Guild Wars 2

Actually I really like Dragonball, probably because I’m good at it, but by the same token, I have to agree that it’s implementation is flawed. It was flawed last year too. It would be a much better event if it had some of the same safeguards as normal PvP, like getting a win if you volunteer to switch, when people leave the losing team.

With a little work, this could be a good little game. As it is now, I play it because I have fun with, get my five wins for the achievement and I’m out.

Manasa Devi.7958:

I don’t frequent either Dulfy or Reddit.

You mean the blog that said they were on-demand challenges?

I didn’t memorize the blog, but I’m sure you can google it and find out what it was said. It certainly gave examples of what to expect is my point.

Whether or not you frequently sites like reddit or google really isn’t the issue. The information about those things was being discussed everywhere I go which is here, reddit, dulfy, and in this case on the official site itself.

If you don’t go to any of those places, you can hardly complain that Anet didn’t tell anyone about it.

Manasa Devi.7958:

I read the news blog. I don’t watch any video at all. Video is a dreadful way of taking in information for me because I read much faster than people can talk and I can’t stand to listen to most people anyway.

Interestingy, this is what the blog said this about adventures:

“By their nature, dynamic events are not always available and occasionally have some downtime. Guild Wars 2 has many content opportunities and challenges beyond events, but most are well hidden. Those that aren’t well hidden tend to be available only once per character.

Adventures are the next level of repeatable, on-demand content challenges in the open world."

Terrible misinformation. “On-demand”? As opposed to the dynamic events that “are not always available”?

What a joke.

You don’t have to watch videos to get recaps on Dulfy or on Reddit. Dulfy does a very good job of providing up to date information. It’s a single website. Anet also has a blog post about adventures on their own website.

That you didn’t know about them at all? I think it’s pretty amazing.

DaShi.1368:

Vayne.8563:

I don’t generally start posts about numbers by being specific, unless I have access to that data.

In my opinion DaShi feels that I’m being hypocritical by giving people a taste of their own medicine. He might even be right, for all I know. However, saying that no one has left this game because it was too easy, when there are several people in my guild who left for that very reason over the years (and I run a very casual guild), or saying on one has complained about how easy the game is, that’s simply disingenuous. There have been quite a few of those posts.

Um…no. You specifically said significant. That means you should have a good idea how many there are. If you want to respond to someone saying that no one left the game because it was too easy, then, using your rules, you should point out that you believe it is unlikely because there were several posts where people complained about the game being too easy. I understand that you think you are fighting hyperbole, but I suggest you don’t use it yourself if you want to maintain credibility.

In addition, I pointed yesterday at least two cases where you used specific numbers that you couldn’t back up. I only highlighted those cases because you did it immediately after complaining to someone else that they couldn’t back up their numbers. So don’t tell us one thing and do another.

I did say significant. If I know a handful of people from a single casual guild that stopped playing do to lack of challenge, I’m positive that the number of people that got bored was significant. There have been a significant number of posts about people being bored with the open world as well.

Now, the thing with the word significant is that it means this:

.
sufficiently great or important to be worthy of attention; noteworthy.

Since it’s been brought up many times, it’s worthy of attention. That’s just logical. Other people seem to remember it being brought up. It’s really funny that you don’t.

Off topic, I find it entertaining that other people have started noticing you dogging my posts as well. Several people have contacted me over it.

I respond to posts where people make assertions and often I mimic their behavior, but yes, I believe the word significant was the right word to use. It doesn’t have to me a huge amount, but it does have to mean something worth taking note of.

I’m certainly within my rights to use that word.

Manasa Devi.7958:

Why would I know anything about streaming websites? Is that a requirement nowadays? I know ANet does some video streaming on what they call twitch.tv, but I never watch that. Is twitchcom another name for that? I’m not alone in not knowing twitchcom. Google didn’t know it either when I looked it up.

Edit: http://dulfy.net/?s=twitchcon

Your side note is very amusing.

They advertised the hell out of Twitchcon though. They had 24 hours of straight Guild War 2 television. It was covered both here and on reddit. People talked about it.

Anyone paying any attention at all would have heard of it. Because it revealed quite a bit about what was in the expansion.

People say Anet doesn’t communicate, but when they do, people don’t pay attention.

Edit: http://dulfy.net/?s=twitchcon

Manasa Devi.7958:

They were advertised? I hadn’t seen that. To me, they were unexpected, but not in the form of a pleasant surprise. Quite the opposite.

I don’t know if advertised was the right word, but they were certainly talked about, and an example was even furnished, which was Tendril Torchers. I’m pretty sure I knew the shooting gallery was coming before launch as well.

Axialbloom.8109:

Vayne.8563:

Axialbloom.8109:

Qugi.2653:

Last patch note say fix a server crash. Should Anet not fix crash and wait for next day?

They should test their patches themselves, instead of testing them on us.

The live server environment would be different than the test server environment. So when the patch goes live, sometimes things will happen that don’t happen on a test server. This happens in every single game with test servers, btw, not just Guild Wars 2.

We have a mega server system. Even if they have hundreds of people testing the game (I have no idea how many do test), that means there will only be a certain number of servers spawning.

When it goes live and there are 10,000 players or more playing at one time, you’ll get more servers spawning and if the bug happens only then, only then can they fix it.

That excuse only works for some of the issues. Most of them are ones they should be able to catch themselves. There was even one time killing someone in PvP caused everyone to crash.

And you really think that happened on the test server and they shipped it anyway? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that that sort of era categorically didn’t happen on the test server, because that kind of game breaking bug would have had to have been quashed before shipping.

Yes, bugs do get through, but the worst of them get sorted out early on. There are other things that are obviously missed, because A) testers are human andthey’re probably on a pretty short review schedule.

You know, X hours to test something and then test the next thing is my guess.

Dibbelocher.2318:

Well a better game means more people who will buy the game or stay with the game to buy expansions. Also the content we got for the price of the expansion was quite scarce. Comparing it to the core game that is. So the demands I’m asking aren’t too out of place if you take that into consideration.

