i’m cool with group content being in open world but the map completions, the getting around for fun, most events should be complete-able solo as well as grouped…

So all types of customers can enjoy the content, if not then half the player base is doing things they don’t want to or worse actively avoiding it.

Sure i can’t complete shatterer solo, but i can save a town from harpies solo, in Hot i can’t even do that most times, i’m dead.

I can’t even kill a veteran mushroom solo without going downed state a few times then dying..

So you and the other little friends who can not kill a veteran is a shame, I say this because even discouraged seeing a guy here in this forum say that you can not kill a smokescale veteran and then talk that can kill, not knowing if you really can or not.

Please these PVE players who believe that HOT was hard, believe they are the same that will claim in PvP because they could not get the wing because it is difficult.

ArenaNet nor should hear these kinds of players who want to make this game something casual to harm the hardcore who likes to challenge.

I walked all the map again and I did not die once so easy that is.

Even the 3 champions of Verdant Brink almost done solo because it’s easy, but not just because soloing appeared 2 more to help and I dc at the end when it appears the legendary boss

These maps are increasingly empty because now those who have no skill can do this by pressing 1 and without help.

What class do you use in hot… And agreed a smokescale veteran can take 2/3rds of my health in a second and i barely kill it… I’ve died to a normal Smokescale..

My main issue is the insane frogs, i cannot kill them at all i died 10 times yesterday on the same two frogs, teleporting, un-hit able, instant kill cheap kitten… that’s not fun, that’s actually harassment when you are just trying to get past..

Seriously its just no longer fun to play anymore.

I play but ranger, have played a little warrior too, but not on the maps of Tyria, which class you play? How long has the game?

If you want one of these days can follow me and see how I can get along in the HOT maps, it is very rare to end up dying. My nick is Raplion with ranger.

I’m a Daredevil, but i tried Ele, Ranger and Engie with all similar issues, i played GW2 for a year and a half and just returned two weeks ago because i purchased Heart of Thorns in a sale at EB games…

I very much regret it now and am considering looking for more casual mmo over GW2, its no longer enjoyable.

But you also claim you have terrible lag and bad skill lag, and you’re judging the game based on issues you have. I mean yes, I know you’re in Australia but many people, including both me, my wife and my son, have played this game from Australia and don’t have your skill lag.

Every time you say something is too hard, well yeah, if you are reacting too slow because of lag, of course it’s too hard. How in the name of the six do you think leaving that info out is fair to anyone?

You may not be the best player or you may be, but no one could function in this game with the latency you describe.

Nor should Anet balance the game around a person who has 2-4 second skill input lag because if they did that, it would be far too easy for everyone else.

If you’re in Australia and your lag is that bad, either get better internet, get a better computer, or figure out what’s causing your lag.

Because saying over and over again the game is too hard, after saying you have this terrible lag is, at the very least, misleading.

Dante.1508:

All i have is what i see, i know after being away for 2 years the population is about 1/3rd what it was when i left..

No idea if that’s normal for an mmorpg over 2 years or not, but its a lot less people now.

You have NO evidence for this at all, and I really wish you’d stop saying this. There are probably as many people now, if not more, but they’re more scattered. People who are raiding you’ll never see….because you don’t raid. More people are in dungeons and fractals now than before. You won’t see them unless you do them.

You dont’ use lfg to get into busy maps in the new zones, and there are a lot of people there.

My guild has more activity now than it did both two years ago and 1 year ago.

Why make up numbers if you don’t have them?

Make your own LFG and see how fast it fills. LFG often looks dead because groups fill very VERY quickly.

I seldom have to wait more than a minute or two for LFG.

Now that dailies give a guaranteed two gold, I don’t know that they should be easy. Particularly because everyone has the ability to jump into one of the PvP daily rooms and get two of them for no effort at all anyway.

AliamRationem.5172:

Vayne.8563:

AliamRationem.5172:

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

Tumult.2578:

Obtena.7952:

^^ Some achievements are able to be done solo so what are you talking about?

The constant referrals to use the LFG tool when it does not help the situation.

The referrals for looking for groups are for meta events. We’ve always had events in the game that require more than one person. Most people can’t solo temples in Orr. No one can solo triple threat or the Silverwastes. No one can get to Tier 6 solo in Dry Top. No one could solo the Marionette.

The only real contention here is achievment point, some of which can be soloed anyway and others an be soloed if you’re really good…but they give ten times the amount of hero points of the easy HPs in the core game. It’s a fair trade off.

