Guild Wars 2

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Gee, I thought their original concept was to be innovative. I mean, that’s what they said even before the game launched. (It’s even in the Manifesto.)

I just think it’s funny how some people claim that the entire problem with this game is that Anet is innovating to innovate, and then other people turn around and say the game was originally innovative but now it’s just the same as other MMOs.

Sort of hard to reconcile those two complaints.

In my opinion, the truth is in the middle. Those who don’t LIKE the innovations, are going to complain they’re being done for no reason, in spite of the fact that there are people who like them.

Ashantara.8731:

I believe that Anet ruined the game by not sticking to its original concept but rather forcefully trying to be “innovative” all the time. It made the game chaotic in its mechanics and overloaded with childish stuff nobody needs, and the things that really matter (personalized content, higher replayability, good writing etc.) suffered under this constant pressure of being “innovative”.

This would be true if some of us didn’t like the game better now. Anet, in my opinion, didn’t change the game because they wanted to be innovative. They changed the game because a percentage of people walked away, stopped playing and never looked back, long before those changes you’re talking about were made. Just my opinion, but it fits with my observations.

The event can take a while to spawn. Just wait, it’ll start.

lawfan.7095:

Vayne.8563:

If the story steps were truly impossible, no one would be in those zones. Not sure what story steps you think are so hard, but if your’e on a US server, I can help you get to those zones.

The very first step of one path ends just takes me in circles. From one mushroom to another and back. Can not even find the hideout, much less trying to solve the puzzles. Also the final boss with Aurene is impossible. The white circles need to be 2-3 times as big as they are and that monster should not have any way to get its health back. At least I did get to Lake Doric, but the 2 zones that go with the above 2 stories are off limits to me. I’m on a US server.

I’ll be happy to contact you in game and get you through those missions.

Aldath.1275:

Famine.3164:

Mil.3562:

Another grindfest expansion? Nice.

Another?? When did we get the first one??

Hmmm let’s see.

Mastery Point Grind via repeating Meta events and participating in boring minigames repeated times? Check. Maps with currencies related to meta events and resource farming in order to get skins? Check. Grinding said maps in order to progress the story? Check.

Can you stop pretending there was more to HoT content than grinding? And don’t come with the “Hurr Durr it’s MMO it must has grinden to b alyve!11!!!”… What this game needed was exciting content, a healthy flow of it, not locking players into farming metas.

To get the masteries you need to complete the HoT story, you never had to repeat a single event. Not one. Ever. You didn’t have to grind the meta. Do you know who did that? People who wanted to get it FAST. That’s it.

If you were smart enough to use food and a utility, a guild boost and a celebration booster, you could easily and I do mean easily, get through the HoT story all the way to the end, without ever repeating a single quest.

There are five major quest hubs in VB and during the day each of them has about 9 quests. In addition there are plenty of mastery points, since you only need a handful to get enough masteries to complete the story.

I had the masteries I needed to complete the story done by the second day of HoT and I wasn’t repeating anything. You must be using some new, strange definition of grinding I’d not previously been aware of.

Hell if you did some of the adventures along the way even if you only got bronze or silver on them, you’d be done with the masteries you needed to finish the HoT story.

If you wanted more stuff, it would take you longer, but there’s still relatively little repetition.

You know the world boss train has been in the game for ages, and people dont’ call that grinding, at least I’ve never heard it referred that way. What Anet gave you was more complex meta events that had many events leading up to them.

If you repeated the meta over and over again or killed spider,s well, you chose to grind then. It wasn’t necessary to get the basics. The rest of it could be gotten over time as you played.

As for the collections being grindy, they were ways to get ascended weapons for free. Not sure that the grind was so bad for an end game item that you had the option to craft anyway.

Edit: I too wish Anet luck with the new expansion. I suspect however, due to some very loud voices on the forums, Anet will make changes in a direction that I’m less happy with. I hope we’re not back to the days of pressing 1 to win.

Buran.3796:

Vayne.8563:

WvW has never been on “life support”. It certainly has less players than it did years ago, but that doesn’t equate to life support.

The two WvW guilds in which I’ve been on along four years (which peaked around ~40 and ~30 members, respectively) did entitely fade, so also fade ~3/4 of the ones I known. Hell, even 1/3 of the initial servers no longer exist.

Score is decided basically in absence: the first rated server if fighting against no one. My server (Gandara) is scoring this weekend 7,1k vs 4,7k vs 2,7k, which means that really there’s no one out there. “Life support” is truly an euphemism here. Same goes with PvP.

Most of the people which I made friendship in the game did leave BECAUSE HoT, and the next expansion looks alike to go in the same way. I known that those players WON’T return, so ANet should cross fingers to try to appeal as much new players as possibur, because the old, milked cow is dry.

Well that doesn’t mean WvW is on life support. It means your guilds and friends left. My guild is just as strong now as it was before HoT. And while it’s not a WvW guild there are people in the guild who focus on WvW much of the time and they have other WvW guilds.

There’s plenty of blobbing going on when I’ve been in there.