This is a logical fallacy.

I got an amazing deal for the first product, that as in development for five years. I got less of a good deal for an expansion which might have been in development for a year and a half.

I’ve never ever played an MMORPG where the expansion gave me more or even close to what the original gave me even if they charge a monthly fee and charge for the expansion.

This expansion, Anet said from day one was lighter on content, but it was building the building blocks of the future of the game. New expansions won’t take as long to come out and they’ll likely have more content.

I was happy to pay for the rebuilding of some of the game’s basic systems. I didn’t expect more content, because I was told up front I’d be getting less.

But saying this was a great deal so the new one isn’t worth it, even if it’s a better deal than most games I’d buy is a logical fallacy.

Ashen.2907:

Raizen.7981:

For the last kittening time. There is no one hiding your MPs behind arcade games. They’re here to help you get fast MPs.

This is incorrect.

If one cannot get the MPs in question without doing the mini-games, then the MPs in question are gated behind the mini-games.

Personally I like the idea of difficult content, but if I want to play an arcade style shooter, or a platformer, or whatever…there are options available that can provide those types of gaming experiences better than an MMO. I don’t buy a computer chess game to play a FPS either.

But…but…but…Chess Sword Master 5000 was a great game!

Ashen.2907:

Vayne.8563:

GreyWolf.8670:

Raizen.7981:

You got no clue how many people started the game with the HoT and the “trial” game model. Hint: Way more than the ones that quit.

It’s funny you mention this. I started playing about 2 months before HoT dropped with a limited account. It was a blast. I bought HoT and within a month after it came out I all but stopped playing.

Ironically, it’s mostly because of all the other stuff you mentioned in your post, so kitten me? I don’t think so. Kitten their gem sales.

And you’re one guy. And sure there are more like you. But let’s pretend for argument sake that 50% of the people actually like the expansion. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. So if 50% of the new people like the expansion, and 50% of the old people left and don’t buy gems anymore, then the gem sales should remain relatively flush.

Actually trading an old player who has been willing to spend real money to buy gems for a new player who is willing to buy gems is not a net zero situation. The old player, over the course of as much as three years playing the game, may very well have already bought everything that interests him in the gem store while the new player will have a much broader selection of things to buy. The net result is that, all other things being equal, trading an old player for a new one is a win for the company.

That’s perhaps true. But the other side of that coin is that players that were most interested in the game, the lore, the story had already bought the game, and the battery of new players playing for free may never upgrade and may never buy gems. It’ll be interesting to see how it works out.

You may well be right though. I find myself buying gems less often than I used to (at least in part due to the ridiculous conversion rates of the Australian dollar. It wasn’t so bad when I could buy game cards here, but now you can’t.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

ANet offered two models of “pacing” in advance of HoT:

• The drytop model, which is on a fixed schedule. You always know when it’s defend and when it’s sandstorm.
• The silverwastes model, which follows the map’s pace. If it’s organized, it’s fairly quick. If it’s not organized, it still progresses towards completion (although, such maps have trouble “closing the deal”).

It was my impression that the vast majority of people preferred the second model.

People loved dry top when it first arrived — it was fresh and dynamic. Then after a short time, people grew weary. Unless you arrived just on time, you would miss the content that interested you and have to wait for the clock. It felt regimented, like a job in retail (including dealing with random people).

In contrast, people embraced silverwastes for ages and ages. You could join any time (just about) and always feel you were contributing. There were issues about participation and DCs, but on the whole, it was fun whenever you arrived and for as long as you remained.

tl;dr why did ANet choose to follow the Dry Top model for HoT, rather than use the Silverwastes model for at least some of the Magus Falls maps?

Okay I often agree with you but you’re drawing some possibly unwarranted conclusions here. You’re making the assumption the scheduling was the main difference between the two zones but I don’t think that’s it at all.

First of all Dry Top was harder for a lot of people to navigate and therefore it was less accessible to those people.

More importantly the money I made from Silverwastes was greater than the money I made from Drytop.

From my point of view, and the reason I prefer Silverwastes more, is because it felt less contrived. Not because of the timing, but because of the Sandstorm itself. I mean I just built rep with these guys, suddenly they don’t trust me anymore? That didn’t sit well with the immersion side of my play.

Dry Top felt more like a series of unrelated events, where as Silverwastes told more of a cohesive story I could immerse myself in. The better loot was a bonus.

I mean Silverwaste chest farm lets me get a hundred chests in a row. I usually get five chests in a Drytop Sand storm.

Axialbloom.8109:

Vayne.8563:

You can farm orbs by doing events in zones that have orbs as map rewards. Obviously it’ll take a long time, but then it’s a legendary. Or you can farm gold and buy them. At least now there’s an option to do something besides that.

What zones? I have never seen orbs as a map reward.

Actually you’re right. I was thinking of lodestones. Though a charged lodestone is going for 2 gold now, so you could get like 2 orbs for every lodestone dropped.

One of the best ways to design a living space for a pet lizard is to use a long tank and a heat lamp on one end of it. This allows the lizard to adjust it’s body temperature by moving under the light or away from it.

This is probably the one thing HoT is really missing. People can’t pick what they want to do, because there are no choices like this.

In most games, you have roads that are safer and more danagerous areas off the beaten path. Sure some things can wander the roads, but probably not a champion terragriff.

People who are not as comfortable with harder content can still feel powerful and people who want more of a challenge can go off road. It allows users to choose their experience, rather than the game dictating it.

Because that’s the basis of a lot of hot complaints. You can’t play what you want when you want. The game is choosing the experience for you.

Hopefully in upcoming expansions, Anet will stop trying to set the pace for everyone and allow different segements of the population to play at their own pace.

You can farm orbs by doing events in zones that have orbs as map rewards. Obviously it’ll take a long time, but then it’s a legendary. Or you can farm gold and buy them. At least now there’s an option to do something besides that.