The interesting question here is why do almost all of the meta-events in core that require larger numbers not involve taxis (Teq and TriWurm, maybe Shatt now faik being the exceptions, though I’ve not seen Shatt taxis)? Why do all the HoT metas require you to get lucky that there is a taxi offered and that you can actually join in?

My guess is that the meta bosses in core can be done with smaller numbers, so unless there’s only a couple of people there, the players are content to do it with a smaller set, whereas with both HoT and the 2 (maybe 3) in core is that both: having players who know what to do; and having a really large number are both seen as important. I’ve seen Grenth (the current iteration) done with 4 people. I don’t know any of the HoT stuff that scales that low.

Personally, while I understand the taxi phenomenon, I find the whole thing spotty in success, tedious and frustrating. When I zone into a Hot map, it’s 5-out-of-6 that I will need to taxi to have a chance at success, and a 1-in-3 the taxi will work out. I don’t know if it’s my bad luck or what, but I find the process by which we’re supposed to be able to have fun to be arguably the worst implementation of accessibility I’ve seen in an MMO — at least for currently relevant content.

It’s because the mega server doesn’t work right in the new zones and they’re working on it.

My guess is in testing, they have one server and didn’t use a mega server, probably because there aren’t enough testers. The megaserver therefore wouldn’t have gotten properly tested until it went live. They had no reason to believe it wouldn’t behave properly.

There are people working on the issue and they have been for months. It’s not done yet. My guess is that when it’s fixed, it’ll be less of a problem.

Also people do have to use the LFG tool often in SW because very often the map you’re on isn’t doing the meta, they’re running chests. And I’ve often had to use the LFG tool to get a higher tier server in Dry Top.

I’m relatively sure the next expansion will move in a completely different direction since this one didn’t work as well as Anet had hoped.

If what you say is true, I hope they won’t go too far in a different direction. I think the events in HoT are pretty awesome when players participate. If the reason you can’t just zone in and leap right into the action really is due entirely to this megaserver issue you speak of, then if they can fix that these new maps should be really nice!

The other complaints seem to be mostly focused on the group hero points. I wouldn’t be opposed to making them more accessible to solo players, or perhaps just reducing the number of hero points required to unlock the elite spec so that players can more easily pick and choose which hero points they want to go for. As I recall, I had to complete more than half of the hero point challenges in HoT to unlock my elite spec which really made it difficult to avoid group hero challenges.

So yeah, I’m not sure I agree that drastic change is necessary. The maps are good. The events are good. It seems like working out the kinks in the megaserver system and maybe lightening up some of the requirements for unlocking masteries/hero points would go a long way toward fixing the issues most players seem to have with HoT.

I think a lot of people object to playing on the clock. We’ve got enough of that now, I’d be happy to see them go away from that and provide more freedom.

So you’re saying remove the time so events proceed as players complete them rather than at their own pace? That’s how it works in older maps right?

It’s not that simple and it would involve a major redesign. What Anet is trying to do by keeping everything at the same time is to prevent what happened in SW, where people would just flock into the main events and leave everything else basically undone. People could swoop in at the end, after others did the work, get the bulk of the rewards and find a new map. That was a problem and, rightly, there were complaints about it on the forums.

Making it so that the main event is all that’s done means all the other stuff (which some people need) would not be done. Like Vine Tooth Prime which is harder to get done now, but would be impossible if you just allowed people to log in at the very end of the cycle.

It’s not an easy fix and I don’t suspect it will happen for HoT. Which is why I think they have to move away from big meta events and give some people more of the kinds of content they want…because not everyone wants to that kind of event.

We’ll see what happens, but from my experience, if something doesn’t work, Anet moves away from it.

Take Season 1 of the LS which I really liked. The second LS was completely instanced and repeatable and I didn’t like it as much. But it was a complete turnaround of what was being done in LS season 1.

As for solo aspect of HoT, I’m willing to wager that Anet is very sensitive to casual and solo players after all the hullabaloo. I think you’ll find that Anet is actually, in spite of what a lot of people think, pretty responsive. They’re slow to implement, but not slow to respond.

General Health.9678:

Because what would you purchase them with? Frogskins? Flax flowers? Dried beetle essence?

Airship parts, it’s the currency of the zone, which is the weird bit about the OP.

