Guild Wars 2

Celtic Lady.3729:

Tiger Ashante.1792:

- Modrem Mouth boss event is awesome, but the mechanics of that map is shocking. As if what i’ve already said wasn’t bad enough, to have all the waypoints contested at all times, makes the navigation even more horrible. But wait, there’s more. Every 2 hours (if you’re lucky to get in there at the reset of the map) you’re unceremoniously killed off and sent right back to the beginning of the map. I’ve lost count how often it took me those 2 hours just to get to the bottom of the map and b4 i could get to that HP, or vista i’ve been trying to get for days, only to be killed off and sent back to the beginning. I’ve never seen anything so ludicrous in my life. I eventually got into a habit of just logging out prior to being killed off and when i return, i’m usually in an empty map, at which point i quit the game in frustration.

DS can get really frustrating. I’m trying to get map complete on my 2nd character, but I’ve hit a snag on getting into maps where the event succeeds. It’s annoying if you spend significant time waiting for/checking LFG/map hopping to get into a populated enough map AND one with enough time on the clock to complete it, and then it fails, and you have to start the process all over again.

I’m a bit confused. Why do you need the event to succeed on DS to get map complete?

You can be a casual player and not be a bad player. I’ve heard very few complaints about the personal story difficulty (and this community isn’t shy about complaining).

I’d be happy to help you out if you like. Let me know.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Sad isn’t it that one of the maps we were offered out of four is in essence a one-and-done map. Seems to me to be a huge waste of dev time to have the average player just go there for the event once and maybe map completion if they are masochists.

Actually if you check out the thread about the poll about zones, there are quite a few people who really like TD.

Yes, some people don’t but that doesn’t negate the people who enjoy it. There have always been maps in games that people ignore because they don’t like them or find them too hard. But then there are always people who like those maps the best.

Exotic weapons and trinkets are far easier and cheaper to get than armor. Armor gives you the smallest amount of stats, compared to everything else, though.

So if you can’t get a full set of armor (and you know, if you farm and take your time, anyone can do it), you can still have half your gear ascended without worrying about the armor.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Vayne.8563:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Probably still in the honeymoon phase.

After playing a bit more and realizing how little there actually is, you might feel different.

Sorry.

And they might not, sorry.

Saying someone might eventually feel something because you feel it is a pointless exercise. I’m pretty sure I won’t feel it.

That’s OK. For some white knights ANet could sell an expansion with absolutely nothing in it for $100 and they would still defend an love it.

For each their own.

This is offensive. You’re implying that the game can’t be liked, because you don’t personally like it. But I’m not the only person who likes it. The OP clearly likes it. I have many people, not a few, but many in my guild who like it quite a bit.

So trying to play it off that no one could possibly like it except for a white knight is essentially putting your opinion above theirs.

I respect the fact that you’re not enjoying it. But that doesn’t mean that people who aren’t enjoying it are white knights, or that their opinion is worth any less.

There should be a purple star near the start of the map. You talk to Agent Zrii who takes you behind enemy lines which should get you to the lobby for the last mission. It’s in it’s own zone.

Azure Prower.8701:

There is nothing immersive about this game. Or does staring at countless still-picture loading screens over excite your immersive meter?

The only thing you keep you busy for months and months to come is artificially inflated grind. Not fun content.

There’s nothing immersive about the game to you. To me the new zones are completely immersive. I can lose myself in one of those zones for literally hours, without ever seeing a load screen, unless I decide to waypoint somewhere in the same zone.

I find the new zones very much immersive. When I’m doing that long chain in DS, the very length of the chain makes it feel immersive to me. I’m really feeling like I’m fighting an a pitched battle.

You may not feel it but immersion is very much a matter of personal taste and opinion.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Probably still in the honeymoon phase.

After playing a bit more and realizing how little there actually is, you might feel different.

Sorry.

And they might not, sorry.

Saying someone might eventually feel something because you feel it is a pointless exercise. I’m pretty sure I won’t feel it.

Nuhock Lore unlocks as soon as you enter the third zone, Tangled Depths.

Celtic Lady.3729:

tluv.5821:

Celtus.8456:

My theory is that most people don’t really enjoy playing the new maps, but they need to do so in order to level the masteries and experience any sense of progression in the game they just paid $50 for.

Your theory is flawed, as most people in my guild enjoy the new maps.

But that’s just one guild.

Two guilds then because most people in my guild, and it’s a casual guild, are enjoying the new maps as well. With one or two notable exceptions we have a guild full of casuals who have fun playing the new maps.

And I promise you we can’t be the only two guilds enjoying it.

Ashern.5328:

I don’t quite understand why people are counting the “size” and “content” of HoT compared to EoTN. In order to truly compare Eye of the North to Heart of Thorns, you have to look at a couple of things.

I would start by comparing the base games first and foremost. From Guild Wars 1 to Guild Wars Eye of the North, there was only a 3 year gap of release. More content may or may not have been added after the release of EoTN, but ultimately, the 3 years are where the bulk of content was provided.

When you say “HoT adds more content than EoTN,” you must also look at and compare how much content was already released in the Guild Wars 1 universe before EoTN came out compared to Guild Wars 2 and HoT.

Of Course GW2 is going to be much larger in scale, it’s a newer game. Times have changed and of course things will go from simple to more extravagant as games progress. With that said, you must ultimately compare GW1 to GW2. GW1 is a complete series of games with multiple “base games,” featuring multiple distinct storylines about various different ethnicities (which is one thing that made me play the game).

Guild Wars 2 only has 1 main story. It has released Living World content, but that’s also only 1 story. It may have taken this long to get to Mordremoth, but it’s still only one story. Heart of Thorns is that same story as was presented in Guild Wars 2 base, so there’s technically no new storyline within HoT, only a continuation.