I’ve seen PvE guilds die too, but that doesnt’ mean PvE is dead Guilds die all the time.

Black Lion Chests are, and have always been, nothing more than a gamble. If you don’t like gambling don’t buy keys. Just use the ones you get from playing.

Doam.8305:

Agreed

Obviously people asking what is recycled are trying to derail because this entire topic will be taken down if the TC mentions the actual spoilers.

When the game launched the innovation was high and welll received the issues where that some basic features from the last game were absent. Basic things like templates and the overuse of the waypoint making things just as bad as flying in other games. Since the roads aren’t full of players but rather people warping around.

The redundancies in the leaks I’ve seen expressed before at other places are redundancies seen in different aspects of the game. Which have gotten worse with the introduction of the mastery system.

I don’t know I’ve seen a lot of leaks without redudancy. But it doesn’t matter because I don’t judge games before I’ve played them. Anyone saying the expansion is redundant is making assumptions.

Some of us prefer to actually see something before we judge.

If the story steps were truly impossible, no one would be in those zones. Not sure what story steps you think are so hard, but if your’e on a US server, I can help you get to those zones.

If your’e on a US server, hit me up in game. I can show you how to better survive the jungle.

DoctorDing.5890:

Ayrilana.1396:

The maps already have a lot of waypoints.

Actually, the new maps haven’t. There is a definite trend towards fewer waypoints. I have no idea why they would think this is a good idea.

Unless they were perhaps thinking of adding mounts.

Ceesa.1350:

Faaris.8013:

So how do I get to spawn the Icebrood Quaggan Champion? The event where the Svanir kidnap the little quaggan needs to fail, so it can become the champ, but people just play the game and do the event. Asking them to let the event fail doesn’t help, either they speak no English or they don’t give a kitten.

What am I supposed to do? Get online in the middle of the night, wait for the new episode to launch today so people are less likely to be in that zone? Is that how the designer envisioned this step in the HOPE quest?

I don’t get it really, and waiting for the event and then watching someone kill the few Svanir kidnappers in the last 10 seconds of the event is just enraging.

Here’s a tip Anet: don’t require events to fail to do a quest. It causes anger, trolling and a feeling of wasted time.

I’ve made HOPE and I understand your pain, especially with this event. I basically had to do it during off hours. When someone came by, I ran over to them and in Say Chat started spamming “Please STOP! I need this event to fail for an achievement!” Like, tons of spam. They have a better chance of seeing your speech bubble if your character is right on top of theirs.

Anyway, it took a few days of trying, but I eventually found a couple people who were willing to help me let the event fail and then help me kill the champ that spawned afterwards.

As to your other complaints in this thread, yes some of the achievements are hard to get (like killing the Vinetooth champ), but you’ve misread some or haven’t done enough research on how to get the collection done. Take your time and you can do it.

Why not just do the champ quaggans that spawn during Jormag? That’s what I did.

DoctorDing.5890:

If the latest LS3 episode is anything to go by then the future of the game is…… confused. Invisible updrafts, random teleports, waypoints that don’t show as waypoints and a right old mish-mash of skills on the map-specific skill bar. It’s like they used up all the floor sweepings in one go.

The random teleport thing is just a maze. They’re not actually random. There’s a pattern to them which to me makes for interesting play.

Shrines aren’t waypoints, they’re simply something new added to the game. Why include them? Because sometimes different is okay. It’s a currency sink. You get currency pretty kitten fast on that map.

There are different types of players. People like me, who play a LOT, love stuff like the new map, because it shakes things up. I even like updrafts that fade and reappear, because it adds not only challenging, but requires you to think on your feet. That’s enjoyable to me. Static updrafts , once you know how to get somewhere, are old hat already. It’s okay to shake stuff like that up in my opinion.

Guy in my guild is an older guy who likes flatter, less confusing maps. His favorite LS map is Lake Doric, which is my least favorite.

The big issue with the new map is latency/lag. Hopefully today’s update has fixed that.

JaddynnStarr.5201:

Sooo. Last I remember, we were told that this LS episode would be a lot larger as it was the finale… so it would take longer to make… and it did take longer… but 3 hours of content and done? Really?? the last patch has twice the content this place does and didn’t take as long. Anyone else feeling a bit swindled here?

I’d like to see a quote on that, because I don’t remember seeing that said.

kdaddy.5431:

IndigoSundown.5419:

It’s funny. ANet tried some really visionary things for an MMO closer to the start of the game. Things like no levels, easy acquisition of BiS stats, and a near-universal reward currency, with RNG playing little role beyond getting Precursors. The MMO fan base said no to all of that, either directly, or by taking actions which were bad for the health of the game.

As to the “recycled” comment. Yeah, what the heck do you mean by that?

I dont know how you can say that.

Literally its like 50/50 from the people i know.

Many of us loved the LW with the dungeons, World Events and so on. Like the destruction of kessex hills and LA were amazing.

Then you have the other 50% who said " look what i missed out on, thats not fair" and voiced complaints.

Anet probably saw the issue of time. They spend time to create events where people might or might not have time to play it. They have gone very traditional with how this MMO is.

