Guild Wars 2

Bish.8627:

Wow this thread took off. Just want to echo something I said earlier. The analogy about amusement parks is exactly how I feel 100%. I almost applauded it out loud.

I am casual. I earlier in this thread described casual not only as lack of time but wanting less stress. So with this in mind, I want rewards, but I don’t want the toxicity of dungeons/fractals, I quite like PvP but it stresses me out. WvW interests me more, but I mostly like to follow a train, do events (silverwastes for example) but feel free to hop off when I feel like or when I feel I have done enough.

I have a legendary, sure maybe it took me longer to grind out but I don’t mind because I am casual, I expect that in an MMO.

When HoT came out and I first experienced the first map, I was in love, random events, a meta. But soon I realised the rewards weren’t that great compared to time spent, and time spent was a lot. If I managed to not crash in DS then it was fun, but again, all that time spent, you are locked in until the end or you get nothing, this is rather stressful.

Then came raids, legendary armour. When ascended came out, it was the same thing. It was hidden behind gates so we could be bottlenecked into playing to see new content, as opposed to how we want.

Honestly, ascended armour should be outright on the TP. Legendary also should be purchasable with gold but at a massive rate. 2k per piece even. But far cheaper to get in raids. This evens out the playing field so players can shortcut in new and more challenging content. But those of us who would rather take our time with less stress can get there too in time.

A lot of people play games to cut down on stress. I know I do. The last thing I need during my day is more stress. So relaxing is good.

The argument that people that play harder deserve better rewards is really the question. If you and I buy tickets to the same movie, and you’re a hard core fan and I’m a casual viewer, we get the same experience. Games aren’t like that, but I’m not sure they shouldn’t be. Or rather, competitive games aren’t like that. I didn’t buy this game to be competitive. I bought this for the cooperative PvE experience.

The angst and anger over getting harder content done, and people blaming other people is the reason I didn’t raid in other games. It just seemed like something I’d rather not be involved with. If I wanted arguments I’d remarry my ex-wife.

No, I much prefer to relax and enjoy myself while playing. This game gave me that more in the past than it does now.

Sorry, but both are acceptable.

http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/staff

I prefer staves myself and on rare occassions when the word pops up in something I’m editing, I recommend changing it to staves, but staffs is not incorrect according to the dictionary. Staves is simply preferred.

I’m still having fun playing HoT. I’m even going to start raiding with my guild in two weeks (against my better judgement). lol

Gotta try for those cheesements.

Mortifer.2946:

Harper.4173:

Daddicus.6128:

Harper.4173:

If casuals want hardcore rewards they should become hardcore – it’s that simple.

For once you and I agree on something.

The problem is that HoT doesn’t allow me to play through, effectively, without being hardcore.

HoT doesn’t require you to be hardcore to play it – it does require you to sink time into it.
Like Vayne – you can be casual but sink a lot of time – HoT doesn’t really need you to improve that much but it gates things to artificially increase the length of the expansion.

Wrong again. Calling Vayne a casual is showing you don’t know him much. People who know him from the forum know he is far from being a causal player.

I’m casual in my approach to the game. That doesn’t mean I"m not skilled. As an example, I’ve only recently gone over Fractal level 40. And while I have finished every dungeon in the game, mainly I prefer just banging around the world and exploring, doing events gathering.

I don’t really love challenge in my games, at least not often. I play to relax. So in that way I am pretty casual.

Harper.4173:

Daddicus.6128:

Harper.4173:

If casuals want hardcore rewards they should become hardcore – it’s that simple.

For once you and I agree on something.

The problem is that HoT doesn’t allow me to play through, effectively, without being hardcore.

HoT doesn’t require you to be hardcore to play it – it does require you to sink time into it.
Like Vayne – you can be casual but sink a lot of time – HoT doesn’t really need you to improve that much but it gates things to artificially increase the length of the expansion.

Okay there’s a definite learning curve in HoT and a lot depends also on things like whether you’re used to meleeing or ranging.

For example, I can melee all over the world, but I have a lot more trouble meleeing in HoT. I can do it, but I don’t always survive the experience.

On my ranger it hasn’t changed that much. On my warrior, I tend to use my bow a lot more in HoT.

I know a guy who likes to melee. It’s what he enjoys. He’s in my guild. He doesn’t like HoT because he feels it forces him to range. It doesn’t really but it’s certainly easier for some of the encounters.

Soon.5240:

OP,
I tried both Archage and Wildstar, and you know what? For AA and WS, I didn’t even both going to the forums to be “negative”. I didn’t care enough about either game to even bother trying to provide “critical feedback” to the developers.

When people stop posting negative things to the GW2 forum, then the game is truly dead. That will mean that they no longer care about the game, and have moved on. Anet knows this and they are big boys and girls.

Negative posts at least mean that people still care. The F2P people who downloaded the game in the last couple of months and didn’t like it are not the people making the negative posts.