HoT has new content, of course, what new release doesn’t. EoTN has mini games, HoT has minigames. EoTN introduced dungeons, HoT introduced raids. Compare if you will, it doesn’t change anything. Stop looking at how “big” something is in “scale” because that is nowhere near a direct comparison in the slightest.

Something I loved about EoTN is that within those new regions that were added, there were multiple maps (maybe only about 4-5 in each region), but they were new places to explore. Within HoT, multiple sub-levels of the same map isn’t something new to explore, it’s only a very large map.

So continue quoting numbers of useless comparisons; “eotn added 150 skills,” and “revenant has more skills than EoTn entirely.” Really? I’ve never heard anything more idiotic in my life. Since GW2 started, how many new skills were released? Now when Guild Wars 1 Started, how many new skills were released? A whole giant set of them with each new campaign, and cherry-on-top skills within EoTN; so yes, Revenant has more skills than an entire GW1 Expansion; and look at how long it’s taken that class with so many skills to come out?

Explore? What is this explore you talk about. There was far less to explore in Guild Wars 1 because everything was pathed. In my opinion, Those flat maps in Guild Wars 1 gave very little room for “exploration”. There may have been a few hidden things on each map but they were very few. And getting to them was easy because mostly everything was pathed. Actually EoTN was less pathed than most of the game that preceded it, but exploration in Guild Wars 1 was far more limited.

There was nothing in Guild Wars 1 that you’d explore and find a jumping puzzle. There were very few areas like the hidden Copse in Pre. You may equate walking around with exploring, but I don’t.

Exploring to me also means finding an event or quest you haven’t done before, and that almost never happened in Guild Wars 1. The complexity of those maps meant you played each one for a couple of hours and you saw everything on the map. There were far fewer caves, far fewer nooks and crannies. Far fewer hidden things to discover.

Far fewer ways to get lose yourself.

I can lose myself for far longer in the canopy over Verdent brink along, than in any area of EotN. Maybe you and I have different memories of it, but I’ve been back their recently and I don’t see this exploring people are talking about.

There were definitely a couple of maps in Guild Wars 1 that did better than others in that regard, but for each of those complex maps, there were maps like the ones in Diessa which were essentially linear mazes you had to walk through to get to the next gate.

The complexity wasn’t in exploring. It was in figuring out which log you could get around.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Hey Vayne,

actually I was just joking around. I got all my pets in the first week. Funny thing is, I even got my electric wyvern with just basic gliding and got an achievement for advanced gliding to the area (thought that was funny).

Look, I understand where you are coming from. When HoT went live, I told my wife that the expansion might be to difficult for her to enjoy. Nontheless we bought two copies, as she asked me to teach her to get better at stuff. She is what I would call an extreme casual, playing maybe 2 to 4 hours a week.

She made great progress. She created her own, more defensive build (before that, I managed her traits), she learnt how to read tells and when to dodge. We are now working on utility skill functionality – and what to equip in what situation (like stun breaks).

Next will be combo fields and finishers, which will be great fun.

So long story short, she got a lot better at the game. She sort of got more invested.

This won’t solve the problem that the game is on timers though. While she got better, she still misses out most of the stuff, because she does not have the time to do the metas.

Before HoT we went to Tequatl once in a while (she got an ascended box on her first successful try, yay RNG), did some stuff here and there and it was all great fun.

Now you have to find a map, do events to get participation high enough for whatever reason, be lucky with the players on the map etc. And her masteries will take years to complete (probably will never happen).

The game is more punishing than ever before, and I am not talking about the difficulty here. That is what I got a problem with. Not because of me, as I really think the game is still super easy and I got a bit more time to play, but for all the people that wanted a casual experience and got kicked in the teeth. They might get better in the game, but they are excluded more from the content than ever before.

That’s sad.

Well, unfortunately the timer has upsides and downsides. Without timers, you had to just guess when stuff was up. It’s like that with temple events in Orr now and I find that far more frustrating than timers. Timers give you certainty. No timers give you no certainty.

Anet can’t make a game for everyone. If someone can only play very limited hours, it’s entirely possible that they wouldn’t get an event they need anyway. This way people with time can get stuff with some reliability.

One thing now is that Fractals are very very fast. My wife and I two man some low level fractals sometimes, just for a change of pace. When the rewards increase in December it might be something you guys can do together.

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Swift.1930:

kuritsutian.2987:

Swift.1930:

Too true! In Maguuma, it’s I swung my sword, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, come on… still not dead?

Followed by wait… I was full health and I dodged! How’d that Axemaster insta-down me?

lol that’s cause you’ve been doing nothing but swinging the sword, kinda need defensive skills sometimes :P

Well… if it’s the axemaster you’re talking about, I’ve tried jumping, dodging, blocking, gliding, reflecting… haven’t gone online in search of a way to stop being downed yet (because there has to be some way to figure it out in-game), but seriously… I don’t understand this mechanic. If he dropped us to 1 hp, I’d be able to cope. I built up my stacks and I guarded them jealously until he cheated…

Break his breakbar before he stealths. Then he can’t use that attack. It does require coordination. It helps if some people can see invisible foes too.

The weird thing to me is that it’s random; there’s no clear indication (that I know of) of why he chooses who he chooses, or why he can 1-shot a massive Norn guardian tank with ascended gear.

It’s not really random. He targets pretty much everyone. It’s a killing shot. The mechanic is to prevent him from doing it at all.

Oh? Because I’ve been in groups where ~10 are targeted and the rest revived us when we dropped. Revived one of my friends a couple of times from it as well.