I mean Guild halls are a grind, unlocking new specs are kind of a grind. I mean in GW1 you had to do story, events to unlock skills. Ok that made sense, HOT you really just pick a path to learn and gather XP.

Dont know how you could comment on health of the game from the LS differences. heck PvP and WvW have been on life support for the past 2 years.

WvW has never been on “life support”. It certainly has less players than it did years ago, but that doesn’t equate to life support.

More to the point, it doesn’t matter what 50% of the people anyone knows says, because it’s too small a sampling to be meaningful.

But saying this game has gone traditional when it had an expansion that neither raised the level cap or added a new tier of gear is a bit disingenuous.

Did they add raids? Sure they did. But the raids are still different from raids in most games I’ve played.

I’ve played a LOT of MMOs and this game isn’t anything like most of them…in my opinion anyway.

Actually for people with a lot of alt characters, that earring is worth more than any single piece of armor. If I get heavy armor I can only use it on one third of my characters, where I can use the earring on all my characters.

I agree with those who say what’s recycled. I’ve seen the same leaks as everyone else. I don’t see much recycling at all.

zealex.9410:

How is the main pve content not supposed to be replayable? If thats the case the the company has big problem.

Not sure instances are supposed to be the main content of the game. I was under the impression it was supposed to be the open world.

Edit: Evidence…the personal story isn’t repeatable…dynamic events, meta events and world bosses are.

HOPE is by far the hardest hot legendary I’ve attempted. I’ve made three of them so far. Nevermore was not nearly as hard as HOPE. If you want help with HOPE, hit me up in game. Happy to give you a hand.

Edit: That is if you’re on a US server.

There’s gathering, mini games (adventures), hell you can even play belcher’s bluff if you really want, it’s always available. Not to mention crafting. There’s plenty to do.

Edit: Fallen masks is my favorite mini game. I play it for more than an hour at a time.

Dragons are overdone in fantasy to the point of nausea. Before this game I played Rift, Dragon Age, Skyrim, honestly if I never faced another dragon, I’d be happy.

We went through all of Guild Wars 1 without a dragon ever being the big baddie (though arguably dragon minions were in Eye of the North). Nothing is less interesting to me than a dragon.

This is much easier with fewer people. Stay after the meta, do the east watch events. If you can’t get a group USE LFG and pop a tag. Spend as much time as you can explaining that people have to break the bar…but this is easier with three or four guildies than a big group of people. I’ve done this with four people more than once.

I’ve done it for three legendaries so far and never had a problem, most recently I made HOPE, which was just two weeks ago.

This is only a problem if you try to jump in at the last minute and get a group together. Stay in the zone, do the east watch achievements bring plenty of CC and this is doable. Last time I tried it took me two tries to get it done.

Djinn.9245:

Kiza.5630:

Faaris.8013:

So do the commanders’ actions have an impact on the problem or not? I don’t think so, it shouldn’t technically happen that squads are split up at this point.

In a way. Unless I misunderstood what you meant. I thought you meant the map reset. When the new map starts and everyone gathers at the entrance and waits patiently for the end of the world.

What I meant is that the commanders could help to improve the situation. Scenario: 2 full squads, 50 ppl each. Both comms end up on the same map at reset. In both squads ~20 ppl can’t join because the map is full. Now if one commander switches to another map, both can get their complete squad onto theirs instead of leaving many ppl stranded on a few empty maps. No more frustration. Or less at least.

I thought that was what you were referring to. I do it all the time and, apart from a few ppl who rage quit as soon as they see one “map is full”, it always works just fine. Remaining spots on both maps fill fast via lfg.

Wouldn’t it be great (and far more logical than the current situation) if the system automatically put one squad in one map and the other squad in the other? I honestly can’t imagine why Anet didn’t set it up this way in the first place.

Because the map has three lanes and most maps have 3 squads. Almost every map I’ve played has 3 commander tags on it, one for each lane.

Gratz on getting it. That was some clever thinking on your part.

Djinn.9245:

ProtoGunner.4953:

It takes 2-3 hours to complete an elite spec. What’s the problem?

LOL! Not by the average person who is just coming to HoT and doesn’t know the maps, doesn’t know the HPs, finds the mobs challenging, doesn’t have all the Masteries, etc.

Sure it’ll probably take that person 15-20 hours to learn the zones and get the points they need. But 15-20 hours while also leveling masteries, and getting XP and loot, some would call that playing the game.

Flowersunshine.7385:

Well, if the LW3 maps are in fact accessible without having played the story, that definitely changes things. I interpreted what the wiki called ‘unlocked’ meaning ‘played’, probably because I couldn’t get into Bitterfrost Frontier myself until I entered it as part of the story. If TP to friend does allow people to get into LW3 (while having the episode and HoT, but not having played any LW3 yet), then we can do those maps together.