The OP claims that he/she doesn’t have enough time to do events in the area to get crowbars. But the currency of the area is airship parts, which you’d have to do the area’s events to get anyway. By which point you should have plenty of crowbars.

I agree crowbars should be available for airship parts though. I’m just not convinced it’ll solve the OP’s issue.

AliamRationem.5172:

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

Tumult.2578:

Obtena.7952:

^^ Some achievements are able to be done solo so what are you talking about?

The constant referrals to use the LFG tool when it does not help the situation.

The referrals for looking for groups are for meta events. We’ve always had events in the game that require more than one person. Most people can’t solo temples in Orr. No one can solo triple threat or the Silverwastes. No one can get to Tier 6 solo in Dry Top. No one could solo the Marionette.

The only real contention here is achievment point, some of which can be soloed anyway and others an be soloed if you’re really good…but they give ten times the amount of hero points of the easy HPs in the core game. It’s a fair trade off.

The interesting question here is why do almost all of the meta-events in core that require larger numbers not involve taxis (Teq and TriWurm, maybe Shatt now faik being the exceptions, though I’ve not seen Shatt taxis)? Why do all the HoT metas require you to get lucky that there is a taxi offered and that you can actually join in?

My guess is that the meta bosses in core can be done with smaller numbers, so unless there’s only a couple of people there, the players are content to do it with a smaller set, whereas with both HoT and the 2 (maybe 3) in core is that both: having players who know what to do; and having a really large number are both seen as important. I’ve seen Grenth (the current iteration) done with 4 people. I don’t know any of the HoT stuff that scales that low.

Personally, while I understand the taxi phenomenon, I find the whole thing spotty in success, tedious and frustrating. When I zone into a Hot map, it’s 5-out-of-6 that I will need to taxi to have a chance at success, and a 1-in-3 the taxi will work out. I don’t know if it’s my bad luck or what, but I find the process by which we’re supposed to be able to have fun to be arguably the worst implementation of accessibility I’ve seen in an MMO — at least for currently relevant content.

It’s because the mega server doesn’t work right in the new zones and they’re working on it.

My guess is in testing, they have one server and didn’t use a mega server, probably because there aren’t enough testers. The megaserver therefore wouldn’t have gotten properly tested until it went live. They had no reason to believe it wouldn’t behave properly.

There are people working on the issue and they have been for months. It’s not done yet. My guess is that when it’s fixed, it’ll be less of a problem.

Also people do have to use the LFG tool often in SW because very often the map you’re on isn’t doing the meta, they’re running chests. And I’ve often had to use the LFG tool to get a higher tier server in Dry Top.

I’m relatively sure the next expansion will move in a completely different direction since this one didn’t work as well as Anet had hoped.

If what you say is true, I hope they won’t go too far in a different direction. I think the events in HoT are pretty awesome when players participate. If the reason you can’t just zone in and leap right into the action really is due entirely to this megaserver issue you speak of, then if they can fix that these new maps should be really nice!

The other complaints seem to be mostly focused on the group hero points. I wouldn’t be opposed to making them more accessible to solo players, or perhaps just reducing the number of hero points required to unlock the elite spec so that players can more easily pick and choose which hero points they want to go for. As I recall, I had to complete more than half of the hero point challenges in HoT to unlock my elite spec which really made it difficult to avoid group hero challenges.

So yeah, I’m not sure I agree that drastic change is necessary. The maps are good. The events are good. It seems like working out the kinks in the megaserver system and maybe lightening up some of the requirements for unlocking masteries/hero points would go a long way toward fixing the issues most players seem to have with HoT.

I think a lot of people object to playing on the clock. We’ve got enough of that now, I’d be happy to see them go away from that and provide more freedom.

sorudo.9054:

Celine.6857:

Okay, I have to ask after reading most of this thread….

Those of you who have said HoT felt “rushed”…. How? Why? I simply don’t get that comment. Unless you were on the development team and there were many more things in the pipeline that were missed or you just quickly shoved this and that together, how can you say, as a player, you ‘felt’ it was rushed?

if you know Anet as long as i do then you know why ppl say that, they used to make whole games full of content but now a small add-on with a tiny bit of new is all they get finished.
Anet used to have guild wars expanded all the time, 3 chapters and an expansion within 2.5 years is in my book quite a good thing.
now all they managed to do is make one single chapter with tons of temp events only a handful liked and one single expansion, an expansion that is as much worth as a free app from the play story.

not only that, the epac was released filled with “easy fix” bugs with half it’s functions not even included, the functions they added till now.
this is something i am not used to from Anet, they normally add everything in there expansion and later on think of improving the rest.