Yes core tyria XP and HoT XP are compelely different, as are the mastery points for them. In your achievements panel, achievements with a red marker give you core mastery points and achievements with a green star give you HoT mastery points.

Kaiju chi.3620:

So I do events that pop up with people and gain xp fill my bar click it then I can unlock glider?

You do events, you kill things, you gather, just as you’d level in any zone. Anything in HoT that gives experience helps. When the bar is full, you go to your hero panel and the bottom tab. Click the mastery and it will ask if you’re sure you want to spend the point. Say yes and your glider is trained.

Axialbloom.8109:

Qugi.2653:

Last patch note say fix a server crash. Should Anet not fix crash and wait for next day?

They should test their patches themselves, instead of testing them on us.

The live server environment would be different than the test server environment. So when the patch goes live, sometimes things will happen that don’t happen on a test server. This happens in every single game with test servers, btw, not just Guild Wars 2.

We have a mega server system. Even if they have hundreds of people testing the game (I have no idea how many do test), that means there will only be a certain number of servers spawning.

When it goes live and there are 10,000 players or more playing at one time, you’ll get more servers spawning and if the bug happens only then, only then can they fix it.

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Deleven.7508:

You dont need to reinstall.

You should be able to find the executable in C:\gw2 (assuming you didn’t change the directory on installing). After that, you can right click the Gw2.exe and select create shortcut and you will be back to normal.

Hmmmmm. Only thing I get when I type gw2 is GW2.EXE with numbers behind it. When I typed Guild Wars in the search box under the Start menu I got nothing and when I checked in the program files nothing was there saying Guild Wars 2, so what is baffling to me is how could simply unpinning a shortcut from a taskbar cause everything to disappear?

Any way thanks for the attempted help.

gw2.exe is exactly what you want.

Actually DaShi has a point, or would have, if in fact he didn’t completely misunderstand me. There’s a huge difference between me making a post stating definitively that 50% of the people this or 20% of the people that, and me replying to a post where someone else has made that definitive statement.

In my mind the conversation goes more like this.

Anet is catering to 10% of the player base. That’s the statement. I don’t agree necessarily but then I didn’t make the statement. I come back at that statement with what I believe the percentage is, but I try to phrase it in ways that’s not absolute. I think, I believe, I’d guess. This is showing that I don’t really have the numbers either, but my perception is different than yours. By giving my opinion on what those numbers are in my mind I’m refuting the numbers given.

I don’t generally start posts about numbers by being specific, unless I have access to that data.

In my opinion DaShi feels that I’m being hypocritical by giving people a taste of their own medicine. He might even be right, for all I know. However, saying that no one has left this game because it was too easy, when there are several people in my guild who left for that very reason over the years (and I run a very casual guild), or saying on one has complained about how easy the game is, that’s simply disingenuous. There have been quite a few of those posts.

They come out as people being “bored” or complaining about spamming 1, but those complaints have been around forever.

In the interest of peace, of the forums, however, I’ve decided not to directly reply to certain people who I believe are only trying to start some sort of fight.

GreyWolf.8670:

Raizen.7981:

You got no clue how many people started the game with the HoT and the “trial” game model. Hint: Way more than the ones that quit.

It’s funny you mention this. I started playing about 2 months before HoT dropped with a limited account. It was a blast. I bought HoT and within a month after it came out I all but stopped playing.

Ironically, it’s mostly because of all the other stuff you mentioned in your post, so kitten me? I don’t think so. Kitten their gem sales.

And you’re one guy. And sure there are more like you. But let’s pretend for argument sake that 50% of the people actually like the expansion. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. So if 50% of the new people like the expansion, and 50% of the old people left and don’t buy gems anymore, then the gem sales should remain relatively flush.

That’s a lot of ifs of course.

One thing that I’ve noticed being on these forums as long as I have is that the stronger someone feels about something in the game, the more they assume that other people feel the same in large quantities. But it’s not necessarily true. It’s not necessarily false either of course.

At the end of the day, I don’t really believe gem sales are going down but in six months or so we’ll have a better indication.

Kaiju chi.3620:

okay but I can’t do anymore story until I get the glider , but its like 63% and lol this is so confusing

Not sure what you’re finding confusing. The HoT story isn’t meant to be run through straight in a row back to back. Think of it this way.

The story is not separate from the zones, it’s part of the zones.

If you needed to kill a monster in a game, and the monster was too powerful, and you needed a special sword, you wouldn’t be able to kill the monster until you had the sword.

In this you’ll need to learn to glide to do the story so part of the story is going out into the open world and leveling your ability to glide. You’ll have to level other masteries as well.

The jungle can be best appreciated once three masteries are unlocked…gliding, jumping mushrooms and updraft use. It gets even better when you go further into the gliding tree, at least for me.

The thing is, the story has requirements which you have to meet to move on in it. Much like in the main story you had to get to level 50 to do a level 50 story. This isn’t really any different.

Good post. I pretty much agree with all of it.

I agree, that mastery points shouldn’t have been put on adventures. There are too many issues with them. Anyone with a slow internet, older computer, bad connection, anyone living in Oceanic territory are all going to suffer in adventures.

Add to that, this type of content, some of which I enjoy, is out of the realm of what people buy MMOs to play and some people really do hate them. It’s not like a dungeon, because you may hate a dungeon but it’s hard to imagine you not thinking that they’re a part of MMOs. Minigames like this should always be a side thing in my opinion.

Kaiju chi.3620:

Alright when I fill the xp bar full it gives me a mastery point?

No you get mastery points from doing story, and achievements. You fill the bar to be able to spend them.

There are no hearts in Orr, Southsun, Drytop or the Silverwastes. Hearts weren’t meant to be the main meat of the game. They were meant to keep people in areas where dyanmic events spawn. There won’t be new hearts moving forward.