The thing is, when you don’t have much time, taking the long way around isn’t great. The Golem HP on AB can’t be reached with just Updrafts and Bouncing Mushrooms, for example. (At least not according to the wiki.) I’ve been trying to find ways to put in effort on my side to find the right way to play together, but the frustration is already there with my guildies. Since I just enjoy messing around, I gather XP slowly, but for those who do not have time to mess around, the lack of progress at the end of the evening is frustrating. I’m not saying they expect to get a new mastery every three hours, but seeing the bar go from start to maybe a fifth in can be terribly frustrating if you know you the next time you play will be two weeks from now for the same amount of time, especially if you also want to things that don’t give you HoT XP.

However, some more of these tips are very useful. Like I said, I do it all slowly, so I don’t really noticed where the real XP is to be had that is fun to get too. I know about the HP, but moving around slowly on the map does make those less attractive, since they aren’t in very easy to reach places. If you don’t have the closest WP, it can take forever. The adventures are a good tip though (they tend to be close to WPs, and we should put some effort into getting those, like on any other map), so thanks all who suggested that!

I think it would be nice if gliding masteries took less XP. It’s not needed for crafting legendaries, but it does make HoT so much more enjoyable. It’s ironic: the grindiness is meant to make people play the maps more, but it’s only driving some people away. Now that I have finished most masteries (especially gliding), I enjoy my time on the HoT maps much more, so I’m more likely to be in AB, TD or DS. Constantly running into something you can’t do is not fun, IMO. Getting to ‘FINALLY’ use that leyline that I already knew was there for forever was far less exciting than discovering leylines for the first time in LW3 when I already knew I could use them.

Take the skill point as an example. Anyone can reach it as long as a mesmer ports them up. I’ve done it a number of times. It shouldn’t be that hard to find a mesmer that would help.

It’s no more worth it than any other gem store home instance item. It’ll take years to pay itself off. People don’t buy this for profit. If it actually made you a profit, it would be pay to win. People simply buy it for convenience.

It’s one stop shopping.

necromancin.2396:

Pino.5209:

http://oceanicgamer.com/2013/03/oceanic-players-lose-local-swtor-servers/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/warhammer-online-closing-63-servers

Last 2 games that i can remember that have local oceanic server.
24.6 millions population, a country associated with subpar broadband/internet and pathetic implementation of NBN.
Bottom line, not worth investing in. There aren’t many oceanic players around anymore these days to warrant a local dedicated server.
And any future mmorpg should not ever consider to open a dedicated server here too. It’s not worth while given the history and the size of the market.

Blizzard found it lucrative enough to set up servers in Sydney for WoW and Overwatch; I get 21ms from Brisbane. I agree our internet is extremely bad, even Mexico has better net than us.

If companies invested in setting up servers in Australia I believe they would see an influx of OCX/SEA coming to their games simply because the titles that were previously unplayable due to latency would be playable.

Blizzard set up servers like that when it had 12.4 million subscribers. This game never had more than 4 million players at one time and presumably it has a lot less than that now.

This game isn’t unplayable due to latency. Source: I’m playing the game since launch from Australia. Most days I’m down around 220ish ping now (it used to be worse).

Djinn.9245:

Westenev.5289:

No dice, OP. There are a vast excess of Hero Points in HOT. It’s just a matter of knowing which you can solo, which you can solo quickly and which ones don’t require combat.

Yes, you either try to play normally which means struggling to get to the HP only to find it’s a champion that kills you, or locked behind a Mastery and might also kill you, or you have to “study up” (leave the game) to figure out which ones you can do solo or with the odd person that might be along to help. Not a good system to me and will be even worse once the new expansion hits.

Westenev.5289:

If a hero point seems too hard, it probably is – just move on (or reroll full minion Axe/Focus necro – easiest elite spec unlock ever. Using this method, you can get reaper in level up gear…).

I actually enjoyed unlocking the elite spec when HOT launched, mainly because of the hype associated with “oh, I got a new skill! WHAT DOES IT DO?!” You have to take time to appreciate the small things – it’s okay to be a little impatient, but a big part about being casual is the journey, not the destination.

Unlocking the elite spec when HoT launched was easy because there were huge numbers of people in the maps…

Or you stay in game, trigger a hero point and get ready to run in case it’s a champ. I never EVER had to research a hero point to learn how to do it.

I triggered it and dodged away. If it looked like a champ and I was alone, I ran away.

If your guldies aren’t logging in for long enough to get three masteries that I got in a single day, there’s something wrong. Food stacks. Utilities stack. Guild bonus stacks. XP boosters stack. You could level the first masteries pretty kitten ed fast.

If people aren’t playing enough to do it, I’m not sure how much the game should change anyway.

I mean, it’s the same as if they were level 1. You could go back to an early area and play with them, in the same way you can play with them without using your own gliding and jumping mushroom, for the brief periods they’re even online.

In my opinion there’s no real issue here.

EdgarMTanaka.7291:

Why party?
Well because…

1. You will see your partymembers on the map.
2. You can do dungeons and fractals with you party, without a party it may be a bit tricky.
3. You can go sPvP together.
4. You can chat privately with only your party.
5. You can easily change map instance to your party member.
6. You can do story instances together, either help or se it for the first time together. You can also help out doing achievements together.
7. It is FUN.