Right because free to play players can’t access the forums. lol

OP, the LFG tool gives up options to get to a busier map. It’s not automatic but the devs did provide you a tool to get to more people. If you choose not to use it, I’m not sure why they should re-engineer the game.

eureeka.5368:

simply, they game is dying. i feel for all who still love this game. that content is not for solo so people try their darndest (not a real word XD )to try to taxi ect. I hope they fix the game soon!

I think you should look up dying in the dictionary. I don’t think it means what you think it means. As far as anyone I know can tell, Guild Wars 2 is still among the top MMOs. If it’s dying then all MMOs are dying…except perhaps WoW.

Daddicus.6128:

vesica tempestas.1563:

your analogies are incorrect, your amusement park started off as 98% ‘casual’ rides and perhaps 2% ‘hardcore’ cutting edge in the shape of high end fractals, then Anet added a new rollercoaster in the shape of raids and 99% other stuff.

You’re wrong on your percentages, but I’ll give you a chance to prove them: Name ONE THING that HoT added that is unambiguously casual-friendly.

Map rewards.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Vayne.8563:

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

So, in the end, one or both of those groups will be unhappy and there’s no way around that.

The point still stands. Even if they add something that casuals want behind hardcore content, how is that making the game (as a whole) not casual friendly?

Well, it depends. Adding a specific single thing doesn’t. But that’s not where it ends. There will be more raid wings and more rewards.

If I go to an amusement park, and I don’t like roller coasters, but I do like shows, then I want enough shows to make it worth my admission to the park, or I’m going to feel ripped off. Not everyone wants roller coasters.

This is the same situation. It’s not just raids. It’s raids and a lot of other stuff that some casuals feel locked out of, and it’s a percentage of the expansion.

So raids is advertised as the next big thing, and you’re not doing that, and maybe the new zones are too hard and you’re not doing those, or you don’t have enough time for the metas, so you’re not doing that, and then maybe you can’t spend the time to grind out legendaries, and suddenly, you’re in an amusement park full of roller coasters looking for the ocassional show.

The problem is, you paid the same admission price as the people who love roller coasters, but a percentage of the content isn’t yours anymore. So you get fewer and fewer of the rewards.

But now add to this, the entire amusepark existed before and it was 90% shows, so you want and spent your money when they opened an extension to that park and suddenly it’s 90% roller coasters. That’s the real problem.

You think it’s not a problem because you like roller coasters. You think there are still a couple of shows. But people who bought the expansion paid the same price you did and the offering percentage has changed drastically.

That’s what all the complaining is about. It’s about the fact that people who could do most things before, are now locked out of most things. Small guilds can’t access guild halls without bankrupting themselves. People can’t farm legendaries, because the price of everything has gone up, but the quick dungeons they ran don’t give gold anymore. Not as much anyway.

You can say I like all this stuff so what? But it doesn’t solve the problem and for some people, possibly a lot of people, there is a problem. Because essentially the product has escalated too suddenly and it’s leaving too many people behind.

That’s my take on it.

your analogies are incorrect, your amusement park started off as 98% ‘casual’ rides and perhaps 2% ‘hardcore’ cutting edge in the shape of high end fractals, then Anet added a new rollercoaster in the shape of raids and 99% other stuff. its still the same shape of data with the vast majority of content being casual. We know Hot is casual friendly because the vast majority can happily play it solo in glass gear (while also offering a step up from the overpowered tyia, which is still there)

Variety is good and there’s nothing to fear from new content appearing that is specialised .

as for ‘Small guilds can’t access guild halls without bankrupting themselves. this is entitlement nonsense, Guild halls are designed for guilds not small parties (why would you design it for small parties?) however, as with the rest of Anet strategies, if small parties want to form mini guilds they can, but obviously its balanced for larger groups of people, that’s common sense.

But my analogy isn’t incorrect, because Anet changed the product suddenly. If I were playing as a casual player only, and found the HoT zones not fun or too challenging then there really is very little for me in the expansion even though I have to pay the same price as a harder core player to get the expansion.

I once took a writing course with the SFWA, and one of the first things they teach you is that the moment you start writing a book, you’re creating unwritten contract with your reader. You’re defining the genre and tone up front and if you should change that later in the book, you risk losing a percent of your readers. The greater the change, the more likely it is you’ll lose readers to the change. So before you make that change you have to sell the change to the reader.

I don’t feel this change was sold to casual players. It’s not gradual. It’s sudden, and there’s a lot of it. It’s the same for games. If I’m playing a game and you sell kitten expansion which includes stuff for everyone but me, and you expect me to muddle on with the same stuff unchanged for another couple of years before another expansion comes out…well, I’m not sure why anyone would think that would go over well.

And small guilds didn’t just end up with having a very expensive guild hall but they lost functionality that they previously farmed to have access to. Dismissing a legitmate claim like that as entitlement would be like saying you paid to have access to electricity in your house but now you can’t have it, because they’ve changed how electricity works. You used to have electricity and now you don’t. That’s a very legit complaint.

Making you farm the old system to unlock something and then making you farm again for it, and making it much more expensive is very much not entitlement.