Kaiju chi.3620:

Okay I just reached level 80 a bit ago I took a break, and came back started the story progression for HoT. Currently on the third chapter part Establishing a foothold to unlock the glider. Okay so I ran around dying grabbed a couple way points, and died twice falling don’t see any task to do. or any thing really except random events that popped up at night time what exactly am I suppose to be doing to unlock the glider?

In Tyria core game I have a lot of the maps complete still some to do, but so far on them I have had a blast but I’m stumped on this HoT game its so far annoying and I don’t know what to do yet…

How come there are no heart task to do like in the other parts of the game? I just see people standing around at the Maguuma’s breach I’m guessing chatting or just as confused as I am. I came to the forums to see if I can get some help so I can progress in the game.

Events in HoT are centered around outposts. If you locate the outposts, you’ll find the events. Verdant Brink is divided into day and night cycles. Day cycles have long event chains at each outpost. Night is more about defense of an outpost and building it up by running supply to it.

It takes a while to get used to but once you do it’s quite easy to find events.

GreyWolf.8670:

It’s surprising to me that the same people are bouncing all over this forum trying to convince people they’re wrong about not liking this $50 lemon.

I just decided to spend my money elsewhere. Funneling everyone into two-hour metas and raids is just a way to avoid making new content. Blizzard did the same thing with their last expansion and lost most of their customers. (And that’s hard numbers you can look up yourself.)

Interesting conclusions to draw. Because the people I talk to give a completely different reason why WoW is losing players, mostly having to do with stuff like garrisons, not raiding or hard core content.

There are probably 100 posts on this forum people by people don’t like the expansion. There’s probably 20 posts by people who do. I can list people who say they don’t like the expansion over and over in every thread.

If you go back a year, two, three, you’ll see the same ratio. Why are you surprised.

Because now YOU don’t like something suddenly its’ a different situation. The situation on this forum is relatively stable over time.

Wraith.3504:

CaptainVanguard.4925:

It also promised that absoleutley no content in the game would be a tedious chore.

It lied.

GW2, What ever you promised to be, you need to keep it, screw this “1%” minority that are into e-sports, and raiding 24/7 this isnt WoW just abbandon that entirley and focus on the people that “do” care about the game, and “do” care about it surviving longer than 3 months.

Can we please, PLEASE go back to what MADE GW2 special in the first place.

Going forward, GW2 needs to abbandon this “challenging group content” kitten and “e-sport pvp ladder” system and just focus on what MADE GW2 special.

Its a game, people can play at their own leisure for fun, with nothing overly complicated about that at all.

Season 2 did this ALOT better than HoT did.

Going into Season 3 and future expansions, I would seriously hope A-net goes BACK to what made the games CORE gameplay special.

I want a game that isnt just another WoW clone, dont become another wow clone, A-net.

So must to agree with in this post, I think it is time to realize that since Anet acquired GW2 from NCsoft the focus has been more towards the top 10% players, leaving a 90% player base saying “what the hell! I want my game back!!” There was a moment when I was very excited about HOT, and then it turned very very tedious and monotonous.

The content that exists need a complete power balancing, and OP enemies of Maguma need to get nerfed, not the PVE player base. The worst part is the PVP player base was why they Nerfed the builds again, and they completely killed the playability of the Revenant and severely hurt the Chronomancer as a result, not because they were too much PVE-wise, because they were too much PVP-wise. This was an foolish tactic, if you want to cotton on to the PVP players based separate the skills and skill abilities from PVE to PVP. I agree that sometimes what makes a PVE build perfect, would indeed make a PVP build OP. Still, when you are fighting 10 to fifteen overpowered enemies in PVE you need more power unlike PVP, were is is 1v1 or 1v2.

Another point of contention is the grinding of materials, Mastery points, Hero points, sepcialization advancement, and other tedium. I actually feel as though the dev’s were trying to make up for the less grand from the first three years to be more grind now. It is sad, and I know a lot of players who are not longer going to even be around for when season three drops later this year. They have become so disenchanted with GW@ because of what they did with HOT that they no longer wish to play. That number is growing daily so Anet should start attending to this issue faster. Stop worrying about E-sports and Elite 1% players and remember it was the Casual life blooders who made this game great. When most were talking about the “friendliest player-base” they were talking about the causal players of the first three years not these fools who make up of 1%.

Get your heads together Anet and stop this now or just retire the game after HOT because if things keep going the way they are you are not going to have a player base worth putting a Game out for.

There’s a lot wrong with your post. First of all Anet did not acquire Guild Wars 2 from NCsoft. Changes were made in the structure of the company for legal reasons. The existing company structure remains. NcSoft owns Anet and therefore owns Guild Wars 2. This acquisition you speak of was recent. The content you’re talking about was in planning for well over a year before that.

Secondly you’re agreeing with a post that states that Anet said no content in this game would be a tedious chore. I’d like a quote provided, because I’m 99.9% sure that was never said. It doesn’t even make sense. Crafting is a mindless chore to some people, running dungeons is a mindless chore to others. So this isn’t even something that makes sense.

You’re also pulling numbers out of thin air. I think it’s very unlikely that only the top 10% of players have benefited from Heart of Thorns. As an example, Fractals were made far far easier than then used to be, and the top 10% is complaining about that.

I think it’s closer to the bottom 10 or 15% feel disenfranchised, because they are the bottom 10-15% and any reasaonble degree of difficulty makes them feel the game is no longer for them. That doesn’t mean more than half the player base isn’t good enough to play HoT or doesn’t enjoy it.

Have your own opinions by all means, but stop trying to quote percentages. And if you’re going to agree with quotes, and quote them, you should probably make sure they don’t have factual errors.

It only weakens your argument.

OP, go to the WoW forum or the Archeage Forum or the official forum of ANY triple A MMO and they all look just like this one. I guess they all must be losing players. And if everyone is losing players, then the industry is dead and we should all go home.

But it’s not only like this now, it’s been like this for years. When a game is dead, people aren’t complaining about it anymore. Because it’s dead. Maybe people don’t like to talk ill of the dead.