Isn’t these reasons enough? In Gw2 experience is pretty much useless as the game begins at level 80 and it is far to easy to level up as it is.

On top of this, partying also prioritizes heals, buffs and condition removal. Your party gets priority over other people in the area.

Zehnchu.4985:

Vayne.8563:

Zehnchu.4985:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Vayne.8563:

Zehnchu.4985:

Vayne.8563:

I maxed out all the masteries in HOT just from doing HOT anyway before the living story stuff even came out.

I am sure a lot of people did too when it was still shinny, yet it still doesn’t dismiss the fact that it is a flawed system.

The majority of mastery points in HoT and base game are gained from achievements only, how many mastery points gained by Mastery insights 36.

That doesn’t make it flawed. Even mastery insights are an achievement. So 100% of the mastery points are based on achievements. They put enough easy stuff in there (strong boxes and insights) to get all the basic ones. If you’re decent at arcade type stuff there’s far more you can get easily.

and then even backed up from alot of mastery points being locked behind specific masteries [for example in verdant brink on launch you had quite a few mastery points locked behind itzel poison knowledge and nunoh lvl 4 mastery I think? – they have revamped most of them to be possible to complete with nothing more than basic gliding and bouncing mushrooms…. which were required to progress the storyline anyway]

PS. to that guy just below quoted post – mastery insights are achievements – they are listed in respective achievement tabs, and for all purposes and means are treated by a game engines as such – it ain’t rocket science really….

Since you can’t tell there is a difference one is an achievement for getting the MP while the others is grind achievement and play it their way to obtain MP, but that just for HoT. You also assume everyone who plays must not life and can 24/7 playing and that they have been playing every day.

And again i’ll they already have a reward system but now they have a reward for a reward for reward. And as some else also stated it screws people who liked getting shards because now every thing is locked behind locked masteries so once again it’s right back to leveling for nothing.

Yep it’s called progression. Needing some masteries to get other masteries is part of the progression, much like a puzzle for those who like to figure that stuff out.

For those who don’t there are guides.

Attachments are not progressions it’s kitten… Getting HP points is progressions.

Having to do one thing before doing another is almost the definition of progression. If nothing else you’re progressing through a sequence. No idea what you mean by attachments.

Zehnchu.4985:

Lord Trejgon.2809:

Vayne.8563:

Zehnchu.4985:

Vayne.8563:

I maxed out all the masteries in HOT just from doing HOT anyway before the living story stuff even came out.

I am sure a lot of people did too when it was still shinny, yet it still doesn’t dismiss the fact that it is a flawed system.

The majority of mastery points in HoT and base game are gained from achievements only, how many mastery points gained by Mastery insights 36.

That doesn’t make it flawed. Even mastery insights are an achievement. So 100% of the mastery points are based on achievements. They put enough easy stuff in there (strong boxes and insights) to get all the basic ones. If you’re decent at arcade type stuff there’s far more you can get easily.

and then even backed up from alot of mastery points being locked behind specific masteries [for example in verdant brink on launch you had quite a few mastery points locked behind itzel poison knowledge and nunoh lvl 4 mastery I think? – they have revamped most of them to be possible to complete with nothing more than basic gliding and bouncing mushrooms…. which were required to progress the storyline anyway]

PS. to that guy just below quoted post – mastery insights are achievements – they are listed in respective achievement tabs, and for all purposes and means are treated by a game engines as such – it ain’t rocket science really….

Since you can’t tell there is a difference one is an achievement for getting the MP while the others is grind achievement and play it their way to obtain MP, but that just for HoT. You also assume everyone who plays must not life and can 24/7 playing and that they have been playing every day.

And again i’ll they already have a reward system but now they have a reward for a reward for reward. And as some else also stated it screws people who liked getting shards because now every thing is locked behind locked masteries so once again it’s right back to leveling for nothing.

Yep it’s called progression. Needing some masteries to get other masteries is part of the progression, much like a puzzle for those who like to figure that stuff out.

For those who don’t there are guides.

kurfu.5623:

Vayne.8563:

I’m surprised so many people don’t see why this isn’t a shared option.
…

Because, as far as I know, all the other nodes can be shared, including the basic nodes that are also sold on the gem store.

Yes and because of that less basic nodes probably sold. Anet released something that most people don’t need to buy because they can farm other people’s. That practice is more widespread now than then, so they made a change that shouldn’t really surprise anyone.

I’m surprised so many people don’t see why this isn’t a shared option. It’s because one person could build a home instance for a guild (like I did) and let everyone just come into my home instance every day ( as I do) and gather everything without spending anything themselves. The cash shop, as a means of supporting the game, requires ways to make it so people can’t share the cost/burden of stuff.

Essentially if people want this they have to buy it. The game has been pretty generous with what you can share until now, but I can understand why they’d change the tactics.

Yes it’s unique. Rift, Skyrim, Dragon Age were all different because their dragons weren’t ELDER dragons. Seriously I’m so sick of dragons now, I wouldn’t care if I ever played another game with dragons.