You just have to train yourself to stop just before your endurance runs out. It’s not really that big a deal…or shouldn’t be.

Gliders require some endurance to open now. It’s in the patch notes.

Sicarius.4639:

Morfedel.4165:

Shen Slayer.3058:

Ohoni.6057:

HoT did not fail.

It did totally fail.

Prove it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/KDB-Daewoo-sales-warning-for-HoT/first#post5931906

Quoting a stock company that has no actual inside knowledge that makes its own predictions is proof of absolutely nothing. This same company has been predicting an expansion every year pretty much since launch and none of that ever came to pass.

Security companies guestimate what they believe a game will sell and based on that belief they make recommendations to clients. But that belief has nothing to do with anything except their belief.

Somewhere, there is a business plan that requires a certain amount of return. The people who have that plan is Anet and NCSoft. Daewoo Securities doesn’t have that plan.

At the next quarter stock call, NcSoft will say whether or not sales were below expectations or not, as as they have done for other products in the past. Until then, this means nothing except that a security company unaffiliated with the game in any way thought it should have made more.

maddoctor.2738:

Astralporing.1957:

So, in the end, one or both of those groups will be unhappy and there’s no way around that.

The point still stands. Even if they add something that casuals want behind hardcore content, how is that making the game (as a whole) not casual friendly?

Well, it depends. Adding a specific single thing doesn’t. But that’s not where it ends. There will be more raid wings and more rewards.

If I go to an amusement park, and I don’t like roller coasters, but I do like shows, then I want enough shows to make it worth my admission to the park, or I’m going to feel ripped off. Not everyone wants roller coasters.

This is the same situation. It’s not just raids. It’s raids and a lot of other stuff that some casuals feel locked out of, and it’s a percentage of the expansion.

So raids is advertised as the next big thing, and you’re not doing that, and maybe the new zones are too hard and you’re not doing those, or you don’t have enough time for the metas, so you’re not doing that, and then maybe you can’t spend the time to grind out legendaries, and suddenly, you’re in an amusement park full of roller coasters looking for the ocassional show.

The problem is, you paid the same admission price as the people who love roller coasters, but a percentage of the content isn’t yours anymore. So you get fewer and fewer of the rewards.

But now add to this, the entire amusepark existed before and it was 90% shows, so you want and spent your money when they opened an extension to that park and suddenly it’s 90% roller coasters. That’s the real problem.

You think it’s not a problem because you like roller coasters. You think there are still a couple of shows. But people who bought the expansion paid the same price you did and the offering percentage has changed drastically.

That’s what all the complaining is about. It’s about the fact that people who could do most things before, are now locked out of most things. Small guilds can’t access guild halls without bankrupting themselves. People can’t farm legendaries, because the price of everything has gone up, but the quick dungeons they ran don’t give gold anymore. Not as much anyway.

You can say I like all this stuff so what? But it doesn’t solve the problem and for some people, possibly a lot of people, there is a problem. Because essentially the product has escalated too suddenly and it’s leaving too many people behind.

That’s my take on it.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Vayne.8563:

I still don’t like ascended armor and I don’t suppose I ever will. Not the style, it’s very existence. I don’t think it was necessary for the game.

I don’t like the scribe profession as it was implemented. It’s too risky for most guilds to invest in, because if the scribe leaves, they’re out those mats.

I don’t like that everything uses the same mats over and over, creating an artificial scarcity that drives the prices so high.

I don’t like the increased latency I’m experiencing in Australia.

One more reasonable, though-out critique like that and you’re going to lose your white knight licence, buddy. Watch it.

I’ve always said I didn’t like ascended armor. I’ve always had my issues. I just don’t believe in hyperbole and I don’t believe that my likes are the only thing game design should be based on.

You can see why devs make certain decisions while not personally liking them.

There are lots of ways to get your glider. I’d follow the event chains by the entrance to Verdant brink. Make sure you take buffs if you have. Birthday boosters, celebration boosters, foods, utilities, XP boosters, anything you have to raise your experience. Find a group, even just a couple of players and tag along. You don’t have to party.

Then it’s just a matter of time. Oh if you come across adventures, they give a huge amount of XP toward leveling masteries.

Baldrick.8967:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

the forums aren’t an accurate reflection of the love (or hate) for the expac.

velmeister.4187:

It’s quite true. But, number of map instances are accurate reflection of sucess. There are hardly 1 map instance or 2 for the 4 maps right now.

I’m not sure why you think that. Full maps don’t have taxis. I’ve often seen people in different instances in successful meta chains at the same time. Verdant Brink … during peak hours, I hardly ever get into the same instance twice in a row.

The sun is always shining and people are always happy in my world:-)

Why would you keep changing VB instances, but not using taxis? You mean you randomly hop around instances without using taxis? Did the other map close and push you in to a new one? How long do you play in order to hop around instances and hardly ever get in the same instance twice in a row?

The reason you don’t is because everyone hops from the completed one to the next taxi instance, leaving behind a dead map that will close sooner or later.