You don’t know the game well enough to play HoT and that’s okay. You want to just run in and kill stuff with no thought or planning, and if that’s the case, that’s fine. But there’s also a percentage of the player base, a significant percentage that had left the game because it was too easy and some of those people have come back because they find the HoT zones more fun than the core zones.

So what is a company to do. One end of the spectrum finds the game too hard, one end finds it too easy. You try to find a balance. And if the balance doesn’t work, you make adjustments which take time.

People have been saying this game is dying or will be dead since a couple of months after launch, which is 3 years ago. It’s not even close to being in trouble.

It may have lost players, but it’s also gained players.

For your own situation, learn a bit about the game. Don’t just die, figure out WHY you died. If you’re just rushing stuff in HoT, because you just want to kill stuff, you’re obviously doing it wrong. Why? Because you’re not successful.

Are you using food and utilities? Are you using landscape to make your fights easier? Are you prioritizing the right enemies so the really dangerous ones die first? Are you kiting the enemies you need to kite, while killing the enemies you want dead? Are you even using effective weapons or builds for your character?

HoT requires you to step up your game. Some people have been asking for that in the open world for years.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Yeah I kinda wish I had done all the dungeon paths in the last 3 years, never going to get them done now, well I might, but it’s going to take a lot of time.

As Captain Smeck said, “That’s a lot of year’s Tony!”

I don’t see why not. People in my guild still run dungeons.

MarTn.3810:

Vayne.8563:

MarTn.3810:

It’s different for a lot of people. Here the price of the little content that HoT had to offer corresponds to a brand new game. I say it again, instead of purchasing HoT, you’d get a brand new game for the same amount of money or less where I live. Nobody in their right mind would buy HoT here if they knew how little you’d get for your money.

A lot of people I know are rather disappointed with Heart of Thorns due to the fact that the expansion is very short, and you only get a few simple zones to play with. From an objective standpoint you’re getting very little for your money, and I think that a lot of people expected more from ArenaNet.

And yet many people are enjoying it and said they feel it’s worth it, so are you saying no one that says that is in their right mind? There are two hundred people in my guild and I haven’t run into anyone that thought it wasn’t worth it.

I’m not saying that it’s not enjoyable, cause’ there’s definitely a few enjoyable elements in HoT. What I am saying however, is that for many the “fun” you get for your money isn’t much to brag about. Most of us pre-purchased the expansion, and would never have done so if we knew that the amount of new content was minimal, and that you’d spend most of your time repeating activities of the same few zones. And I do understand if some people like that, but compared to how much the expansion costs here that’s for a lot of people not worth their money, and those I’ve talked to generally agree; the expansion is not terrible, but the value definitely is.

I do get it, there are many out there who enjoy the game and/or isn’t very value-oriented in terms of the content they spend their money on, and I guess that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean that the value-to-content ratio is great, and there are quite a few out there that agrees with the thought that HoT introduces surprisingly little new content to enjoy for those who doesn’t consider an eternal grindfest new content.

And I’m not bashing the grinding content either, I just don’t consider it worthy of mentioning when we’re talking about the value of the expansion.

See this is what I object to. People saying most people this, or most people that. You don’t know what most people think or feel. You may know what most people who post on the forum feel. But most people? You’d just be guessing.

I think there are far more people who think they get value for money than you’d likely believe. There are a lot of reasons for that.

First of all, most people don’t think deeply about this stuff anyway. If you’re a person who takes ages to get through content, and there are plenty of people in this category, you might not have completed HOT yet. I have people in my guild who haven’t.

And then there are people like me. Today, for the first time, I finished a collection for the elite specialization weapon. I made myself an ascended shield for my mesmer. I enjoyed pursuing that goal.

I’ve made a precursor and I enjoyed pursuing that goal. There are people doing collections all over the place that like them. Every time there’s a thread complaining about the cost of precursor crafting, half the thread is people saying they’re okay with it and they’re having fun. That it’s about the journey.

I respect your opinion about the game. I don’t like, however, that you’re claiming some majority, because I don’t think you have that majority. Even with people who don’t like the expansion, the reasons can vary greatly. Some find it too grindy. Some find it too difficult. Those are different complaints completely.

I didn’t particularly find leveling masteries grindy at all. There are people like me too.

But the world is conditioned to spend $50 for a game they spend less than 20 hours with, so therefore, the world is conditioned to think about how much content they’ll get for their $50. I don’t think most people are sitting there counting on this much content for this much money.

In any event, I’m not making posts saying I’m part of some majority. I say what I feel. My gut feeling is 50% of the people actually are enjoying the expansion and you know, it’s not enough. But it’s better than most people who don’t like it are thinking it is.

Astralporing.1957:

Raizen.7981:

Why should a total noob be at 163 mastery points? Just why?

Noob perhaps shouldn’t, but this is not an arcade game and getting full mastery points should not require being good at those.

Why should a guy who played the game from launch and beaten pretty much everything (bar Liadri and the Raid), not be able to have 163 mastery points, because he happens to live in Australia? lol

MarTn.3810:

It’s different for a lot of people. Here the price of the little content that HoT had to offer corresponds to a brand new game. I say it again, instead of purchasing HoT, you’d get a brand new game for the same amount of money or less where I live. Nobody in their right mind would buy HoT here if they knew how little you’d get for your money.

A lot of people I know are rather disappointed with Heart of Thorns due to the fact that the expansion is very short, and you only get a few simple zones to play with. From an objective standpoint you’re getting very little for your money, and I think that a lot of people expected more from ArenaNet.

