Guild Wars 2

Zenith.7301:

Ghotistyx.6942:

All healing should not be allowed in DS. However, all lifesteal should. Lifesteal as a whole should be more utilized.

lol, lifesteal is worthless. As if lifestealing 200 hp every few attacks is gonna save you in a zerg or against PvE mobs that hit you for 8k+ damage.

Trait spite + reaper blighter’s boon, and it’s 200hp every attack, and around 600 every second once it’s hp goes below 50%. If you don’t play like Gohan and learn to doooooodge! then by the time your life force plums down to 0 you’ll have some regular health to work with.

And in normal mode necro is a life stealing machine – dagger #2, signet of the locust, or the mini signet of vampirism from trait..

Zefrost.3425:

Blood is power will inflict 3 bleed for 30s and self bleeding will be increased to 50 bleed for 30s to capitalize on the new condi stack update.

Nothing can save you! will be increased to 4s cast time up from 0.5s.

Muahahahaha! Nailed it with necros finally capitalizing on the condi stack update! Well played, sir

Now that it’s 50% off sale, I say is the time to grab it. At 25$ it’s an excellent price for an excellent game. The prince/content ratio no longer broken and new things coming with LS3 only make it sweeter.

As reaper main – it’s looking good in pve – that is if you have HoT and can unlock reaper for yourself. Now you can go in your face, and given you spec right (reaper +blood magic) and use skills well you can tank a loooooooot of damage.

A lot of necro woes have been fixed with reaper spec, also shroud is finally fun. Both in terms of skills and it’s relationship with healthpool (heal some hp in shroud before it goes down, build life force In normal form, before you take too big of a beating).

I would add one more mode of play for reaper in pve, or rather a variant – the medic. This is a very underestimated “cause druid” part of our job, but one that plays a huge role in actual combat. Believe me, spreadsheets and min-maxing aside – when you need lifes saved, people healed, and npcs kept alive, the healer portion of reaper along with his tankyness delivers the goods.

Djinn.9245:

Starting with Dry Top, Anet decided that they needed to make the game MUCH more complicated than it was. Not really sure why – but I’m thinking that someone Higher-up at Anet loves Jumping Puzzles so much that they wanted the ENTIRE GAME to be one big JP. This was a sad day for those of us who don’t really appreciate Jumping Puzzles.

I’m with the OP and I’m glad that the “old” content is still there. After being frustrated by HoT, I go back to one of my lower level alts and enjoy the comparatively relaxing fun of the rest of Tyria. So much better.

It was a great day for those of us who didn’t appreciate your average flat generic mmo maps though. Luckily even the base ones were already taking a departure from that old trope.

I don’t. I still remember necro being trash tier for dungeons until reaper saved the kitten profession.
Or ranger being “kinda healy” but not enough to really make it a playstyle (unlike druid).
Guardian not having any real ranged option save the scepter (which is a boring 3 skills 1h weapon).
Mesmer being pink butterfly job that few straight males could play without cringing…ah nvm that actually didn’t change -.-.

Anyhoo i remmeber hating the flat boring, uninspired alpine borderlands and being forced into them to get wolf pet or map completion. Thank anet for removing WvW from the last one.

In general there’s a lot fixing to do, but no, i don’t want pre-hot gw2.

Aidenwolf.5964:

ZeftheWicked.3076:

Aidenwolf.5964:

But Heart of Thorns for living story (as we knew it) and new legendary weapons… Fail, best of luck selling me another xpac.

That’s the very point here. LS3 is part of HoT, and their chance at redemption before new xpac hits. If they play it well and fix/add stuff that’s missing/was insufficient at start, then both sides win – we get what we wanted (better late then never), they reduce the damage done and get our trust back (at least some of it) before next xpac launch.

I haven’t logged in or even posted in months so what I say they’ll disregard but I’ve been hard done by HOT and they need a miracle to get another penny from me. The best thing HOT did was allow me to play other games and man… Are they good.

Sad, but GW2 went on a cash grab and in doing so they’ve cut the cord to my wallet.

I can’t blame you for feeling that, given their adamant push to sell it for $50 disregarding commonsensical practice (cheaper version for core game buyers, full price for new players) or long established industry ethic (free character slots matching amount of new professions requiring them in a payed expansion).