Takes around 100 players to create multiple instances in this way, which is hardly a huge number of players- as soon as map cap approaches, new map created, rinse and repeat.

When I logged in for my daily reward at peak time today I finally achieved the ‘no friends online’ in my friends list, which tells me how many have left the game since H0T released. There are still piles of people playing, but not in the areas of the game I like (wvw, which they have killed off).

I switch characters quite frequently, because I was completing VB on multiple characters, so I get into multiple instances. Yeah I don’t care if I lose my progress in the meta, because it’s not that important to me.

So yes you can end up in different instances, each time you leave and come back even. It happens.

Astralporing.1957:

maddoctor.2738:

Maximillian Greil.1965:

- You can’t cater to both hardcore and casual players. Anet needs to make a decision what kind of game it’s going to be and build from there. If you try to make both happy, they’ll both just leave to a game that targets them more specifically.

Or they can add content for both hardcore and casual players and keep both happy at the same time.

Not possible. As the last few months of back and forth on the forums proved, hardcore players aren’t satisfied with just content meant for them. They also need rewards hidden behind that content – rewards that are both inaccessible by casuals, and yet at the same time desired by them. Elitists want casuals to be unhappy (unhappy that they aren’t as good as them, of course). Hardcore content whose existence casuals can simply ignore just won’t cut it.

Thus, in the end, desires of both groups do conflict. It is not possible to make both groups happy.

This is what I’ve been saying all along. Sorry to agree with you Astral, I know that probably annoys you some, but this is exactly the problem I’ve been talking about since before raids were even announced.

If you make hard content that doesn’t have good rewards, less people will do it. A lot of people do stuff just for rewards. So it doesn’t pay to make that content just for people who run hard stuff for fun.

If you make it so the rewards aren’t exclusive, it cheapens, in the mind of some, their achievement. This always happens. In Guild Wars 1, when they changed the way the survivor title worked, those who had it were up in arms because the title meant less. In fact, if you did it before the Kilroy dungeon where you could basically cheese it, it meant even more.

People like to say I did this and here’s the proof. That means they’re happy, but the casuals aren’t. They use all sorts of words to describe the casuals, such as entitled. The casuals use also sorts of words to describe raiders, like elitist. Both really don’t solve anything and shouldn’t be used. It’s simply a different view of the game and why we play it.

I don’t play for challenge, I don’t love that raiding was introduced to the game and it’s cause my guild some personal issues because I don’t really want to have kitten and them, yet not everyone in my guild is good enough to raid. So it causes unnecessary tension in my guild.

mauried.5608:

Id be interested to know what standard of player, gear wise HOT was designed for.
For example , are there any players playing HOT who like it who have low level gear, such as masterwork or less?

Is there any real reason not to have at least rares?

Ayrilana.1396:

velmeister.4187:

. But, number of map instances are. There are hardly 1 map instance or 2 for the 4 maps right now.

You sure?

How do you know this? I mean we’ve had guild members doing stuff in three different maps this week, without even realizing we were all playing. We all got on full maps one after the other. So I’m not sure where you get this number from? How did you determine it?

I don’t care if people rep my guild or not. Some people don’t rep and still actively participate. They can see guild chat, so what’s the difference? Why should I, as a guild leader, care?

Maximillian Greil.1965:

Look these are the bottom lines:

- You can’t cater to both hardcore and casual players. Anet needs to make a decision what kind of game it’s going to be and build from there. If you try to make both happy, they’ll both just leave to a game that targets them more specifically.

- You can’t come up with content, get people to enjoy it, then just abandon it. Anyone remember the crab toss, sanctum sprint mini games that cycle every day? yeah me either. They haven’t added anything to it at all. Dungeons haven’t seen a change since day 1. It goes on and on and on.

- Most people play MMOs for rewards. They want to feel some kind of progression in their character. Small bits of progression should take a small amount of time, while large ones should take a large amount of time. You got rid of the gear treadmill, great! what are you going to replace it with? There needs to be a feeling of character improvement for people to feel invested in the game. Every game has needed it for an RPG, MMO or otherwise.

- Legendary skins and what not are totally fine, but you need SOME KIND of endgame PVE other than that. If people don’t want legendary armor, what reason do they have to do raids? If anyone says “well it’s fun!” please refer to my previous point.

There’s plenty of PvE end game besides raids and legendary armor. Anyone who says otherwise isn’t paying attention.

Each elite specialization has it’s on unique weapon to craft. It’s a lot easier than making a legendary, but it’s not dirt easy. It’s end game content. Achievements are also end game content for some people, even if they’re not easy. Crafting is end game content for some people. In fact, there are tons of collections out there that are end game content, everything from the winter’s presence shoulders to the new packs that come with the expansion.

There’s end game out there besides legendaries that are reward skin based. If you’re hard core enough, you can even have a pinnacle weapon (though it’s a long haul for most people). I’m less than 1000 points away from my first pinnacle weapon.

To some people even collecting skins is end game.