The problem is they used to make expansions full of content that was far easier to make. I mean 250 quests isn’t really that much content in the sense you’re thinking of. The maps were pathed. There was no Z axis. And the “open world” was instanced, so they knew exactly how many people would be in each zone max.

If you think making stuff for a true MMO and making stuff for a lobby game is the same thing, I’m not really sure what to say.

Guild Wars 2, as a game over all, is far more ambitious than Guild Wars 1 ever was.

To put this in perspective, Guild Wars 2 launched with more dynamic events than Guild Wars 1 had quests all together. That is if you add up all the quests in Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall and EotN, the number was less than the dynamic events Guild Wars 2 launched with.

It was a different time. Things were simpler and took less time.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

Tumult.2578:

Obtena.7952:

^^ Some achievements are able to be done solo so what are you talking about?

The constant referrals to use the LFG tool when it does not help the situation.

The referrals for looking for groups are for meta events. We’ve always had events in the game that require more than one person. Most people can’t solo temples in Orr. No one can solo triple threat or the Silverwastes. No one can get to Tier 6 solo in Dry Top. No one could solo the Marionette.

The only real contention here is achievment point, some of which can be soloed anyway and others an be soloed if you’re really good…but they give ten times the amount of hero points of the easy HPs in the core game. It’s a fair trade off.

The interesting question here is why do almost all of the meta-events in core that require larger numbers not involve taxis (Teq and TriWurm, maybe Shatt now faik being the exceptions, though I’ve not seen Shatt taxis)? Why do all the HoT metas require you to get lucky that there is a taxi offered and that you can actually join in?

My guess is that the meta bosses in core can be done with smaller numbers, so unless there’s only a couple of people there, the players are content to do it with a smaller set, whereas with both HoT and the 2 (maybe 3) in core is that both: having players who know what to do; and having a really large number are both seen as important. I’ve seen Grenth (the current iteration) done with 4 people. I don’t know any of the HoT stuff that scales that low.

Personally, while I understand the taxi phenomenon, I find the whole thing spotty in success, tedious and frustrating. When I zone into a Hot map, it’s 5-out-of-6 that I will need to taxi to have a chance at success, and a 1-in-3 the taxi will work out. I don’t know if it’s my bad luck or what, but I find the process by which we’re supposed to be able to have fun to be arguably the worst implementation of accessibility I’ve seen in an MMO — at least for currently relevant content.

It’s because the mega server doesn’t work right in the new zones and they’re working on it.

My guess is in testing, they have one server and didn’t use a mega server, probably because there aren’t enough testers. The megaserver therefore wouldn’t have gotten properly tested until it went live. They had no reason to believe it wouldn’t behave properly.

There are people working on the issue and they have been for months. It’s not done yet. My guess is that when it’s fixed, it’ll be less of a problem.

Also people do have to use the LFG tool often in SW because very often the map you’re on isn’t doing the meta, they’re running chests. And I’ve often had to use the LFG tool to get a higher tier server in Dry Top.

I’m relatively sure the next expansion will move in a completely different direction since this one didn’t work as well as Anet had hoped.

Tumult.2578:

Obtena.7952:

^^ Some achievements are able to be done solo so what are you talking about?

The constant referrals to use the LFG tool when it does not help the situation.

The referrals for looking for groups are for meta events. We’ve always had events in the game that require more than one person. Most people can’t solo temples in Orr. No one can solo triple threat or the Silverwastes. No one can get to Tier 6 solo in Dry Top. No one could solo the Marionette.

The only real contention here is achievment point, some of which can be soloed anyway and others an be soloed if you’re really good…but they give ten times the amount of hero points of the easy HPs in the core game. It’s a fair trade off.

Einlanzer.1627:

Vayne.8563:

Turamarth.3248:

Or buy it with gold.

This. Despite the drama I’ve seen about it (and it’s not much drama) you can farm some gold, turn it into gems and buy the story that way. That’s perfectly reasonable. It’s not like you have to spend cash.

It actually is not very reasonable, Vayne, and arguing otherwise cannot be construed as anything but white knighting. Buying the $60 expansion should include LW2 if it includes the HoT story after it, rather than giving you the beginning and the ending then requiring additional money or action on your part to get a section of the middle, while the other section of the middle is unavailable.