However I for one love the dry top, silverwastes, 4 maguuma maps and direction a-net is taking with them and it’s pve content in general. Problem is they delivered too little for the price and next to above mentioned gripes that too is a justified grudge from my point of view.

But emotions aside – the HoT buyers (such as myself and you, I reckon) are getting new content at no extra charge and no obligation to buy the next xpac, should we decide to dive into LS3. So no reason not to give it a swing. Nobody’s gonna twist my arm to stay or to buy if i don’t feel like it myself, and i do greatly enjoy the interactive, maze-like and incredibly beautiful (art-style wise) maps.

I can see that finally they’re starting to learn the lesson. Mike came out of hiding, here on the game’s forums, didn’t overhype it, but provided some badly needed info, and they want to end content draughts for good. He may not be starting from pole position in my book after what happened, but it’s a start.

Aidenwolf.5964:

But Heart of Thorns for living story (as we knew it) and new legendary weapons… Fail, best of luck selling me another xpac.

That’s the very point here. LS3 is part of HoT, and their chance at redemption before new xpac hits. If they play it well and fix/add stuff that’s missing/was insufficient at start, then both sides win – we get what we wanted (better late then never), they reduce the damage done and get our trust back (at least some of it) before next xpac launch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J6-3l3hCm0

Now we’re cooking with gas. Finally some info, bit of juice on what it takes to get it done, no overhype. Palpatine voice Gooood goooood!

As for extreme overdeliver that costed big sacrifices – well i’m not the director here, but bear in mind that if LS3 delivers and ends ages long content draughts, players might deliver on their end via gemstore. And then you may get more manpower to achieve even better results without having to pay an arm and a leg to get it done;)

Getting alternative looks you can choose for yourself is not “compromise”. It’s “choice”.
Compromise would be making sunrise/eternity sunrise mode half this design, half old in one blade.

Choice rocks. Compromise stinks.

I hate sunrise. If sunrise or at least eternity’s “sunrise mode” would look like this i might consider getting it somewhere in the future. But atm my legendary goal once i get back is twilight and not touching neither sunrise or eternity. Why ruin a perfectly evil twilight…

wait wait..condi reaper does more damage then engi? When did that happen? If so, happy day cause i’m on break but necro is my main and has some gear, while engi needs gear badly…

Ranger is not a solo class. He has pet with him. Cheater!

I see, ty mate

Sorry for stupid question, but it’s been months since i played gw2 and before I’m ready to return I’d like to know – do we have these already? I know about precursor collections, but is the actual legendary possible to craft yet, or is it still a big no and just precursors?

I’m not, but i might be that one single guy who’s thinking “dropping my money into gemstore?….i dunno”. Unless i clearly see the money not only gives me virtual (let’s keep that in mind) items, but also is used for the growth of the game i spent it on, rather then feeing another project i don’t care about or fattening shareholder’s wallet for his new mercedes..

Well that clearly failed. Unless this draught/flood season, with 2nd huge draught in progress can be called “release cycle”.

This game needs new management like air, and one that will consider “quality of life” upgrades such as:

- stable release cycle

- actual communication with players, regarding current state of development of upcoming content. no hype train, but no “full ninja, u can’t see me” model either.

- tying gem purchases with development and letting us know how’s it looking (much like on kickstarter funding, where you see how much was raised and where the money goes)

Because currently i’m not on board for guessing games on what we’ll get, how mucb of it will be there, when it drops and what will follow it and when. 9 months of nothing will do that to you.

Necromancer/Reaper.

- awesome theme
- amazing sustain when played right
- great power builds that can dish heavy damage while keeping reasonable defenses (due to getting massive crit chance from traits, freeing up precision points)
- top of the pack at fighting vs condition heavy enemies
- serious cc ability
- eats boon spamming professions and mobs alive with massive amount of boon corrupting skills
- best kitten reviver out there if traited for it.
- complex to build, but not complex to play once in a fight.
- has one of the best access to varied conditions
- powerful, “under the radar” skills that few remember about, but make necro viable in dungeons (projectile blocking aoe, shout that makes all of his attacks unblockable for a certain time, might for party with “blood is power”)

And all of this in versatile, fun package that won’t get dull and boring 3 days in, like let’s say a warrior or guardian.