And yet many people are enjoying it and said they feel it’s worth it, so are you saying no one that says that is in their right mind? There are two hundred people in my guild and I haven’t run into anyone that thought it wasn’t worth it.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Vayne.8563:

Ok I Did It.2854:

If this game doesn’t change, ( Expansions or massive updates) the only people playing it in 3 years would be the ultra hardcore who cannot admit there game is done, the game at the moment is far from dead, but its suffering badly, the only people who cant/don’t want to admit that are the ones who will still be there in 3 years wondering where everyone is,

There could be 1000 posts a day from people saying they are coming back, but there are also 1000 people leaving who don’t post, and as its already been touted several times over the years that the forums does not give an accurate reflection on the community numbers its hard to tell, Anet would not post if they are losing more than they are gaining, that would be crazy,

You don’t think its dire because apparently you are in 1 of the only guilds in the entire game that has 100% active players who love to log in, and you never seem to lose anyone, or notice anyone leaving, and everytime someone mentions that they have seen friends leave the game, and guilds fall apart and players quit, there you are shouting how your guild is super active and the player must need a new guild.

The only reason it seems more busy now is because of mega server, if you where to revert that change today, you would see a true result of the declining numbers,

The point about buying it is still mute, its been discussed to death before hot came out, I bought HoT, as did my friends, I enjoyed it for the most part, ( even though I still have finished the story due to the glitches in story 4 MONTHS after launch ) but the new maps do not have replay ability, unless you are pushing for multiple legendary’s then you are forced to play it,

As someone who played a lot of WvW, on both NA and EU servers, I can tell you its a dead format, if you cannot get into EB you might aswell not bother, they have well and truly hammered that nail into that coffin and buried it twice over, there stubbornness with pushing ahead with what they wanted and not listening to what the community needed, finished that format off, I spent an hour in the BL 2 days ago and never seen a single other play, be it from my team or an enemy team.

I cannot comment on PvP as I don’t enjoy the bunkerwars format of the gametype.

We are on very opposite sides of this community, im on the side of ive played GW1 since launch and GW2 since beta launch, and have watched the game slowly decline, and watching it slowly die off, You are from the side that can see no wrong and love everything about the game, and feel that everyone who doesn’t see it the same way as you is wrong.

PS: FYI, ive played plenty of dying to dead games in my past, your not the only gamer on these forums.

Yep there may be a thousand people a day leaving and a thousand people a day starting and coming back. Saying something is going badly doesn’t mean it’s going badly. The only evidence right now is hearsay.

In six months we’ll have a better idea. Right now, your opinion is just that. Your opinion. It’s not fact. You’re not going to convince me of it. I strongly suspect it’s not as bad as most make it out to be, but in six months we’ll know.

Saying it’s bad now over and over remains just your opinion.

People say this all the time with games, this game is in trouble because in there opinion it is. I’m not arguing one way or another, but the only people who truly know are the people at ANet. If the game was in big trouble I’m sure we would see the real signs. Maps being empty, the gem store getting updated alot with more times returning to generate as much income as possible.

Seeing as these things are not happening we can guess the game is not in too much trouble if any at this point in time.

I really hope this fix that they’re talking about is something that can bring a middle ground between casual players and harder core players. I guess we’ll have to see.

Ok I Did It.2854:

If this game doesn’t change, ( Expansions or massive updates) the only people playing it in 3 years would be the ultra hardcore who cannot admit there game is done, the game at the moment is far from dead, but its suffering badly, the only people who cant/don’t want to admit that are the ones who will still be there in 3 years wondering where everyone is,

There could be 1000 posts a day from people saying they are coming back, but there are also 1000 people leaving who don’t post, and as its already been touted several times over the years that the forums does not give an accurate reflection on the community numbers its hard to tell, Anet would not post if they are losing more than they are gaining, that would be crazy,

You don’t think its dire because apparently you are in 1 of the only guilds in the entire game that has 100% active players who love to log in, and you never seem to lose anyone, or notice anyone leaving, and everytime someone mentions that they have seen friends leave the game, and guilds fall apart and players quit, there you are shouting how your guild is super active and the player must need a new guild.

The only reason it seems more busy now is because of mega server, if you where to revert that change today, you would see a true result of the declining numbers,

The point about buying it is still mute, its been discussed to death before hot came out, I bought HoT, as did my friends, I enjoyed it for the most part, ( even though I still have finished the story due to the glitches in story 4 MONTHS after launch ) but the new maps do not have replay ability, unless you are pushing for multiple legendary’s then you are forced to play it,

As someone who played a lot of WvW, on both NA and EU servers, I can tell you its a dead format, if you cannot get into EB you might aswell not bother, they have well and truly hammered that nail into that coffin and buried it twice over, there stubbornness with pushing ahead with what they wanted and not listening to what the community needed, finished that format off, I spent an hour in the BL 2 days ago and never seen a single other play, be it from my team or an enemy team.

I cannot comment on PvP as I don’t enjoy the bunkerwars format of the gametype.

We are on very opposite sides of this community, im on the side of ive played GW1 since launch and GW2 since beta launch, and have watched the game slowly decline, and watching it slowly die off, You are from the side that can see no wrong and love everything about the game, and feel that everyone who doesn’t see it the same way as you is wrong.

PS: FYI, ive played plenty of dying to dead games in my past, your not the only gamer on these forums.

Yep there may be a thousand people a day leaving and a thousand people a day starting and coming back. Saying something is going badly doesn’t mean it’s going badly. The only evidence right now is hearsay.

In six months we’ll have a better idea. Right now, your opinion is just that. Your opinion. It’s not fact. You’re not going to convince me of it. I strongly suspect it’s not as bad as most make it out to be, but in six months we’ll know.

Saying it’s bad now over and over remains just your opinion.

Kraggy.4169:

Kind of begs the question why adding flying .. sorry, gliding .. to Tyria so many invisible walls had to be erected to restrict it to avoid ‘exploits’, to use Anet’s own word.

I don’t know. Most people I talk to are quite happy with flying. It adds a lot of stuff to the mix. Have you noticed all the jump pads that have been added to the game. I know they put one in the Straits of Devestation, by Rally Waypoint. Why? That point is almost never contested.

I remember doing Temple of Balthazar and dying and having to make that run back from Rally waypoint. It’s not fun. Now that platform shoots you in the air, and you can glide back. They’ve done it in other areas too.