I"m guessing he targets a large AOE and some people just happen to be outside of it. But the target is still just everyone in it. It doesn’t matter how tank you are. If you’re in that target area, you’re going to go down.

And you can stop the attack by breaking the bar. The idea is for that never to happen. That’s the mechanic.

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Swift.1930:

kuritsutian.2987:

Swift.1930:

Too true! In Maguuma, it’s I swung my sword, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, come on… still not dead?

Followed by wait… I was full health and I dodged! How’d that Axemaster insta-down me?

lol that’s cause you’ve been doing nothing but swinging the sword, kinda need defensive skills sometimes :P

Well… if it’s the axemaster you’re talking about, I’ve tried jumping, dodging, blocking, gliding, reflecting… haven’t gone online in search of a way to stop being downed yet (because there has to be some way to figure it out in-game), but seriously… I don’t understand this mechanic. If he dropped us to 1 hp, I’d be able to cope. I built up my stacks and I guarded them jealously until he cheated…

Break his breakbar before he stealths. Then he can’t use that attack. It does require coordination. It helps if some people can see invisible foes too.

The weird thing to me is that it’s random; there’s no clear indication (that I know of) of why he chooses who he chooses, or why he can 1-shot a massive Norn guardian tank with ascended gear.

It’s not really random. He targets pretty much everyone. It’s a killing shot. The mechanic is to prevent him from doing it at all.

A manifesto is a statement of intent, not a guarantee of delivery. Anet tried to make a completely cosmetic end game with no grind and found it didn’t hold people in the game. They changed to add ascended gear, still my least favorite update.

On the other hand, the grind is mostly optional. There are two areas of hard end game content you have to work towards. Those are for people who want to grind. It’s a compromise. It happens.

Swift.1930:

kuritsutian.2987:

Swift.1930:

Too true! In Maguuma, it’s I swung my sword, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, I swung my sword again, come on… still not dead?

Followed by wait… I was full health and I dodged! How’d that Axemaster insta-down me?

lol that’s cause you’ve been doing nothing but swinging the sword, kinda need defensive skills sometimes :P

Well… if it’s the axemaster you’re talking about, I’ve tried jumping, dodging, blocking, gliding, reflecting… haven’t gone online in search of a way to stop being downed yet (because there has to be some way to figure it out in-game), but seriously… I don’t understand this mechanic. If he dropped us to 1 hp, I’d be able to cope. I built up my stacks and I guarded them jealously until he cheated…

Break his breakbar before he stealths. Then he can’t use that attack. It does require coordination. It helps if some people can see invisible foes too.

Josh XT.6053:

Are we even reading the same forum? It isn’t 5 people making a thousand threads across this forum, there are hundreds of people making threads about their problems with the expansion.

You’re obviously not reading the same forum. I see dozens of people with different complaints, not the same complaints. The biggest complaint was right after launch when Anet made an adjustment to the number of elite specialization points you need. Then there is was the complaints about the worst gating in the story and that was fixed. Then there were some hero points that got altered.

Oddy I saw people complaining about the hero points and I saw other people complaining about the change nerfing those hero points. This is NOT a community that speaks with one voice. I’ve seen people complaining about grind and I’ve seen people saying they want that progression and think it’s okay…and a split of about 50/50. This is hardly a runaway issue.

Of course there are people complaining LOUDLY because they’re aggrieved, but that doesn’t make thousands of people.

I don’t think you’re paying as much attention as you think you are.

Josh XT.6053:

Oh and please tell me more about how I am the only person who feels this way about this expansion that I spent my hard earned dollars on. Go look around the forum, there are thousands of posts like mine.

There are thousands of posts but a lot of that is five people posting in every thread. There aren’t thousands of different people complaining. And it’s still a tiny percentage of the over all player base.

No one is saying you’re wrong for feeling bad about your purchase. That’s your prerogative. But saying that you deserve a response without directly contacting the company is a bit rich, that’s all.

This isn’t a way to contact the company, it’s a way to communicate with fellow players. Anet certainly has people reading this, but then you run into the issue of this.

I don’t like the game because XYZ.

Now a representative who’s not a dev talks to you. Sorry you don’t like the game. I’ll bring your issue to the attention of the devs. That’s all they can really say. It still comes down to that.

The bottom line is, people want validation, which is perfectly normal. But posting to a forum doesn’t get you a response and even if you got one it would be meaningless. It would be lip service and nothing more…unless it came from a dev.

Josh XT.6053:

Doesn’t have to be a “dev”, but a representative of the company at least. Customer service is a requirement of any company that has customers. If I buy something from Amazon and I’m mad about it, I tell them and they reply to me and try to rectify the situation.

What makes this company different? I pay for a product, I expect said product to be supported by some form of customer service and there is none to be found.

If you post to a forum, you won’t get a reply. If you send a letter to the company I’m sure you’d likely get a reply. Posting to forums for most companies doesn’t guarantee anyone a reply.

There’s a difference between contacting a representative of the company and posting on a forums. A very big difference.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

That’s awful nice of you to offer to help others learn the area Vayne. I haven’t seen any takers yet but if you need a co-helper and I’m on, contact me in game. I’m not great at the game, but at least I don’t die too often. ^^

(My Rev’s name is Smallmedium Atlarge)

Will do. I’ve always said it’s better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness. It’s time I put my money where my mouth is.

There aren’t enough zones to gradually ramp up really. The one thing Anet did do was take the earliest hero point you can get once you have gliding and change the champ to a veteran. They also changed some of the champ points to communes and got rid of the champ. It’s not much but it’s something.

On the other hand, half the battle is knowing where you are and where you’re going. Because it’s hard to fight if you don’t have a destination to get to. It just feels like you’re reading water with nothing to do.