Faaris.8013:

Djinn.9245:

Except you didn’t illuminate anything. You actually presented “I can do this differently from you!” but not anything about how which is actually the opposite of illuminating.

I’m still in the dark on how hero points come from WvW, no illumination at all ^^

I don’t care enough to google it though, if it was such a big thing, Brigand would have told us.

Guess I’ll enlighten you then.

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Proof_of_Heroics

You can buy HoT hero pointss with 10 proof of heroics at the Heroic’s Notary NPC in WvW, anywhere you spawn.

You get them from leveling in WvW but also from reward chests you get from pips. Basically if you just follow a commander around and get levels you’ll get proof of heroics.

Einlanzer.1627:

Vayne.8563:

Einlanzer.1627:

PyrateSilly.4710:

The problem with “hype” is most people start reading what other players are posting and getting caught up in what others are talking about without reading what the Devs posted. And in then they start getting conflicting or wrong information that they take to be true. And then they get upset that it’s not like what other players said or what they imagined what was said in between the lines of what the Devs said.

I was not disappointed in HoT. I read what the Devs said. I understood what they wrote PLUS I also understood that things may change anyway since “nothing survives first contact”

Actually, the problem with HoT is that it didn’t contain the amount of content people expect for an expansion from playing other MMOs. The fact that it took three years to come out AND was full priced AND was over-hyped by Anet just made the problem worse. I don’t think you can really put that on players.

See that’s the problem . I got exactly what I was expecting with hype due to what Anet said. They said it would be an expansion light on content and heavy on changes to the game mechanics. They went into excrutiating detail.

The real issue was less the hype and more then distance between the announcement and the launch.

Anet did promise some stuff that didn’t make it into the launch, and some stuff that’s even still coming out but that’s nothing to do with hype one way or another.

I’ve always known and have said for ages that HoT was a combination season pass and expansion. You can find me saying that even before HOT launched.

Those that argued it was just an expansion and didn’t include the upcoming LS 3 in it, well, I got the LS 3 for free, because I was here. And when you add that to HoT content it was a decent sized expansion in my opinion.

And again, I was saying this on these forums from the very beginning.

It’s ridiculous to try to blame players for HoT not meeting their expectations, and surely you know it.

HoT met my expectations. It’s ridiculous to say HoT didn’t meet expectations because it didn’t meet yours. Surely you know that.

Ashantara.8731:

Arden.7480:

TSo ANet still gives awful trailers.

I wouldn’t call them awful, just highly misleading. The trailers always promise grand adventure of epic proportions, but then the content just doesn’t deliver.

Hopefully, I will be proven wrong this time. At least we are returning to Orr, something I have been waiting for for years.

Content delivers for me. Maybe you’re expecting a movie or a bioware game. Since this game is almost 5 years old now, I’d have thought people would understand that this is a style of story tellling. It’s different from the style most people are used to, but it doesn’t make it bad story telling.

It would be bad in a book, it’s just fine for a game.

Einlanzer.1627:

PyrateSilly.4710:

The problem with “hype” is most people start reading what other players are posting and getting caught up in what others are talking about without reading what the Devs posted. And in then they start getting conflicting or wrong information that they take to be true. And then they get upset that it’s not like what other players said or what they imagined what was said in between the lines of what the Devs said.

I was not disappointed in HoT. I read what the Devs said. I understood what they wrote PLUS I also understood that things may change anyway since “nothing survives first contact”

Actually, the problem with HoT is that it didn’t contain the amount of content people expect for an expansion from playing other MMOs. The fact that it took three years to come out AND was full priced AND was over-hyped by Anet just made the problem worse. I don’t think you can really put that on players.

See that’s the problem . I got exactly what I was expecting with hype due to what Anet said. They said it would be an expansion light on content and heavy on changes to the game mechanics. They went into excrutiating detail.

The real issue was less the hype and more then distance between the announcement and the launch.

Anet did promise some stuff that didn’t make it into the launch, and some stuff that’s even still coming out but that’s nothing to do with hype one way or another.

I’ve always known and have said for ages that HoT was a combination season pass and expansion. You can find me saying that even before HOT launched.

Those that argued it was just an expansion and didn’t include the upcoming LS 3 in it, well, I got the LS 3 for free, because I was here. And when you add that to HoT content it was a decent sized expansion in my opinion.

And again, I was saying this on these forums from the very beginning.

Stephapanda.5804:

Vayne.8563:

fellyn.5083:

Vayne.8563:

People in small guilds seem to forget one thing. If everyone can do everything in a small guild, lots of people won’t join larger guilds which are far harder to run, and generally do far more for the community.

So I’ve invested tons of hours, gold even real life money in my guild. I have 200 people. Some are there from the start, but many aren’t. We always need to find new players.

Part of the reason new players come to a guild is that there are reason to come to a guild. By removing every reason to be in a larger guild, you’re encouraging people to make hundreds, thousands maybe of small guilds that are self serving and add very little to the community as a whole. Yes, it’s great you and your two friends can play together, but you can all play together without a guild as well. Hell you can join a bigger guild and STILL play together. Nothing stops anyone from doing this.