Obtena.7952:

Vayne.8563:

It’s funny because I made a thread offering to show people how to get around HoT and not a single complaining person took me up on my offer.

As I’ve said many times, and will no doubt say again, it’s better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

People don’t like to be told they are wrong; it’s even worse for them when you show them they are wrong. That being said, there was an immense satisfaction for me to get Map completion done on VB without someone showing me so maybe people don’t want that spoiled for them.

I’m not talking about people who like the zone or feel challenged by it. I’m talking about people who say they can’t do anything in it and they had given up. I was clear in my thread that I would show people how to survive, get around and understand the zone. Plenty of people don’t seem to know where to start.

It was more of a beginner’s guide than completing the zone for them.

You know basic stuff like how to avoid dying to snipers and smoke scale. How to get around before you can use updrafts, etc.

Zeanix.8624:

it did not help me sadly, there is no way i can port back.

I think im in a tutorial but it will not let me through the portal i took the first time -.-

You don’t go through the portal. Zoom out your world map and take the waypoint to Camp Resolve in the Silverwastes.

Harper.4173:

DanielHarvey.7320:

There are, and I am saddened to see this, a lot of bad players in this thread. I am sorry but HoT is not hard. If you are patient you can solo almost any event. I have solo’d boss hero points, entire meta-events and pretty much anything else I want.
I am also not that great, it’s not about skill. You just have to use your head a moment, and don’t tunnel vision. Believe that you can react to the situation and don’t visualize failure. Concentrate on “slowing the game down”. It may seem like everything is happening fast or you can’t pay attention to enough things- but just try. Do it til you DON’T fail, don’t quit when you do.

I agree with you – HoT was not hard – however there is some stuff that you can’t solo regardless of skill.

There’s an event in the Ogre lane for example where you have to protect some Ogre NPCs while they take some eggs into the mordrem base.

I can’t solo that – I have no problem staying alive but even as full berserker with dps food on I cannot output enough damage to kill ALL The mobs that are going to invariably kill the allied NPCs – and then the event ends. Also the mobs spawn from different places – so while I’m killing some – others are DPSing the escort NPCs.

But honestly – I doubt there are more than 10 such situations in the whole expansion – 95% of HoT is solo-able if you know what you are doing.

But you can’t solo Teq either. or Triple Threat, or the Vine Wrath. You can’t likely solo the Karka Queen, nor are you likely to have much luck soloing the Temple of Lyssa. For that matter, I’m not sure anyone could solo that meta event in Gendarran anymore.

There have always been things in this game you can’t solo. Even from day one.

The last stages of a huge meta battle? You shouldn’t be able to solo it.

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

vesica tempestas.1563:

Zaph Treybourne.2194:

Hi, I am just wondering if there is a way to get just the Heart of Thorns expansion without it being bundled with the core game than I have already purchased. I really wanna check it out, but don’t wanna pay $50 for an expansion that includes content I have already purchased. This is why I didn’t pre-order the expansion, but I was just curious as if they made a way to buy just the expansion alone.

what your saying is that you want to play the latest expansion for free (the one the devs just spent x millions on and are building a return on it) no game is going to survive do that.

I would do what you do with any other game, research using videos and unbiased reviews, or wait for discount offers.

Not at all what I was saying. I was saying I want to buy the expansion, not the expansion + core game. If the expansion was $20-30 I would pick it up. But from all the things I have read it isn’t worth the $50 price tag. I will just wait till they put it on sale or drop the price, till then I shall play the core game or another game.

You are forgetting one thing. You’re not just paying for an expansion. In this game an expansion is sort of like a season pass, so it’s not just what’s in the box, it’s what comes in the box and what comes later.

Right now, it’s okay to wait, because you’ll still get what comes later, but if you wait too long, lets day past the end of the start of Season 3 of the Living Story, there’s a chance you’ll miss out on free content that you’d later have to pay for as DLC. That’s assuming Season 3 is handled the same as Season 2.

I still don’t like ascended armor and I don’t suppose I ever will. Not the style, it’s very existence. I don’t think it was necessary for the game.

I don’t like the scribe profession as it was implemented. It’s too risky for most guilds to invest in, because if the scribe leaves, they’re out those mats.

I don’t like that everything uses the same mats over and over, creating an artificial scarcity that drives the prices so high.

I don’t like the increased latency I’m experiencing in Australia.

Baldrick.8967:

Coulter.2315:

Tommyknocker.6089:

I am, yet again, truly hoping that BnS and BDO can cater to the more hardcore players and can entice those that like that kind of thing away from GW2. Unfortunately it did not happen with Wildstar and I had high hopes there too.

My hope is that someday, something, might lure them away from GW2 and maybe then we can say goodbye to esports while making verticallity optional again. It may be a pipe dream, but until ANet starts showing some semblance to the game I fell in love with in 2012, I will just continue to do my daily and log out; for now.

Edit: oh yea forgot.. kill the kitten timers on EVERYTHING, thank you!