Again, I’m always happy to help people. All they have to do is let me.

Quarktastic.1027:

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Sure – show me how to solo my way to the electric wyvern and tiger pet.

Thanks.

Dragon’s stand is nothing but a zergfest. Literally the only coordination required is splitting the zerg during the blighting pod phase. Join a populated map, pick a lane, and zerg your way to victory.

I farm the DS meta for mastery exp.

I think he’s referring more to the mastery requirement. Fortunately it can easily be bypassed by a mesmer.

The only instance I’ve actually encountered this in, is the first instance in HoT where I got stuck in the Silverwastes before entering Verdant Brink.

How I got out of it was to zoom the map out until I saw the waypoint at Camp Resolve. I waypointed to Camp Resolve. Then I was out of the instance and I ran back through the Silverwastes to get to a gate.

Also, though I haven’t tested this, you might be able to join a guild and get to a guild hall by porting there, then just walk out the gate.

Freygea.3620:

I am posting here to bookmark this . I am only level 46 so am not ready for HOT but would very much appreciate the help if you are still available when I do reach that area.

Very nice of you to help others.

If you need help prior to HoT with something, or have questions, feel free to whisper me in game. Lots of people do.

Okay I’m going to weigh back in here, because I’ve reconsidered my earlier position. I still believe that bigger guilds need some sort of advantage for being larger, because they’re much harder to run and often provide more service to the player base than smaller guilds.

By the same token I don’t believe any guild should have had functionality that they paid for removed, and I do believe there should be smaller guild halls that smaller guilds can work towards.

I hope Anet makes something happen for you guys.

I don’t care if people rep my guild or they don’t. People who aren’t repping can see guild chat and that’s all I care about. We have enough chatty people to keep guild chat going at least some of the time.

However, since most of the major players are in mumble, guild chat is largely irrelevant, as is repping. We’re busy talking every day. Who cares if we’re repping while we do that?

kuritsutian.2987:

DoctorDing.5890:

Vayne’s offer is a good one.

I suspect many folks first HoT experience was like mine. You go in there on your own, following the story which quickly abandons you with “earn gliding to continue”. So you need XP but struggle to find much, because the first mobs you meet are way too strong and because you can’t find your way round the map to unlock stuff, not to mention the many different ways to die by falling off stuff. Then an event starts so you start following a random player, only for him to bounce out of sight on a mushroom you can’t use yet. Somewhere else a player jumps off a ledge and glides out of your reach. All very exciting but not earning you any XP. Then you find some plants you can’t use and some stuff you can’t open and then, just when you are feeling really useless, you get mullered by a midget dressed in a mushroom outfit. And no-one rezzes you. Welcome to HoT, have a nice day hehe.

I suspect there might be quite a few players yet to earn enough HoT XP for that first gliding ability.

I would try to help them how to get the first “doable” mastery point… by burning branches… there’s an easy way and is to go top right away to a “secret” location … but yeah, sadly most of the time is unavailable due to meta events

Actually that’s not how I’d help them. You get your first mastery point from doing the intro story. Then you can finish leveling that to get the gliding. I help them by showing them the creatures they’ll face and how to beat them. Two easy examples (there are others).

Smokescales are hard for some players. They keep missing them forever, because they’re trying to fight them in the blinding smoke field. By moving out of the field, you can hit the smokescale and kill it. In fact, they’re very easy to kill, because they’re essentially glass canons.

Modrem snipers are similar in that they die very quickly. The problem is they also do a lot of damage. However, their most devestating attack puts a target over your head. As soon as you see that target, start moving sideways. They shoot a straight line at where you are, but if you’re moving sideways you’re not there by the time the shot hits you.

Stuff like that is how you teach people how to survive.

Once they have gliding unlocked they can do more story which gives them more mastery points. In fact, just by doing story you have enough mastery points to progress through the story.

The real issue for a lot of people is simply surviving. Understanding how the outposts work. Understanding the day/night cycle. Understanding the 3d structure of the jungle. Learning how to upgrade outposts.

And learning relatively efficient ways to level those early masteries quickly to make it easier to get around and survive.

Sicarius.4639:

warbignime.4610:

2)WVW is not empty, it’s simply because alot of players are still enjoying the pve content as well that new borderlands are so huge that it still feels empty even the server reached player cap.

That’s weird, where have all my queues gone then? Used to find every borderland queued most days / nights, now you’ll barely have to wait 10mins for EB on reset. It’s dead.

WvW is indeed in a bad state right now. Anet knows and has admitted this. It’s taking them longer to fix the issues than intended, but a fix is in the works. Whether that fix ultimately satisfies everyone is yet to be seen, but I suspect, as always, some people will like it and some people won’t. In case it’s not obvious we do have a divided player base.

Kraggy.4169:

Vayne.8563:

Josh XT.6053:

Yeah I mean, reading is really hard I guess since I did say I’m not qutting lol. Just annoyed, and I have no stuff to give even if I was quitting. All my stuff is account bound, my 10 full ascended sets about 30 ascended weapons and 2 legendaries between 15 level 80 characters.. Which is the real reason I’m not quitting, I have a bit too much time and money invested and I feel that as a good customer, I should be taken care of as such. My opinion should be heard and I think I at least deserve a response if nothing else.

There are tens of thousands of good customers. Should Anet answer them all? What kind of response do you deserve?

What should they say to you?

I’ve probably spent more money than most on this game and I don’t think I’m entitled to a dev response when I’m unhappy.

Given the large number of players posting very reasonable criticisms about HOT then yes, I think they (we) do deserve some kind of response from Anet, if only to explain why they took a game many loved (GW2) and turned into something very different (GW3).

But they’re not all posting the same complaint. There are several complaints I’ve seen and not all of are the same.