It’s already harder for large guilds to recruit. It’s a constant competitive battle with other guilds, some of whom are bigger than mine.

The point is, there needs to be some encouragement for people to join established guilds or at least, some encouragement to not just make single player guilds, because bigger guilds suffer.

Generally speaking you seem to approach most things in this game with a level head but I can’t believe this one. You’re basically saying because you have a big guild smaller guilds shouldn’t be able to exist because you invested your time and money into it.

Well I got news for you. I invested just as much of my time and money into my small guild but now I’m being told nope, you’re effort means nothing. Go join a big guild. Why do you deserve special treatment? Because you think you do more for the game?

Get over yourself. All your reasons for locking small guilds out of content are selfish and that entire post only serves to feed your ego.

There is not a single reason why small guilds should not be able to make their own guild hall.

Here’s the deal. I’ll care about bigger guilds and their suffering when bigger guilds care about how much more effort it requires to build up and grow a guild with few people.

Again. Get over yourself.

Not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying there has to be a balance. That is, there has to be a reason for large guilds to exist.

This game has been here for three years, and with the exception of WvW, ALL PvE content could be five manned, until guild missions started. The entire game pre guild missions was for five people. There was no real reason for a big guild to exist, other than to have a big guild. It was hard for big guilds to keep players because no one needed a guild.

To a degree, more people started joining the guild when guild missions came about. Why? Because suddenly there was a reason to join guilds.

I’m not saying that small guilds shouldn’texist at all, and no where will you ever find me saying that.

What I am saying is there is a threshold. WIthout a threshold, there are going to be a lot less bigger guilds and bigger guilds do do things for the community. You may not believe it, but it’s true.

Why did EVOS form to take down the great jungle wurm. Because it was one of the few ways that people could take it down. They needed a TTS or Evos, because that specific event is hell to pug.

A guild hall is a selling point for a guild. And Anet isn’t saying you can have one. They’re saying it will take a very very long time to get one if you do it alone.

Their job is to find the right balance between something you can solo and something that encourages people to play together. That’s something they’ve pretty much said themselves.

On the original FAQ (no idea where to find it now), there was the question can Guild Wars 2 be soloed. The answer was that you can get to max level solo, but by the same token we believe there are certain challenges that should require the community to come together. Guild Halls simply seem to be that type of content. Content made for guilds.

No one is saying that a smaller guild can’t have one. But a smaller guild should have a harder time getting on.

The other option would have been to design some scaled down guild hall for small guilds without all the bells and whistles, which would take developer time. I’m not sure they have the extra time to make that content.

I’m very level headed about this. When you’ve run a guild the size of mine for 2 years, you understand the problems big guilds face. And they’re just as important to us as the problem small guilds face.

We’ve gone through years of trying to keep our bigger guilds going, without a ton of support from Anet. It’s not unreasonable that something should exist for us, as well as for smaller guilds.

Remember 90 plus percent of the game is for smaller guilds.

Can you please enlighten me as to what your guild/other large guilds do “for the community”? It seems that you’re implying that small guilds are worthless because they don’t do things “for the community”, and yet you don’t provide any specific information on what exactly this means.

I did provide specific information, using TTS and Evos as an example. They run regular runs of Triple Trouble, which people need for mastery points. SANDS runs regular runs of Dry Top often getting to T6. Big guilds have the numbers to run big events.

If you think TTS or Evos or SANDS isn’t doing something for the community I’m not sure what to tell you.

sorudo.9054:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Vayne.8563:

your choices do have in game consequences.

sorudo.9054:

i have yet to see any such consequences and i have plenty of characters, absolutely nothing really changes and i end up with just the same.

Take another look then. Your choices decide which allies you have with you at the end, for example.

i have taken 15 other looks, looking at it many times doesn’t change it.

If in the last instance I run into skritt instead of ogres, then it’s different. It’s almost exactly the same as the example you yourself gave.

I’ve done the personal story 17 times. I’ve seen multiple permutations of it, similar to the examples you give. I’m guessing you’re just not paying attention.

There won’t be a new profession with the expansion. Anet said so a while back, and there’s no reason not to believe them in this.

The options are make the game so easy and fast that I’m too bored to play it, or make it more challenging an annoy casual players who feel any level of difficulty is too hard for them.

You can learn to play better and get hero points in HoT. On the other hand I can’t learn to enjoy something simpler and more boring.

Hero points in the original game were nothing more than marks on the map that gave me something to do, in almost every case. There was no challenge. There was no point to them at all, except to make me stop for a minute or so. Definitely not my idea of engaging gameplay.

If you want an elite spec, you should prepare yourself to do some elite content.

Or you can WvW, follow a commander around and unlock hero points without ever stepping into a hot zone.

But at the end of the day, all any MMO really is is a list of stuff to do. If those hero points were just given to me for walking up to them, I’d have had nothing to do much sooner.

They’re fine the way they are.