It’s actually completely preposterous and shows how their management of the expansion was very amateur and unpolished. They really need to do better next time.

Actually if they sold the Season 2 already it’s paid for DLC already. Why should paid for DLC automatically included in an Expansion. I mean people are already complaining the core game is included in the expansion. Wouldn’t this just engender more complaints.

Veterans are already complaining about how much new people get. Why should they get this too?

Saying something is white knighting because you don’t agree with it, is just a way to say I don’t have valid arguments, so I’ll try to discredit you.

There are good and bad points to not including it. It was a decision. It’s not automatically white knight to support it. But once you charged people for it seperately, including it in the expansion would have opened an even bigger can of worms than had already been opened.

Turamarth.3248:

Or buy it with gold.

This. Despite the drama I’ve seen about it (and it’s not much drama) you can farm some gold, turn it into gems and buy the story that way. That’s perfectly reasonable. It’s not like you have to spend cash.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

rebellion.2473:

Hello.
As i noticed,some use forums as a tool for negative speech,unconstructive “feedback”,and worst of all,political and ideological beliefs

Please try not to post such stuff,it hurts us as community and Anet devs.

I can’t help but think that this itself is an ideological belief Particularly an extension of the moral relativistic duty that sees expression of “ideology” of any kind (though usually it is targeted against one side) as wrong. So wrong, in fact, that it should be censured. Therein lies a cruel irony. Telling other people not to express their beliefs is itself a belief that is being expressed.

Lesson of the day: nobody who actually believes something will call it a “belief”. They refer to it, both outwardly and inwardly, as fact. So really, you’re telling everybody not to express facts that are inconvenient for Anet, and likely yourself.

I refer to my beliefs as beliefs all the time.

On topic, people are people. You can’t take negative people and make them positive because you want a positive community. You can’t take people who care deeply about something and expect them not to get angry.

Just stay away from the offending threads and move on. You can’t change human nature.

billk.3980:

Vayne.8563:

billk.3980:

Ashen.2907:

billk.3980:

Aytheist.9476:

Solo players cannot advance in the new content, and any decent publisher would disclose such a fundamental change prior to taking your money.

I agree. No doubt this post will be followed by the obligatory ’you’re just inept along with the ‘i solo’d it easily’ posts but you are correct.The day i started the new content it was like running into a brick wall and i am looking for new games to play.

You may agree but the claim is objectively false. Someone agreeing that the earth is flat doesn’t make it so.

You can say that as many times as you want but it won’t change the fact that in every game i’ve played up till now, when an expansion was released ,the new area was flooded with players and remained that way but in this game the maps i’ve been in are very scarcely populated and when i go back to the non-expansion area it is heavily populated with gliding level 80 players doing quests.
Obviously there are issues.

First of all there are plenty of full and not so full maps, due to the mega server and time you do it. if you don’t take the time to go to a fuller map with the LFG tool how can you know how many people are actually playing.

And yeah, the original game is actually free to play now. I’d be stunned it if it doesn’t have more players, since HoT players and free players can access core zones, but only those who bought HoT can access HoT zones. And let’s not forget HOT content often sends people back to older zones to fill in collections.

On top of that is the simple logic that you probably haven’t spent huge amount of time in HoT, so I don’t see how you can make any claims as to how busy the maps are.

I guess you’ll see in the long run how this goes. If it’s as you say and there are thousands of people playing happily in full maps just out of my sight then no problem.
It’ll mean there are just a few discontented people who ,as you say, like to play by pushing ‘1’ over and over to play and all these nerf threads mean nothing.
Have fun.

I’m not sure any single map has thousands of people on it at any given time. The population is divided by what’s going on at what time, because anet directs traffic. So if the Fire ele is a daily, let’s say, there might well be thousands of people on that map at that time.

If the Dragon Stand map were ever a daily, there will be less than there are for the fire ele, because of free to play and because not everyone bought HoT.

But then there are probably more people running fractals, during the PvP season there are probably more people PvPing, during SAB there were tons of people playing SAB, even though not everyone likes it.

For three weeks, I barely set foot anywhere except SAB. The only place you’d have seen me during that time is the lobby.

Now dungeons and WvW have both had some kind of revival and so the population shifts around.

The traffic patterns in this game ebb and flow. If you follow the timers and do the metas in the new maps, there are always full maps. There are times when I can’t get into a full map with guildies, which means that I end up on a different full map. I know for a fact that there are times when there are more than two full maps of say dragon stand, because there are three groups of guldies on three different full maps.