I think this game would be best with payed LS releases to keep the flow of content steady. As long as there would be a set standard what they must include and clear pricing model on it.

Sins of HoT in my book are:

a) insufficient amount of content
b) price
c) sales policies (price for one)
d) elite specs breaking the balance (almost everyone needs elite spec to be meta)
f) not too well planned masteries (small pool of masteries that serve as long term goal, causing huge grind walls)
g) overbloat of boxes within bags that come from box that dropped from a bag.
h) story rushed and forcing fixed order of mastery unlocks to progress it smoothly

While the huge benefits of it are:
a) gliding – better then so badly requested mounts, 10/10 decision
b) the new vertical, jumping puzzle like approach to maps – yes, moar!
c) elite specs in some cases saved a profession (necro!!)
d) masteries – they are poorly executed, but idea itself is great and I enjoy it a lot
e) the new stat sets – especially commander’s trailblazer’s and viper’s are great
f) the harder, more brutal mobs, forcing you to think what you do
g) the new unique elite spec gear collections and backpack collections.
h) raiding

Overall it’s mixed bag but the content is great.

Rarely do I do this but i agree with Vayne. I bash GW2 hard, but that’s mostly due to said draught. I want the game to grow and deliver not to die down. Asides few misguided choices the content is epic, just that the epic is placed in a very small package. Looking forward to LS 3 to address that before next xpac hits.

My idea for expansion 2 maps:

Honestly i hope they’ll stick to HoT content longer. My personal favourite of all game environments is the jungle. I love jungle and i can’t help it! I certainly don’t want any more snow regions (Shiverpeaks) , don’t want any more plain fields (Kryta). and hell no to any autumn maps (charr zones).

I do look very forward to more vertical maps full of small nooks and crannies. I guess a kinda zephyrite style mountains – with switching between going inside complex cave systems intervowen with numerous light beams from outside the mountain directed inside it, and full of outside climbs with winds playing major role would be cool. Something chinese styled – that’d be acceptable lure for me to get next xpac And ofc proper forestly there as well, need my greens to stay healthy!

Let’s not be hasty. I too haven’t played for months (and ironically know i haven’t missed much), but let’s not judge new LS till we get our hands on it.

Also remember guys LS3 will be much more then simple LS – this is their live or die for next xpansion. HoT did damage (mostly with it’s low content volume) and before new expansion hits that damage needs to get undone. So if they got brains on board they know LS3 primary tasks next to setting up next xpac is adding content to HoT to make it “a-net worthy” expasion and redeem their good name and player trust.

With that in mind we might be getting one new HoT sized map come each realase or at least half of it. Given the time they had since launch and general unhapiness with HoT i expect 4 new HoT styled and sized maps to wash off all the bad taste after it, and properly set up up for next expansion.

I didn’t pvp in the beginning, fearing getting totally pwnd. It’s only 2 years later i got the courage and become avid pvp’er. Missing tribal armor really hurt. I belive a-net’s doing the good thing here. One can give titles to old players that cannot be achieved. But freedom to style up as you, given you put proper effort/gold to get it, should be available to all.

I’m surprised no one mentiones engineer.

Getting 100% swiftness uptime is no problem as long as you got a kit in your utilities, add pretty huge vigor uptime as well. Then there are slick shoes & bomb kit to make your would be pursuers regret chasing you, along with rocket boots for quick “get me outta here”. Also stuff like elixir s for your stealth and invulni needs. Also if you build for it a lot of super speed, which will let you get outta sticky situations where milk got spilled and you’re already down to “combat speed”.

If it’s about roaming PvE map fast for harvesting i’d say thief and ranger are pretty good, though i wouldn’t exaggerate with thief being sooooo above the rest. The shadowstepping and stealth are real, but the ranger’s got a counter for this in form of pet. Thief is great as long as you’re not caught, but get caught when harvesting and you got no choice but to fight or flee.
Ranger on the other hand doesn’t have to worry about getting caught when already on the node – just send your pet to take care of it for you. While it wrangles with mobs, you can finish you harvesting uninterrupted without having to waste half a day on pointless fighting or running off a node that’s not yet harvested to lose aggro.