Einlanzer.1627:

zealex.9410:

No we need hype. I dont like that the game is a waste land for 3 months after each update because no news. Sure overhypimg is bad but no hyping or communicating is just as bad.

This. Hype requires a happy medium. Anet seems to have trouble finding it.

There really isn’t a happy medium though. If you hype something enough to get people who don’t play the game to check the game out, it’s overhyped for us.

If you hype something the right level for us, people outside the game will never see it or be tempted if they do.

You can’t really hit both markets without disappointing someone.

Zephyron.7081:

Braham is horrible! Lines and acting are atrocious! Just kill off the character and start again! Let’s grow up and have this fantasy be more like Game of Thrones than Mickey Mouse.

If this was game of thrones, your character would be dead already. lol

sorudo.9054:

RabbitUp.8294:

sorudo.9054:

RabbitUp.8294:

sorudo.9054:

RabbitUp.8294:

If you mean the launch-era trailers, they have nothing to do with “Living World”. The personal story is indeed affected by your choices, the ones you make at character creation and your choice of order.

yet in the end nothing affects the story, ether way the story barely to not changes whatever you choose.
i finally hat the time to get trough the 1:30 last mission (kill zaithan) and there was nothing to be found of my choices.

It affects the progression of the history, not the ending.

Expecting a personalised ending in an MMO where everyone shares the same story is quite delusional.

the personal story is instanced, there is nothing shared about that.
try again please but this time research a bit more.

You miss the point. Sharing the story doesn’t mean you play it in the same instance as someone else.

It means that all players get to kill Zhaitain in the end. The next season starts with the prerequisite that you did in a specific manner (you united all races and Orders into a single entity, the Pact, and you marched to Orr).

It can’t work if the story would start branching out. If your choices affected the final outcome of the story, there wouldn’t be a common thread for the next stories to follow.

Like, what if you chose to kill Trehearne or not? What if you could save Eir? How does S3 then? Are they alive or dead?

what if i choose to ask the skritt to lay traps for zaithan, damaging him allot faster, or what if i found a centaur camp that wants to help take on mordrem from above the cliffs so his air advantage is turned against him.
they are all choices i make, all which are in an instance and doesn’t affect anyone.

a branching story doesn’t have to end completely different but i expect at least something that affects the way the outcome reacts, right now all the choices i made throughout the PS are pretty much like the ending of mass effect 3 but with just 1 choice.

Actually then it is a living world. Depending on which creature you choose to study for your order, a different creature ends up in the living story at the end. Other choices you make affect what living story chapters you get, for example, your conversation with the pale tree about your greatest fear.

Therefore your choices do have in game consequences.

FrostDraco.8306:

draxynnic.3719:

Personally, though, I blame ArenaNet for putting hero points that are balanced for groups on maps that have a meta that requires most of the population to participate in to succeed. Tangled Depths seems particularly toxic in this regard – which is probably a function of the meta providing very little reward for a failed attempt while being one of the hardest metas in HoT. If the hero points had been on maps that were more like the Living Season maps that do not have such demanding metas, there wouldn’t be a problem. If the hero points were soloable (or at least, soloable after the meta had progressed far enough) then there also wouldn’t be a problem: Dragon’s Stand is a good example of this. Maps with an ‘all hands on deck’ style meta probably should just have soloable hero points on them, while group hero points should probably be kept on maps which do not have such demanding meta-events, where a bunch of people running around hitting all the hero points in turn will not interfere with the meta.

I agree with everything you said up to this point. Most of the HoT hero points are easily soloable and have very few mechanics that outright kill you. Some do a lot more damage, and those you need at most 2 people (I find the bat guano in VB requires normally 3 to out damage the healing), if you can’t solo.

The ones in DS are a bit of a mixed bag. 4 of them require the meta to be finish or near finished, but the other ones are completely soloable as they are channels. Which can be done on an empty map.

Bat guano is all about breaking the bar and avoiding the life stealing attack. If you can do that, you’re golden. Two people is plenty.

Amaimon.7823:

RabbitUp.8294:

I cringe every time I see someone suggesting Braham and the Norn should be the focus of the season finale. It’s easily the least important part of the story. Who cares if they fight Jormag anyway, they are only going to get themselves killed.

Because three three reasons, and yes, we all hate Braham

1, he has magical arrows believed to able to kill the Serpent now.
2, Taimi believes killing another Dragon can be catastrophically catalytic
3, Jormag is most likely knocked out at the moment

As a result, Braham is currently one of the biggest threats in the world because he still thinks with his unchanged diaper

Not really sure why anyone thinks Braham, magic spear and all, is a bigger threat to an elder dragon than the God of War though. I don’t look at those two guys and think Braham is the bigger problem.

I think Balthazar is a much bigger problem.

Behellagh.1468:

ANet was founded in Seattle in 2000 before they were bought by NCSOFT in 2002.

Yep but Guild Wars 1 wasn’t actually released till 2005. For the entire life of the game as players knew it, was owned by NcSoft.

My best guess is that the six guys working in someone’s living room (yes, that’s what has been said) needed more money to fund the game moving forward, which is why they made the deal with NcSoft.