A handful of people have posted HoT is too hard. More people have probably posted about grinding. Less people have posted about mini games and jumping puzzles.

I don’t know that there’s been more than 100 posts on any one point or at least, not 100 posts by 100 different people about any one thing.

If 500,000 people are playing the game and 100 have posted complaints, I’m not so sure that there’s as big an issue as you say. There might be, but there might not be too.

Keep in mind I run a casual guild and have none of these complaints in my guild (but I do have some others that don’t appear here).

And I have a few complaints of my own.

But unless there are thousands of people all saying the same thing, and I haven’t seen that, then I’m not sure why you think they deseve a response.

Let’s also keep in mind that people who complained about Fractal rewards recieved a response and people who complained about WvW rewards have been acknowledged and are awaiting further response.

Let’s also not for get that people who complained about 400 hero points to get their elite specialization unlocked have not only received a response, but the game has been altered for them.

Some early hero points have been changed to veterans from champs or communes.

And let’s not forget some of the gating complained about has been removed from the personal story.

People are acting like Anet has done and said nothing to all complaints. This is demonstrably untrue.

Josh XT.6053:

Yeah I mean, reading is really hard I guess since I did say I’m not qutting lol. Just annoyed, and I have no stuff to give even if I was quitting. All my stuff is account bound, my 10 full ascended sets about 30 ascended weapons and 2 legendaries between 15 level 80 characters.. Which is the real reason I’m not quitting, I have a bit too much time and money invested and I feel that as a good customer, I should be taken care of as such. My opinion should be heard and I think I at least deserve a response if nothing else.

There are tens of thousands of good customers. Should Anet answer them all? What kind of response do you deserve?

What should they say to you?

I’ve probably spent more money than most on this game and I don’t think I’m entitled to a dev response when I’m unhappy.

kuritsutian.2987:

That’s a nice offer, a guildie did it for me and kinda went beyond duty by taking me to all HP points ….we end up going all the way to Dragon Stands and fighting the big lizard :o …. had fun and didn’t feel hard at all… your offer is more like “I will teach you how to play, right?” .. wish I had had that one… took me a bit to realize about the tiers things and day time/ night time … how to reach the bosses (canopy) etc… …it’s easy if you watch videos and guides … but never liked those, …like to discover things by myself and have the sense of marvel when I discover some secret passage leading to a chest (like the ones before waterfalls etc in core) …

I’ve taken a number of people through the new zone already from my guild. There are a few who didn’t like it or get it, but as we continued, they began to get the hang of it and started having actual fun.

That’s why I made the offer.

Plyply.8621:

It has everything to do with it. You can Show people the maps so to speak, but once they live the mastery debacle, well…. Look at the vast majority of complaint threads.
You’re looking at the trees but ignoring the forest.

Dude, there are people who didn’t complain at all about mastery grind who did complain about HOT being to hard. It’s very easy to see that there are two separate complants.

In fact, you’re so focused on one tree, you can’t see the forest at all.

There are complaints about several things.

1. Small guilds have lost functionality they previously had and feel disenfranchised
2. People who think masteries is nothing but a grind.
3. People who solo and are casual and find HoT too hard.
4. People who don’t like jumping puzzle type stuff.

I’m specifically talking to and about people who are complaining the game is too hard. I am obviously not addressing people who can do the content who are complaining about the grind.

Not everyone who thinks it’s too hard is going to think it’s a grind. In fact, if you look in those complaint about grind threads, you’ll find about as many people saying it’s not a grind as people who are saying it is one.

I can see the forest just fine. You’re far too focused on one tree mate.

I’m sorry OP, but I think you’ve been mislead. If you can’t survive with exotics, you won’t be able to survive with ascended gear either.

I’ve run through all the zones in exotics and it’s not very different from running it with ascended. A bit different, but you’re not limited in anything but raids (and if you’re that casual, you probably won’t be able to do raids anyway).

However, aside from raids, most of the content is available in exotics. If you think you need ascended gear you’re wrong.

Oh, and legendaries and ascended have exactly the same stats.

Plyply.8621:

I don’t mind harder content. It’s the gated content that bothers me. That HP in SW Auric Basin, gated behind leyline gliding. Got it today thanks to a kind Mesmer soul. Would of taken me a few more weeks of mindless event and or mob grinding.

BTW, I’m 45 and still going strong, I work entirely too much though, but it is what it is. If I had mindless hours to burn maybe all this gated stuff wouldn’t bother me soo much.

Yep that’s a completely different issue. I was pretty clear in the OP. There are lots of places you can post about gating. But that doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m talking about.

I’ve seen lots of complaints from people who solo, or who are casual, that just keep dying and can’t figure out where to go, and who get frustrated.

I can’t do anything about the gating, but I can certainly help people learn how to survive the zone and get around in it.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Sure – show me how to solo my way to the electric wyvern and tiger pet.

Thanks.

I’m sorry perhaps you’re having trouble following the conversation. No one said every single aspect of HoT was something you could solo. I never said it. Anet never said it. However, the complaints are often people who find the zone too hard.

Trying to derail the thread with your bias, because you want a specific reward you know to be all the way at the end of the line doesn’t add to the conversation.

In fact, you’ve missed the entire point of the thread.

People are at 100 mastery plus already, 1 month after the expansion came out. Complaining about progression because you don’t like it doesn’t make it not progression. And it’s progression that doesn’t raise your stats, which means no power creep.