So just to check, by your own admission you aren’t really playing the game much and you want GW2 to lose its dedicated players to another game.. Wow you sound like the perfect person for Anet to listen to..

The Raid is fun and I hope they continue to produce interesting bosses, the new maps are well deisgned and I hope they continue to produce good work.

The reply put a smile on my face. Those new maps sure are well deisgned. It’s a shame they designed them about as well as designed was spelled..

I hope they actually do some work testing maps at an early stage with real players next time so that they can listen to feedback and change changes, rather than announce a beta where basically everything is set and nothing can be changed.

Perhaps they will make a better job of designing new wvw maps next time too- rather than the current Deserted BL deisgn.

Because making fun of someone’s spelling makes you right? I don’t think so.

Whether you like the zone design or not is a matter of opinion. You don’t like it, fair enough. It doesn’t make it bad.

Nausicca.6038:

Open world pve should be easy. It’s open world, it’s for everyone. Now I don’t say that Maguuma is hard. For me it’s just a boring area I avoid at all cost (mostly because of timers and taxi wars). But considering how Orr or vanilla world bosses still attract a lot of players, it’s not hard to understand that people enjoy that kind of content. It’s easy, it’s fast, you can gather tons of stuff while waiting and make good money on TP. 10 min teq vs 2 hours meta in Maguuma ? Teq wins, and by far. Same with Orr’s temples.

Except I’m not convinced Teq has more players than the new zones do. I think Teq is largely a waste of time and almost never do it, unless I really REALLY have nothing else to do. I’d rather sort my chest than do Teq most days.

Where as I love playing in the new zones. I don’t believe it’s about gold per hour for most players. Most players just do what they enjoy. I don’t enjoy Teq and therefore I don’t often do Teq. I also don’t really enjoy the Claw of Jormag.

But I enjoy the hell out of VB.

Sorry Palador, I didn’t catch what you were asking for.

Yes, I agree that it might have gone some distance to pacifying the more casual player base, particularly the raid.

On the other hand, Fractals are easier now than they’ve ever been and you can get all the way to level 20 with no AR at all.

Boingo.5264:

Vayne.8563:

It’s funny because I made a thread offering to show people how to get around HoT and not a single complaining person took me up on my offer.

As I’ve said many times, and will no doubt say again, it’s better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

I might consider taking you up on that offer. I love VB… I love gliding, so this makes sense. I have literally completed the VB map 23 times — no exaggeration, each of my 80’s has completed that map. That said, I can not stand TD. I’d like to think that I’m a decent player, but that map just annoys the crap out of me. I’ve been playing MMOs for almost 15 years now, and I’ve never cursed at my computer screen while trying to navigate a game map, like I do what I’m in TD.

Hit me up in game if you’re on a US server. I’m less comfortable in TD only because I’ve spent less time there, but there are people in my guild who know it pretty well…like my wife. lol

It’s funny. I have mostly everything mastered and I still spend a lot of time in HoT zones…because I like the zones. I find myself spending less time in core zones because they’re too easy.

I don’t suppose it occurred to you that the reason there are people in those zones is because they’re having fun.

You’re pretty unlucky to have it happen that often. I think it’s only happened to me once, but that’s because I don’t do DS that often. I enjoy it, but don’t often have two hours to play straight in a row.

Reverence.6915:

No, BnS will not “threaten” GW2. It does, however, chip away at GW2’s playerbase. Every single MMO that has come out since GW2’s release has seen very active players unhappy with ANet’s refusal to communicate with their playerbase move to other games. ESO, Archeage and now Blade and Soul. With Black Desert Online and Camelot Unchained on the horizon, ANet needs to up their game or risk losing even more dedicated players.

Sure, ANet is currently marketing towards the extremely casual “facebook gamer”, but while they provide a lot of cash shop money, they don’t stick around and make your game last. It’s a giant shame that WvW and PvP are so screwed up right now with little to no dev communication in regards to future development.

Guilds like mine are waiting on games just like BnS (we’re already moving there, but with 1 foot still in GW2 in the hopes that future development and communication improves), Camelot Unchained, Crowfall and Black Desert Online. ANet better watch out.

And since that time, Guild Wars 2 has gone free to play which increases it’s playerbase. See how that works. Some things chip away and then boom, some people come back and some people start playing because it’s free to play and some people are back because they like the challenge.

I was looking at my guild roster today and I noticed some people that log in don’t really log in much anymore. I also noticed that some people that didn’t log in for a long time log in every day now.

That’s sort of how the whole business works.

Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have to be amazing, it just has to be better than the competition which in most cases, even with all the kittening and moaning, it still is.

Derdhal.6908:

The fact is GW2 was announced as a MMO also for people who don’t like MMOs. So, if they change game-play in order to be more like a standard MMO, it’s obvious if they change the rules then and a lot of people who plays GW2 because it’s different will leave it.

IMHO, It’s not a matter of “have fun in ESO”, it’s a matter of “if you didn’t like what GW2 was, why did you play it before HoT was launched?”