We all know the old zones weren’t designed for gliding, so Anet made a compromise. But today while looking for the guild bounty, it was a godsend. It certainly got everyone there quicker, considering that Brekabek wasn’t near a waypoint, but the arca waypoint as a jumping pad near it now and we could all just glide on over.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Vayne.8563:

Also, I find it highly unlikely it’ll take 3 years for the next expansion.

This is the only time ill ever agree with you, it wont take 3 years, because they wont have any players left in 3 years, if the game remains in its current state,

Also why is the price point still an issue, HoT has been out for what 4 months now, im pretty sure those who said they wouldn’t buy it have moved on, and everyone else is still playing.

First of all, even if the game were to remain in its current state, it would have plenty of players in three years. People always bang on about dead games and dying games. I think you need to play a dying game before making a comment like this. I played Vanguard and near the end, it was a ghost town. Some would start playing the game and there’d be a little dance party because a new player started playing. We get multiple posts from people starting and coming back every single day. The situation isn’t as dire as you make it out to be, and frankly I don’t think it’s dire at all. I’m not saying some people aren’t down on the game, because obviously some people are, but the same was true when ascended gear was released, it was even worse than this in fact, and we’re still here. I think there are probably more people playing now than there were after the first few months . Feel free to disagree, but I’m pretty sure this is the case.

As for buying it or not, some people who said they wouldnt’ buy it ahve moved on and some people who said they weren’t going to buy it have bought it. And some people haven’t bought it yet, and may yet buy it.

I think one big question is the WvW upgrade that’s coming and how that affects that crowd. PvP doesn’t seem less busy that it was a year ago, and PvE seems okay too, in spite of the forum complaints.

Like I said, in six months, we’ll have a much better idea of the health of this game.

And if that happens, that’s okay. The stuff will get fixed when they can fix it. There are many reasons why some fixes don’t happen in a timely manner.

There’s a bug that occurs randomly on one of the servers where you can’t get passed the tutorial. But it doesn’t happen on any server but that one. I thought it was gone but it reappeared recently.

The assumption that everyone has the issue because you have it is pretty large, and the assumption it’s easy to track down and they know how to fix it is equally large.

I’m sure if it were an easy fix it would already be done. There’ no reason not to. But there is a reason to tell someone okay we can’t find it, we’ll have to come back to it.

There are many people who play the game without even doing the personal story.

Figlilly.3907:

I agree. I am stuck now and can’t advance. I don’t do fractals or dungeons and that seems to be where most of the points are left (for me).

The silly thing is that I play the life out of this game. I have eighteen characters and all are L80. Twelve have world completion (two of them at the time you needed WvW) and those twelve have their elite specialisations. It’s not like I am slack. I am just not good at jumping puzzles or dungeons. So I don’t really have enough ways to earn the missing points. I did get out of my comfort zone. I ended up getting the Tequatl achievement and I did the Silverwastes jumping puzzle – things I didn’t think I would ever do – but I am stuck now. I can get a few more but it will not be enough.

I wish there was a way for us to gain the masteries through XP. I wouldn’t care if it was a thousand times slower but at least I would know I would get there one day.

If you’re on a US server, I can help with some of the fractal ones. You say you’re not good at them, but I’ve yet to meet a person I can’t teach to be good at the basic fractals, up to level 20.

jbrother.1340:

Etien.4601:

Dungeons are dead. Deal with it. :/

Variety brings in business in a game like this.

To destroy a mode of play is to invite ruin.

Variety can often destroy business too. It’s the old argument between specializing and varying your wares.

Specialist businesses make money by finding a core crowd and catering to that crowd. Generalizing makes money by bringing in more people.

The problem with generalizing is that often the more you do, the less good each thing is. It can’t be all things to all people.

Trying to focus on too much often means splitting your resources too thin. My guess is Anet didn’t deem they had enough resources to fix the issues dungeons had. It was easier to deincentivize them.

Torolan.5816:

Vayne.8563:

The game has been getting harder all along though. Silverwastes is harder than most of core Tyria. The living story and the achievements are harder. Triple threat is probably as hard as anything in HoT.

People have been given the opportunity to play harder content. Anet has spoken about giving people more challenge in the past. This hardly should come as a surprise.

And HoT isn’t really that much more difficult. It has a learning curve, but lots of people who said they couldn’t do it and it was impossible are now playing. One guy made a thread about his issues and I whispered him in game, asking if he needed help. He said, he was getting it now and it was much better.

There’s really nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone….particularly because it really isn’t as hard as a lot of people make it out to be. No, I don’t consider I have to use a different weapon to a be a legit grievance.

It´s true that the difficulty always went up. And how went that on? The Alliances of evil races are long gone, Soutsun is deserted most of the time. The only success from that perspective is SW.

Where I disagree is with the idea that there is nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone. I think there is plenty of wrong with that idea.
If I can´t have a comfort zone in a game, where then?
I play characters because I like the effects or the idea behind them, not because they are awesome in game.
My Guardian carries for example his ascended soldier gear because that is the way I see him, a stalwart defender of his people and a Soldier. And even if Dragonhunter is superior to other options, I´d never use that for him because it is inaproppriate for a Soldier/Knight.
On the other hand, I like the torch effect of Guardian and often thought about making another guardian zealot.

Not sure why playing a character doesn’t involve some form of practicality. This argument has always confused me.

I have a character that has a certain look. It’s them. I like how they look. But my characters are smart (except for Olaf Hamfist who’s a norn clutz). They try something, see it’s not working and adapt, because they’re “real” to me.

What kind of heroic character goes to try to do something, cant’ do and doesn’t come up with a plan b. That doesn’t change the character from being heroic, or even tanky. It just makes them smarter.

Anyway I don’t see why you couldn’t use a PVT guardian in HoT. I think it would work fine.

It was frustrating last year. I was hoping for some changes this year, but I guess not. It seems silly to me to put this in the game when it’s such an obvious source of frustration.