It doesn’t mean there are only three, but there are three that I know about at that time. People who follow timers and use LFG are all saying the same thing, plenty of people playing.

People who randomly wander around complex zones at non-event times are always going to see less people.

But you get dungeons and fractal groups pretty fast. WvW has queues again on my server, so much so that one of my guildies is complaining he cant’ get in, so I don’t know.

Maybe if you want to play with people you should go where people are.

Dante.1508:

From returning after a two year break its incredibly dead, yes people are still here but the population is about 1/3 it was, maybe less.

CarolGam.2649:

I don’t really understand it when people ask on the forums about how the game is now and should I return etc. Just log in and see for yourself. It costs you nothing but a little time if you already have the game, especially since you said you’ve been wanting to return. Just try it and see

Because it takes 12 hours to download the game again, many uninstalled a while ago.. 12 hour download or ask on a forum…

You not only have no evidence of this, but the one third comment is almost definitely not true. First of all, when you left, megaservers didn’t exist at all, so you’re comparing an opinion about the game with one server and then another. You have no idea of the overall population.

As an example I was on TC when servers were actual servers and it was probably the second business server in the US server park. It was busy…in some zones. Some zones weren’t.

The advent of the megaserver spread out the population in some cases. Servers that had no one were now paired up with servers that had some traffic and those servers saw an increase in population that I never did.

So before you could only know the population of one server which isn’t at all indicative of the game.

I’d love to know what your calculations are based on.

I mean just the idea that that core game is free to play has brought more players into the game, and Anet now has the money to offer large rewards for PvP that they never have before. That doesn’t strike me asa game that’s lost 2/3s of it’s population.

billk.3980:

Ashen.2907:

billk.3980:

Aytheist.9476:

Solo players cannot advance in the new content, and any decent publisher would disclose such a fundamental change prior to taking your money.

I agree. No doubt this post will be followed by the obligatory ’you’re just inept along with the ‘i solo’d it easily’ posts but you are correct.The day i started the new content it was like running into a brick wall and i am looking for new games to play.

You may agree but the claim is objectively false. Someone agreeing that the earth is flat doesn’t make it so.

You can say that as many times as you want but it won’t change the fact that in every game i’ve played up till now, when an expansion was released ,the new area was flooded with players and remained that way but in this game the maps i’ve been in are very scarcely populated and when i go back to the non-expansion area it is heavily populated with gliding level 80 players doing quests.
Obviously there are issues.

First of all there are plenty of full and not so full maps, due to the mega server and time you do it. if you don’t take the time to go to a fuller map with the LFG tool how can you know how many people are actually playing.

And yeah, the original game is actually free to play now. I’d be stunned it if it doesn’t have more players, since HoT players and free players can access core zones, but only those who bought HoT can access HoT zones. And let’s not forget HOT content often sends people back to older zones to fill in collections.

On top of that is the simple logic that you probably haven’t spent huge amount of time in HoT, so I don’t see how you can make any claims as to how busy the maps are.

Anyone saying HoT is dead is fooling themselves. What they do is go into a dead map, not look for looking for group to busier maps and they conclude it’s dead. You can pretty easily do every meta on every map at any time if you time it right, because like world bosses it’s all on a schedule.

If you enter a HoT map when that stuff isn’t going on, those maps are big enough and more importantly complex enough to not see many people while going around.

Until you announce a hero point of popular event in map chat and suddenly people show up from nowhere.

HoT isn’t dead, people just don’t know how to go about playing it.

Click anywhere and the target is gone.

What Just a flesh wound said. I’m in Australia and though I do have issues in certain activities, I understand there aren’t enough Australian players to fill three servers.

I play on US servers and I know that no matter where I go, any world boss, any meta event, there are usually enough people there at to attempt it. That wouldn’t be possible if we had Australian servers. We’d be locked away from everyone else.

Because of this, even if we had Australian servers, I’d continue to play on US servers, where my guild is. And I’m pretty sure most people would end up doing the same.

Stand The Wall.6987:

would be nice if they introduced a hard mode. that would have a lot of players back on the maps, although im sure it would take a ton of work.