Bit of a strawman here. Guild Wars 2 wasn’t marketed on easy PvE. That wasn’t it’s main selling point. So you can make hte game more challenging and still keep to your original ideas.

Now there are things in the expansion that I do think go against of the original ideas, but I don’t believe difficulty is one of them.

Coulter.2315:

Tommyknocker.6089:

I am, yet again, truly hoping that BnS and BDO can cater to the more hardcore players and can entice those that like that kind of thing away from GW2. Unfortunately it did not happen with Wildstar and I had high hopes there too.

My hope is that someday, something, might lure them away from GW2 and maybe then we can say goodbye to esports while making verticallity optional again. It may be a pipe dream, but until ANet starts showing some semblance to the game I fell in love with in 2012, I will just continue to do my daily and log out; for now.

Edit: oh yea forgot.. kill the kitten timers on EVERYTHING, thank you!

So just to check, by your own admission you aren’t really playing the game much and you want GW2 to lose its dedicated players to another game.. Wow you sound like the perfect person for Anet to listen to..

The Raid is fun and I hope they continue to produce interesting bosses, the new maps are well deisgned and I hope they continue to produce good work.

I tried to reply to that as well, and anything I typed would have immediately qualified me for an infraction, so I kept deleting what I wrote.

I don’t understand people who wish bad on other people because they’re not happy.

It didnt’ come with a difficulty adjuster, because it’s open world. I’ve never seen a open world game of any kind with a difficulty adjuster. For an open world it would be several copies of the same game, splitting the population into different versions of the same maps. It would also then mean all those maps could be subject to different bugs, which would have to be looked into.

There is a way to make HoT easier. Learn the mobs. Learn your skills. Don’t be afraid to switch things up if something isn’t working. Maybe even talk to someone who knows and let them show you around.

I made this offer on these very forums. An offer to show people how to survive and have fun in HoT. And with all the complaints, not a single player took me up on my offer.

That might have made it easier too.

Kraggy.4169:

Ayrilana.1396:

Kraggy.4169:

TexZero.7910:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

TexZero.7910:

Celtic Lady.3729:

Lord Cody.5237:

Guild Wars 2 is a mmo

This means nothing other than massively multiple players are all playing the same game. Doesn’t mean they’re all doing the same things at the same time in the same place.

It does however mean if you want a single player experience you’re better off alt-f4’ing and playing the legendary game of Solitaire instead.

So, you’re saying those looking for a multiplayer experience would be better off trying Poker or Go Fish?

It’s more logical than coming on a forum to complain that a game built upon playing with a large number of people is somehow, not upto your standards of playing solo.

Honestly, it’s pretty sad how many players do not fundamentally realize that MMO’s at their core are about co-operative play. This includes the open world. If it was meant to be a single player experience you’d be in instances scaled for exactly 1 person.

Except you’re posting on a forum of a game that before the exansion WAS JUST THAT TYPE OF GAME, where instances were side-issues and totally avoidable if you chose and group event were likewise.

HOT changed GW2 into a group-or-die game where simply progressing one’s character by unlocking skills is no longer doable without HAVING to ‘group up’, GW2 pre-HOT WAS NOT LIKE THAT!

ANET took our money without ever telling us they were changing it from a solo-friendly, group optional game, to a solo-hostile 1990s group-or-die one.

GW2 after HOT is really GW3, a throwback to the last century’s idea of what ‘playing other people’ means.

You can still progress your character (unlocking elite spec) without needing anyone.

Unlocking and capping are two different things, I have it unlocked, I’m nowhere near capping it and need HPs only doable with groups, either to do the challenge itself or simply to unlock access to the challenge in the first place.

You were never able solo Teq. You were never able to solo a temple in Orr. And you sure as hell couldn’t solo the Silverwastes. Not if you want to get through the meta.

If you really want to max out all the Hero Points in Core Tyria, you’d only need to do 4-5 hero points in HoT to max out your spec. This is fact.

So, I can think of five hero points that are simply communes, off the top of my head. You don’t need to party to get to or use those hero points.

As for leveling your masteries, all you have to do is find a group and run around with them like you did in Orr or the Silverwastes or at a temple event chain.

You don’t have to party.

Not to mention there are hero point chains almost every day in the new areas, you can just join and run with anyway.

It’s one thing to say the new area is hard and you don’t like it. It’s another thing to say you can’t progress.

I think it’s better to have your craft leveled unless you hate crafting. Take your time doing it, by all means, spread out the cost, but there are plenty of things in this game you can only get reliably by crafting. So having that done is probably not a bad idea anyway.

Doing it all at once, however, I wouldn’t do. I took my time with it.

Research is your friend. Why would you make an assumption that you could use a greatsword on the profession. The information has been out there forever. You should probably do a bit of reading before buying a game.

That said, I know some people who use the warhorn on the ele and think it’s great fun.

It’s funny because I made a thread offering to show people how to get around HoT and not a single complaining person took me up on my offer.

As I’ve said many times, and will no doubt say again, it’s better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.