Join a guild like Evos and get the 4 points for TT. It’s free and you might end up enjoying it.

Axialbloom.8109:

Shoulders take 150. If only 1000 people made them, that is more than is currently on the TP.

You’d be assuming the 1000 people who didn’t have the drinks didn’t already buy their coins, or have them. I had my coins and didn’t have buy them. Same for my wife.

The assumption the coins will be bought to make the shoulders is probably not a good one. The assumption people who are making the shoulders haven’t already bought the coins is something else you need to have a look at.

I’m not seeing a problem here.

I like the game too, but every person is entitled to make up their own mind about whether it has value for them.

Also, I find it highly unlikely it’ll take 3 years for the next expansion.

Torolan.5816:

Vayne.8563:

Torolan.5816:

Of course it has not happened out of spite. There are surely some companies that are led by megalomanial dynasties or billionaires who would do something like this just to flex their muscles, but Anet has not the muscles to flex in that way.
It is also viable that they follow their business strategy, I just don´t get it or overlook a significant piece in that strategy.

From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense to me what they did with the nerfs of Dungeons and the priorisation of HoT maps. But I guess it is also hard to deny that this did not sit well with many people who either did not have HoT but bought the core game and now were left hang out to dry.
And this already has and probably will cost them customers in the future. Goodwill can´t be counted or drawn in circles, but it tends to turn into anger and bad propaganda when it is not petted.

I’m going to say this is not true. That is to say I don’t know anyone who plays MMOs that doesn’t expect to buy expansions, even subscription MMOs. That is to say if you don’t buy the sub you don’t get the new cool stuff in every MMO on the planet. That even included Guild Wars 1, even though it wasn’t an MMO. You want the new cool Rit, you have to buy the new game. You want the new skills, you buy the new game. You want to glide, you buy the game.

People who play buy to play games should expect to have to buy expansions. If they are free to play players, in most others free to play games, you are treated worse than here. And no one bought the first WoW, didn’t buy the expansion and expected to hit level cap, because you can’t. Here you can.

This whole we are forced to buy the expansion or we don’t get cool stuff is normal for the genre and outside of a handful of people who didn’t expect it, it will be treated as every MMO on the planet. The core constituency is going to buy the expansion. Do you know the percentage of people in my guild who didn’t buy the expansion? Zero percent. If they were playing the game they bought the expansion.

The only people who didn’t are free to play players we recruited after the expansion released, and most of those people are saving for the expansion and want to buy it.

I know several people who have not bought HoT and still play core Tyria, but that is not the point.
Where did I say I think that asking for money for HoT as it is an expansion is not legit?
I am not talking about cool new stuff in HoT that is only available for buyers of said HoT. That is perfectly legit.

I am talking about delivering a more hardcore environment in a world full of pampered berserker newbies who fall in droves against any halfway acceptable mobs when they are new. Southsun Grove for example was a bloodbath when it was introduced, you could not walk around without stumbling over a berserker ele whose 11K life had shrunk as rapidly as a snowball in the mojave desert when facing a karka veteran. People hate these mobs until today because they have good counters against damage dealers who can´t dodge or remove boons.
Sure, they learn these mechanics someday because some math geek gamer tells them so with building sites and his fancy youtube channel, but I guess the group of people who want to be challenged in their free time is rather small. I conclude this because I don´t see many people extreme skiing or base jump, but rather go out to watch sport, go into a movie or just hang out with friends or at home. It´s a matter of disposition, and most people are simply not wired to be adrenaline junkies.

The game has been getting harder all along though. Silverwastes is harder than most of core Tyria. The living story and the achievements are harder. Triple threat is probably as hard as anything in HoT.

People have been given the opportunity to play harder content. Anet has spoken about giving people more challenge in the past. This hardly should come as a surprise.

And HoT isn’t really that much more difficult. It has a learning curve, but lots of people who said they couldn’t do it and it was impossible are now playing. One guy made a thread about his issues and I whispered him in game, asking if he needed help. He said, he was getting it now and it was much better.

There’s really nothing wrong with a game taking people out of their comfort zone….particularly because it really isn’t as hard as a lot of people make it out to be. No, I don’t consider I have to use a different weapon to a be a legit grievance.

You know, people keep saying DS is 2 hours, but it’s not really true. It’s closer to an hour and a half, even less sometimes.

It runs every 2 hours, that’s true, but it seldom takes 2 hours.

I think the idea was to try to recreate the pushing further into the jungle and learning stuff as you go. I can’t reach this, but now I can glide. I can’t get to this but now I can.

People asked for a form of meaningful progression. In other games it’s done by level but Anet didn’t raise the level cap.

The best part about it is that it’s account bound so you unlock a mastery once and you have it on every character.

Raizen.7981:

Took me 3 months to get gold on Bugs in Branches and Tendril Torchers. I was barely getting bronze when I started. Now I faceroll-gold them with over 20 seconds left on the clock. Practice makes everything better (wink). The fact that one mastery point(Shooting Gallery Gold) is impossible to get(which should be addressed already) it doesn’t make the other 31 points impossible to get. I’m sorry, if you can’t get gold on that collect-things-from-vines adventure in VB, or from the Wings of Gold, or the car/beetle ones in TD- well I’m sorry. You’re either lacking some masteries, or you’re having terrible L2P issues, in which case you SHOULDN’T be able to progress further. Why should a total noob be at 163 mastery points? Just why?

You should try it from Australia, you’d likely have a different story. Content that excludes an entire region isn’t a great idea to begin with but also, if you don’t like that content, having to work at it to get points is just going to drive people away from the game. I don’t think I’ll enjoy raiding and I don’t really have to raid. It’s tucked away in a corner, it’s not in my face. I can ignore it.

Adventures are slightly different. Different enough to raise issues with people.

WoW charges you a monthly fee and you still have to buy expansions if you want to do the new stuff. I really am having trouble seeing the problem.