You’re learning how to use the mushroom. Obviously it’s more than just jumping on it in game lore. It’s like saying that you don’t know how to use a higher level axe to cut down a tree, until you’re a certain level. Well anyone can chop down a tree with an axe. It’s called progression, and people asked for it.

nacario.9417:

What does casual mean though, what is it that makes it unpleasant for casuals? Do you want to facetank mobs till they die? Now we have to use more of our skillbars compared to core tyria autoattacking i swung a sword, hey i swung a sword again!. Isnt it a fresh breath of air experiencing something new, the jungle is scary, and if u better yourself you can overcome most parts of it. Find other casuals to roam around with.

Not everyone has the same skill set. There are people in my guild in their 60s and the core game is sometimes challenging for them.

Hell, I’m 53 and I’ve worked some very competitive jobs in my life. My competitive days are over. I play games, generally, to relax. I’m good at them, but very often, yes, I want something easy and relaxing. I don’t have anything left to prove.

That said, I don’t mind the challenge when I’m immersed and having fun, which I definitely am in HoT. Which is why I’m offering help to people who might not have the same experiences I do.

warbignime.4610:

lunaticdawn.1860:

warbignime.4610:

Agree, I think the mastery system is genius. One may dislike the time needed to get them but dont forget these are account bond.

Actually I don’t like getting mastery point, but level them up is fine to me

Umm, I’m quite the opisite actually my problem is how useless some mastery level are for the amount of time needed, Poison lore should be lv1 since they are basically useless.

I think you missed the point. The idea is to make the lower level ones more useful so grinding it truly optional.

fishball.7204:

Did you just compare a vista or a point of interest in GW2 to a fully fledged multi level dungeon in GW1?

GW1 dungeons also had multiple hidden treasures and secret rooms.

Well, we should talk about dungeons in Guild Wars 1 and while we’re at it we should talk about quests.

Do you know how many quests Guild Wars has at launch. Prophecies had 203 quests. In fact, all four Guild Wars 1 titles put together had less quests than Guild Wars 2 had dynamic events at launch.

There’s literally no way to compare these games. Guild Wars 1 was completely pathed. On rails. No Z axis. No jumping. No swimming.

Not to say it wasn’t a great game, but the dungeons weren’t all multi level either. Snowman dungeon was one level. Kilroy’s dungeon was more like a boxing minigame and also one level. And many of the resources were reused from dungeon to dungeon as well.

And while we’re at it, people are complaining about grind. Well, I remember painfully grinding up some faction rep points in Guild Wars 1 to get my PvE only skills up to par. And they weren’t account bound. I had to level those skills up separately on each character. People say masteries are a grind. lol Give me a break.

I’ve played through every single zone in EotN many, many times. I was an altoholic in Guild Wars 1 too. There is NO comparison between those zones and these zones. Not even a bit. None at all. Those zones were like colorforms compared to these three, highly explorable zones. Aside from running around unlocking waypionts, EotN story doesn’t take any longer than the story in HoT. I know this because I used to fill those stupid books to level my rep.

Armor suits, btw, are rewards, not content. But Guild Halls here are a whole lot better than Guild Halls there. In fact, over all, I think PvE is must less on rails here than it was in Guild Wars 1.

Different strokes I guess.

As for Factions, you can beat that entire game in a day if you push it.

Okay to clarify, soloable means I can run around the zone solo and get stuff done. It does mean sometimes having to wait for backup at a hero point, but for the most part, I can run solo through that zone, and even beat some events solo. I tried soloing on maps that were closing and not volunteering. It works just fine. I’ve done it on ranger, necro, guardian and mesmer so far.

There are a lot of casual players who seem to have given up on HoT right out of the box. It is harder content, but it’s not impossible content and indeed, HoT can be soloed.

If you’re a casual or solo player and you’d like someone to show you around and get you the lay of the land, just post below and I’ll arrange a time to meet you in game…US servers only unfortuantely.

I’ve shown a lot of people around HoT and after a bit, and while it may not entirely change your opinion of the zone, it certainly won’t hurt it.

If you’ve wanted to explore the new zones and you need a hand, hit me up. If nothing else you might gain some new perspective on a few things.

As an explorer, I’d love new players to explore. That’s always been true.

Vanive.3804:

I didn’t read any of the posts,I think $29.99 would have been fair if this is all we get, but correct me if I’m wrong….Isn’t this like buying a new season of GW2? I mean I expect them to continue to expand upon things beyond this expansion.

Yes we should be getting more living story, among other things.

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Yes there was more content in the core game than there is in the “expansion”. I put expansion in quotes, because so many people seem to think of this as a standard expansion. It’s not. It’s added stuff to the game that goes far beyond what a normal expansion adds. Not in more maps, but in a roadmap for the game ahead. It’s almost like Guild Wars 2 2.0 or something. Specializations and elite specializations are a complete rewrite of the trait system. Masteries are a complete rewrite of the post 80 progression system. Guilds now have a form of progress as well, and guild halls are entire maps.

Pretty sure Age of Empires 2 expansions are still counted as expansions… and they add mechanics, civilizations, units, functions, maps, storylines, and tons of other things that in some cases go beyond the original vision for the game. Check out the latest one (released ~two weeks ago?) if you don’t believe me. =P

I’m pretty sure Age of Empires isn’t an MMO and can’t really be compared to an MMORPG. You have to look at what MMORPGs are, not what other games are. I’ve been playing baseball my whole life, but they’ve yet ot release an expansion.

You’re clearly just arguing here to argue.

It’s one thing to say that Age of Empires isn’t an MMO; it’s another thing entirely to make a pointed attack on my intentions. You never mentioned anything about specifically referring to MMO expansions. You simply said “a standard expansion”. You took a stab at the history of expansions (my reference to Age of Empires was a completely random shot in the dark). If you want to argue MMO expansions, I’d delightedly point you at the two Guild Wars 1 titles and their Eye of the North expansion. But the thing is, games on a whole have had both expansions and DLC since (nearly) the dawn of gaming; so far, HoT has provided a few hints at being an expansion, but more at being a living world/seasonal update. Hopefully there’s more content to come that we don’t know about yet.