Actually hard mode would be a different instance since it’s open world and it wouldn’t get players back on the maps, it would only get players into those new maps, further dividing the player base.

jessiestiles.9437:

Tangled depths is the worst. There’s so many wandering mobs. So before you’ve killed a mob 2 more turn up. Then 2 more. They keep multiplying until you are dead. So there’s no point to many of these mobs all over the map you just have to past them. Then you can’t even find somewhere to take a bathroom break without dying to roaming mobs before you get back. Most of the map I’m lost and see an event but don’t even know how to get there and if I do it’s over. I leave feeling nauseated by the whole experience and wanting to never go back until I need more leyline crystals. The map feels poorly designed.

The other maps are really look amazing and fun to play except when you are trying to unlock elites. You are constantly waiting for things. There’s a door you can’t open until an hour long meta occurs, or theres a hero point you cant do unless someone turns up. Waiting sucks. Even though I enjoy the maps and have unlocked elites on a few characters it’s still a miserable process to go through.

Find a friend or find a guild. I usually two-man TD though I can solo it. You don’t have to kill every mob, sometimes it’s best to run past them. But aside from that, the zone for the most part, is soloable. It’s still more fun with at least one friend.

The real answer is to join a guild. Expecting complete strangers to do low level fractals to help you out, when they might have limited time or other goals is more like asking for someone to do something for your benefit alone.

But being in the right guild, a helpful guild, is different, because you’re just hanging out with friends, which is always fun.

I will often help guildies with low level fractals. I never pug low level fractals.

battledrone.8315:

Vayne.8563:

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Banchou.5628:

Rinn.2375:

Vayne.8563:

Anyone who said this hasn’t changed too much, simply isn’t paying attention.

It’s true. I am a casual player. Casual of the casuals as a matter of fact. I lost interest quickly in HoT because I died so many times. Now, I can manage in HoT with my guardian and easily finished Verdant Brinks map. Achievements and all. Even unlocking the masteries is a lot easier now (from 22 to 33 within a day with casual, not HC play), so I don’t know what is the problem with the difficulty level of the HoT content.
I think it’s good now. A bit harder than the “Prophecies” and a lot easier than the old HoT

In terms of dificult barely changed, the damage is pretty much the same aside the mushrooms, the hostile npcs continues with the same attack patterns.

The whole diference is that now you can unlock faster the HoT masteries and is worth stay playing on HoT maps reward wise…

Aside having new unlocked masteries that really make travel around the jungle easier, you simple adapted to the HoT gameplay style lol

This isn’t actually true. Many of the random champ events around the map have turned into veteran events, like the champ troll that used to spawn in VB. There are changes to adventures which give you more time/make them easier. There are changes to the way certain events scale. In addition, there are some areas along the main pathways where the amount of mobs have been reduced.

I have an older woman in my guild, who couldn’t get through the zones before and now she can. She told me it was much easier for her to survive. She used to be frustrated and now she’s not.

It IS easier.

No they really haven’t, i’ve had to stand around asking in chat for help on champions as much now as i ever did before the patch..

Very little changed on difficulty in hot, what looks great in patch notes doesn’t equate to the actual game play value..

The other thing is the huge imbalance between classes that while some classes can face roll HoT the others cannot.. All classes should be able to face roll hot, the whole map not just some.

I can play HoT on all 9 professions. Some ARE harder than others. That’s how MMOs should be. The should provide options for people who want to play faceroll and people who want an actual skill ceiling. That’s part of good MMO design.

no, that is horrible design
the options should be in the variety of the content , not in unbalanced classes

Name an mmo that doesn’t have easier and harder to master professions. It’s called offering a variety and I can’t remember an MMO that doesn’t have easy to master professions and hard to master professions.

If it’s bad design that everything is badly designed.

Dante.1508:

Vayne.8563:

Banchou.5628:

Rinn.2375:

Vayne.8563:

Anyone who said this hasn’t changed too much, simply isn’t paying attention.

It’s true. I am a casual player. Casual of the casuals as a matter of fact. I lost interest quickly in HoT because I died so many times. Now, I can manage in HoT with my guardian and easily finished Verdant Brinks map. Achievements and all. Even unlocking the masteries is a lot easier now (from 22 to 33 within a day with casual, not HC play), so I don’t know what is the problem with the difficulty level of the HoT content.
I think it’s good now. A bit harder than the “Prophecies” and a lot easier than the old HoT

In terms of dificult barely changed, the damage is pretty much the same aside the mushrooms, the hostile npcs continues with the same attack patterns.