$50 isn’t really that much for a game without a sub. If the game charged $30 and $15 a month would it be worth it then?

MMOs tend to come in four types. Subscription games, non-sub games that often an “optional” subscription, which you end up needing, and freemium games which require you to buy stuff in the cash shop to stay competitive (or buy content and professisons) and buy to play games where you buy the game and expansions but you don’t have to pay between them if you don’t have the money.

$50 isn’t really that much in the over all scheme of things for an MMO expansion when you look at all MMO expansions.

Absolutely not. PvE has been faceroll easy and it’s one of the biggest complaints against the open world.

Starter zones should be easy. End game zones should represent some challenge. That’s what makes them end game zones.

Games need to provide a variety of experiences for a variety of players. Guild Wars 2 failed for people who wanted harder content before. Now those people are content and other people think it failed.

It’s called an opinion. That’s all it is. I thought the old world was too easy over all, and I think HoT is probably a bit too hard. But since it’s all a matter of thresholds and everyone has different thresholds, the whole conversation is simply a matter of comfort levels. I’m more comfortable with more difficult content. You, OP are obviously less comfortable with it.

I don’t know if HoT failed, but there are definitely some players not up to the “challenge” of the HoT zones.

And then there are players that have no clue, they’re not in a guild, they don’t know how to do stuff, and they give up before they even get their foot in the door.

I know this because I have people like this in my guild. It’s try it once, I can’t do it and then they complain.

Until someone takes them in, shows them the ropes and then they say, yeah it’s not bad at all now that I’m used to it and a month later I see them in HoT all the time.

So maybe it’s just the discrepency between the original zones which were far too easy and the newer zones which are slightly too hard.

They’re not nearly as kittenome people make them out to be…but yes, there is a learning curve.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Shpinxis.3917:

I haven’t been following all the optimizations for HoT grinding since launch, but I feel like I need to get into it. I have been playing HoT on and off since launch and found out quickly that gaining Mastery level is difficult (barely get any for events). I see people at over level 100 and am wondering what some of the good techniques are for grinding Mastery level. I do use boosters and food already. Thanks.

It’s up to you. Grinding bores me and so I’ve just been playing with friends and the points accumulate fast enough for me.

I keep forgetting to pop most of my boosters, i haven’t done any of the adventures (never mind doing them daily), nor do I follow the hero point cycle daily. And I’ve still got plenty of masteries unlocked.

That’s what I need to do. Make some friends. Play with them. It’s all so easy. Well it would be if I weren’t me. lol

Soon.5240:

Vayne.8563:

You claim there’s no depth because it’s hard to get the rewards. I don’t think that has anything to do with depth.

If there were no gating of content behind XP, there would be about 24 to 32 hours of game play in the expansion – assuming that you don’t replay any events or adventures and just play it through once.

This is the lack of depth that I believe he is referring to. The “hardness” (a word he does not use) relates to how much you enjoy replaying the same limited number of events over and over again. He said it’s boring, not hard.

Personally, if the exact same HP and XP system had been distributed over 12 new Maps, structured around the core game maps of exploration, I’d have loved HoT. I don’t like the single-meta maps with their “lather, rinse, repeat” philosophy.

Lack of content isn’t the same as lack of depth though. No one would claim chess isn’t a deep game, but there’s definitely a lack of content.

But there’s plenty of different kinds of fights, here, different mechanics on offer, different play styles that show there’s depth. The problem is if you want to run around with other people and press one you can do it. That’s not really an issue though because I enjoy playing my characters more fully.

I use my mentor tag all the time, just to answer questions for people. I actually ask in map chat if any new or returning players have questions. You can make the mentor tag a mentor tag by setting that example.

The engineer has a fairly high skill ceiling. From what you’ve described, I don’t really think it’s a good fit. You really do have to play hard to get an engineer to work well. I’d more recommend a ranger or a necro, because those professions are easier to play and survive in but can still get you through all the main content.

The ranger particularly is brilliant for open world soloing.

Maximillian Greil.1965:

I see a lot of people saying “well you don’t have to get all the masteries, you don’t NEED ascended gear, you don’t HAVE to raid, you don’t NEED legendaries”

Praytell, when you get rid of everything that is time-consuming and boring to do, what’s left? HoT has been a busy work expansion, nothing of substance anywhere.

This is the most telling post in the thread. If I can’t get this rewards, what is there to play for.

Well, some of us don’t really play for the rewards. The rewards are nice, but we play because we actually enjoy what we’re doing.

I enjoy the hell out of both VB and DS. I play them to have fun. I play them because I enjoy them. I don’t play them to get the meta done. I don’t worry about how long it takes to get something that I’m not going to get anyway.

I log in and I enjoy the beauty of the world. I enjoy finding ways to get around the canopy without coming down to ground level. I enjoy some of the scavenger hunt things they have like the masks in Auric Basic.

I even enjoy slowly pecking away at some of the collections.

You claim there’s no depth because it’s hard to get the rewards. I don’t think that has anything to do with depth.

Let us know how it goes please. And good luck!