Baseball? Uh… to the best of my knowledge, baseball never advertised an expansion. Not sure where you’re going with that one.

But I guess if I’m just here to argue… what would I know?

When I’m watching a baseball game and I talk about a champion, it’s obviously I’m not talking about a chess champion. Because the context can be assumed.

Chess is a game with an end game but you couldn’t apply that end game to chess. It’s logical to assume (yes really) that expansions for MMOs are different from other genres and when one is playing an MMO and talking about an expansion, they’re talking about MMO expansions and yes, I think it’s disingenuous to ignore that.

I mean you could be talking about expansions for driving games next. There’s no point in comparing expansions in games for different genres, because they’re different animals completely. No point at all.

Yup, and I did correct my assumption in my reply, too! I presented Guild Wars 1 and its second/third/expansion titles to replace my Age of Empires example (a poor choice on my part). Looks like I forgot to actually expand on that… But seriously, I’m here for discussion, not argument. =/

@ZachAttack and @Vayne – Upon revision, I’m aware that my previous posts were less than charming. My apologies. Not here to antagonize you guys…

One more thing. Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO. It was a lobby game. You met in a city, you got your party together, and you went out into an instance that contained at most 12 people. Guild Wars 1 was pathed. It had no Z axis. You simply can’t compare the complexity of the games.

And it was ten years ago, in a much less competitive arena. There are very few games that can compare with this game. Do you have any idea how much it probably took to add gliding to this game alone?

The complexity of the new maps is huge and probably took ages to create. If you don’t like that sort of thing you might well think oh Anet did no work on this, but it’s probably not true.

How much could gliding have taken to add? We already had the jump mechanic (which allows for Z axis and for non-surface movement) and leap skills from day one; gliding is a guided fall, which is a sub-process of the jumping process code that slows fall speed, increases forward movement, and probably utilizes a switch that loops a [player on surface?] query.

But generally speaking, I enjoy the expansion. The main thing I’ve disliked about it is that pretty much everything you see and do in the HoT maps stays in the HoT maps. Will that change? Possibly. Hopefully. But currently the main masteries provide long-term horizontal progression that only affects gameplay in four maps. A bit of a sad design choice when they put so much effort (yes, I’m sure they did) into the new content.

Also, keep in mind that pathing is part of the engine, not the map creation process. Creating maps doesn’t become a harder process due to the Z axis until the developers decide to add jumping challenges and things like that.

Well, it takes a lot because they have to add updrafts and stuff like that, to make sure the distances you need to be reached to get stuff can be reached. It’s not “just” gliding. Those maps are a huge amount of work. Ask anyone who’s involved in coding. It’s nuts.

As for not affecting the rest of the game, you can play your revenant anywhere and your elite specialization anywhere, which is something and the collection quests take you all over the world. Many of the collections take you back to earlier zones and events.

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Yes there was more content in the core game than there is in the “expansion”. I put expansion in quotes, because so many people seem to think of this as a standard expansion. It’s not. It’s added stuff to the game that goes far beyond what a normal expansion adds. Not in more maps, but in a roadmap for the game ahead. It’s almost like Guild Wars 2 2.0 or something. Specializations and elite specializations are a complete rewrite of the trait system. Masteries are a complete rewrite of the post 80 progression system. Guilds now have a form of progress as well, and guild halls are entire maps.

Pretty sure Age of Empires 2 expansions are still counted as expansions… and they add mechanics, civilizations, units, functions, maps, storylines, and tons of other things that in some cases go beyond the original vision for the game. Check out the latest one (released ~two weeks ago?) if you don’t believe me. =P

I’m pretty sure Age of Empires isn’t an MMO and can’t really be compared to an MMORPG. You have to look at what MMORPGs are, not what other games are. I’ve been playing baseball my whole life, but they’ve yet ot release an expansion.

You’re clearly just arguing here to argue.

It’s one thing to say that Age of Empires isn’t an MMO; it’s another thing entirely to make a pointed attack on my intentions. You never mentioned anything about specifically referring to MMO expansions. You simply said “a standard expansion”. You took a stab at the history of expansions (my reference to Age of Empires was a completely random shot in the dark). If you want to argue MMO expansions, I’d delightedly point you at the two Guild Wars 1 titles and their Eye of the North expansion. But the thing is, games on a whole have had both expansions and DLC since (nearly) the dawn of gaming; so far, HoT has provided a few hints at being an expansion, but more at being a living world/seasonal update. Hopefully there’s more content to come that we don’t know about yet.

Baseball? Uh… to the best of my knowledge, baseball never advertised an expansion. Not sure where you’re going with that one.

But I guess if I’m just here to argue… what would I know?

When I’m watching a baseball game and I talk about a champion, it’s obviously I’m not talking about a chess champion. Because the context can be assumed.

Chess is a game with an end game but you couldn’t apply that end game to chess. It’s logical to assume (yes really) that expansions for MMOs are different from other genres and when one is playing an MMO and talking about an expansion, they’re talking about MMO expansions and yes, I think it’s disingenuous to ignore that.

I mean you could be talking about expansions for driving games next. There’s no point in comparing expansions in games for different genres, because they’re different animals completely. No point at all.