The whole diference is that now you can unlock faster the HoT masteries and is worth stay playing on HoT maps reward wise…

Aside having new unlocked masteries that really make travel around the jungle easier, you simple adapted to the HoT gameplay style lol

This isn’t actually true. Many of the random champ events around the map have turned into veteran events, like the champ troll that used to spawn in VB. There are changes to adventures which give you more time/make them easier. There are changes to the way certain events scale. In addition, there are some areas along the main pathways where the amount of mobs have been reduced.

I have an older woman in my guild, who couldn’t get through the zones before and now she can. She told me it was much easier for her to survive. She used to be frustrated and now she’s not.

It IS easier.

No they really haven’t, i’ve had to stand around asking in chat for help on champions as much now as i ever did before the patch..

Very little changed on difficulty in hot, what looks great in patch notes doesn’t equate to the actual game play value..

The other thing is the huge imbalance between classes that while some classes can face roll HoT the others cannot.. All classes should be able to face roll hot, the whole map not just some.

I can play HoT on all 9 professions. Some ARE harder than others. That’s how MMOs should be. The should provide options for people who want to play faceroll and people who want an actual skill ceiling. That’s part of good MMO design.

There are guides to hero point challenges on Dulfy.net. Follow a guide and profit. You can also join a hero point run which happens quite frequently or even join a guild. I don’t know why people insist on soloing this content.

Dante.1508:

Open world PvE and Story mode..

Sadly both are no where near what they were at release.

You’re right about that, they’re both better, particularly the story. In case you missed all the people who complained about Trahearne or the battle with Zhaitan (pretty sure you didn’t), you’ll actually find there were plenty of complaint about the original story.

As for the open world, that’s strictly a matter of opinions, but I find the HoT zones far superior to many of the earlier zones. The base game was just too easy.

And since, by your own admission you have terrible skill lag that makes the game almost unplayable for you, not really sure how qualified you are to make the assessment. I’m pretty sure I’d hate hot with 3-4 second skill lag.

Banchou.5628:

Rinn.2375:

Vayne.8563:

Anyone who said this hasn’t changed too much, simply isn’t paying attention.

It’s true. I am a casual player. Casual of the casuals as a matter of fact. I lost interest quickly in HoT because I died so many times. Now, I can manage in HoT with my guardian and easily finished Verdant Brinks map. Achievements and all. Even unlocking the masteries is a lot easier now (from 22 to 33 within a day with casual, not HC play), so I don’t know what is the problem with the difficulty level of the HoT content.
I think it’s good now. A bit harder than the “Prophecies” and a lot easier than the old HoT

In terms of dificult barely changed, the damage is pretty much the same aside the mushrooms, the hostile npcs continues with the same attack patterns.

The whole diference is that now you can unlock faster the HoT masteries and is worth stay playing on HoT maps reward wise…

Aside having new unlocked masteries that really make travel around the jungle easier, you simple adapted to the HoT gameplay style lol

This isn’t actually true. Many of the random champ events around the map have turned into veteran events, like the champ troll that used to spawn in VB. There are changes to adventures which give you more time/make them easier. There are changes to the way certain events scale. In addition, there are some areas along the main pathways where the amount of mobs have been reduced.

I have an older woman in my guild, who couldn’t get through the zones before and now she can. She told me it was much easier for her to survive. She used to be frustrated and now she’s not.

It IS easier.

A lot of people talk about most people, but they really don’t know. They can say most people on the forums, but even that’s not clear.

In any event, this summer Living World Season 3 should be coming out and if/when it does it adds to the value of the expansion, because you can’t play it without the expansion. You really can’t continue on with the franchise without the expansion.

Framed in those terms, people might have a different opinion anyway.

To me the expansion was worth it before the patch, but it’s much better after the last patch.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems with it. However, I’ve yet to play an MMORPG without problems, or with a forums that’s not mostly complaints.

I avoid this by ALWAYS making my own group that says casual/fun run. And I’ve never run into that kind of problem.

Every time the company says something, anything at all, it becomes a “promise”. A promise isn’t a statement. Every time someone says that Anet broke a promise (and in this case they didn’t), they get less and less incentive to tell us anything.

Because this fan base takes statements as promises. Things change all the time. That’s the nature of MMOs.

How come when they told us they couldn’t bring gliding to core Tyria and they did, no one called them on breaking a promise?

The problem is, even in this case where the information is wrong, it still sits on the first page with a title that accuses.