Yup, and I did correct my assumption in my reply, too! I presented Guild Wars 1 and its second/third/expansion titles to replace my Age of Empires example (a poor choice on my part). Looks like I forgot to actually expand on that… But seriously, I’m here for discussion, not argument. =/

@ZachAttack and @Vayne – Upon revision, I’m aware that my previous posts were less than charming. My apologies. Not here to antagonize you guys…

One more thing. Guild Wars 1 wasn’t an MMO. It was a lobby game. You met in a city, you got your party together, and you went out into an instance that contained at most 12 people. Guild Wars 1 was pathed. It had no Z axis. You simply can’t compare the complexity of the games.

And it was ten years ago, in a much less competitive arena. There are very few games that can compare with this game. Do you have any idea how much it probably took to add gliding to this game alone?

The complexity of the new maps is huge and probably took ages to create. If you don’t like that sort of thing you might well think oh Anet did no work on this, but it’s probably not true.

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Swift.1930:

Vayne.8563:

Yes there was more content in the core game than there is in the “expansion”. I put expansion in quotes, because so many people seem to think of this as a standard expansion. It’s not. It’s added stuff to the game that goes far beyond what a normal expansion adds. Not in more maps, but in a roadmap for the game ahead. It’s almost like Guild Wars 2 2.0 or something. Specializations and elite specializations are a complete rewrite of the trait system. Masteries are a complete rewrite of the post 80 progression system. Guilds now have a form of progress as well, and guild halls are entire maps.

Pretty sure Age of Empires 2 expansions are still counted as expansions… and they add mechanics, civilizations, units, functions, maps, storylines, and tons of other things that in some cases go beyond the original vision for the game. Check out the latest one (released ~two weeks ago?) if you don’t believe me. =P

I’m pretty sure Age of Empires isn’t an MMO and can’t really be compared to an MMORPG. You have to look at what MMORPGs are, not what other games are. I’ve been playing baseball my whole life, but they’ve yet ot release an expansion.

You’re clearly just arguing here to argue.

It’s one thing to say that Age of Empires isn’t an MMO; it’s another thing entirely to make a pointed attack on my intentions. You never mentioned anything about specifically referring to MMO expansions. You simply said “a standard expansion”. You took a stab at the history of expansions (my reference to Age of Empires was a completely random shot in the dark). If you want to argue MMO expansions, I’d delightedly point you at the two Guild Wars 1 titles and their Eye of the North expansion. But the thing is, games on a whole have had both expansions and DLC since (nearly) the dawn of gaming; so far, HoT has provided a few hints at being an expansion, but more at being a living world/seasonal update. Hopefully there’s more content to come that we don’t know about yet.

Baseball? Uh… to the best of my knowledge, baseball never advertised an expansion. Not sure where you’re going with that one.

But I guess if I’m just here to argue… what would I know?

When I’m watching a baseball game and I talk about a champion, it’s obviously I’m not talking about a chess champion. Because the context can be assumed.

Chess is a game with an end game but you couldn’t apply that end game to chess. It’s logical to assume (yes really) that expansions for MMOs are different from other genres and when one is playing an MMO and talking about an expansion, they’re talking about MMO expansions and yes, I think it’s disingenuous to ignore that.

I mean you could be talking about expansions for driving games next. There’s no point in comparing expansions in games for different genres, because they’re different animals completely. No point at all.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Vayne.8563:

They didn’t reinvent the wheel and call it content. They said, that this expansion would be lighter on content while they set up the game for future expansion so they could move the game forward.

That’s what was said. That’s what they did.

In other words, they asked us to pay for the gateway to more Living Story and called it a light expansion. And people got happy because they heard the word ‘expansion’, so it silenced the expansion crowds’ demands for it.

But in truth, all we did was pay for delayed Living World content which would’ve been free otherwise.

Good to know.

Nope not what I said at all. Because a new profession isn’t living story. Elite specializations aren’t living story. Guild Halls aren’t living story. Precursor hunts aren’t living story. New AI isn’t living story. New combat mode isn’t living story. New achievements aren’t story related. Gliding is a feature all by itself that adds immeasurably to the expansion for quite a few people. Raids aren’t living story. And the adventures, which some people like, are not the living story either.

There were things Anet got wrong too, like the scribe profession which could have been done a whole lot better, but on the whole, there’s a lot for SOME of us to do.

For a guy like me, who enjoys finding stuff like lockboxes (without going to a site like Dulfy), I’m having a good time flying around the jungle. You may not like that sort of thing but I do.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Vayne.8563:

…. snip
Content is content, but the back end stuff is just as important if not more important because it changes the entire future of the game.

Some people don’t like that change and some people do. But HoT, in a lot of ways, really is a reboot of Guild Wars 2.

And once some of the bugs are worked out of that system, we’ll see just how popular it is.

And let’s not forget it’s also going to be a season pass for other changes coming. That’s part of the value too.

I am only quoting a small portion of your post because this portion is the most relevant to my rebuttal.

I know they did a ton of background things with the xpac, but they have to stop reinventing the wheel and calling it content. They did this by adding a new tier after the game was released (ascended), and again with the NPE. They even did this with traits being compressed and reassigned on all classes. My problem is not with them changing things as time goes by.

My problem is in doing it and calling it content!

They didn’t reinvent the wheel and call it content. They said, that this expansion would be lighter on content while they set up the game for future expansion so they could move the game forward.

That’s what was said. That’s what they did.

Daralii.8940:

Vayne.8563:

You don’t just whip up a few dungeons. Creating a dungeon is a major undertaking. Anet is focusing on fractals, not dungeons for the future five man content. They said so. I wouldn’t expect new dungeons.

Too bad they’ve only made one original fractal since they were first added in November 2012.

Actually they made five fractals. There were quite a few changes made to the dungeons to make them into Fractals, even though people have this crazy idea that they were just cut and paste.

And yes, their focus has been elsewhere. There’s always more to do. But moving forward, the focus is on Fractals, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing new ones next year. I guess we’ll see.