The expansion itself fun wise is great. What kills it are just few terribly misguided decisions such as:

- huge exp walls to balance out content shortage of HoT
- guild halls and scribe killing off small and probs some medium guilds
- unjustified price point
- not making at least core game elite specializations to give non xpac players somewhat of an even fighting ground in spvp.

kurfu.5623:

The problem is that by the time they reach 80 and experienced a huge chunk of the game, a large number of people are no longer incentivized to purchase.

The FtP version should have taken a lesson from WoW – FtP only up to level 20.

This guy gets it. Would you pay a full new sports car price for a nice looking, spare tire and a paint job on your current one you got for free? Ofc not! It’s overprice, sentiments be kitten ed! You’ll look to get the biggest bang for the buck, probably another fully functional sports car even if it’s of totally different brand and you’re not very sentimental with them yet.

The more you get for free, the bigger, more reasonably priced and appealing the payed portion must be to logically justify the purchase. And here even the original B2P players who did pay $60 for core GW2 at launch find it lacking for the price.

Not to say it’s not epic fun (to would be buyers) – it is. But the price/content ratio..well free market already verified that one.

Much of the fanbase indeed does not share my viewpoint. The problem is that a huge chunk of GW2 players are not *fan*base. Majority of F2P players came no sooner then launch of HoT and before shelling out $50 for HoT they decided to try core game for free. Why buy something you’re not even sure you like?

By the time they decided what their stance on core GW2 is and grew their characters to 80, initial hype died down to reasonable levels, and both reviewer and player feedback about genuine content and issues with HoT has surfaced giving them far more objective view on the purchase of HoT. Now let’s summarize a F2P player’s perspective:

- huge, engaging core game = $0
- 4 maps (+ 2 guild halls if you’re in one, not everyone is) if you’re a PvE’er (most are) – extra 50$.

And a-net wonders why sales are not meeting expectations….
With core players disappointed (mostly about amount of content vs hype+price) and F2P delaying their decision to jump ship to HoT (it costs 50$, and come next xpac it’ll be free!) it’s nor surprise sales are rock bottom on the F2P front…

Let’s be honest here: Milk got spilled, no use crying about it, but a-net can either mop it up and be done with it, or leave it there to rot and start smelling.
Soon we’ll know the answer as the issue can’t stick around forever and now is really the time to take action, such as:

a) LS3 delivering huge chunks of new HoT content – that’s probably best choice for them – with this addition HoT may become worthy of its asking price and they both save face and get those xpac copy sales moving, along with regaining some of the lost trust from fanbase.

b) they bend their neck, lower official HoT price, admitting the mistaken price/content appraisal. Yes they can lower it via 3rd party retailers, but doing it officially is like publically admitting their mistake. While it may hurt their pride and upset some players that recently bought it at full price, it is a way to gain back respect of many players.

c) they start HoT sale. Not much in terms of regaining player sympathy but it will get many undecided core players to jump ship.

Regardless the time has never been riper to do something about the current situation of HoT sales and player faith in company.

Regardless it’s over 9 months now, so the “light content” either will get pad properly with LS3, or they’ll have to be very, VERY clear that next xpansion is full of content to the point of morbid obesity..

What about the i5-5775c? The mysterious broadwell with iris pro 6200 integrated graphics? If i’m not mistaken it can handle gw2 in 1080p without extra graphics card and without need to gut the graphics quality as much if at all.

Proto – agreed on HoT needing more maps for it’s price. Both in open PvE (not guild halls), and spvp. Insuficient amount of content is the cause of both players not grabbing as many copies as was expected, and of this over the top grind that many point out.

Disagreed on not wanting complex maps – this is Guild Wars game. More then other games of its gendre this one is about players overcoming challenges with their grit and skill, and not just getting everything handed to them. The new challenge of exploring and mastering this beuatiful, fullly 3D maps is a joy i don’t get to experience much elsewhere. I do not wish to see GW2 return to generic flat map model of every other game out there. Especially now that we have gliders begging to be used and abused;)

Regarding LS3 ,like someone from another game said: “Hell, it’s about time!”

I didn’t love every hobosack out there, but I sure was in the camp of “allow hiding of hobosacks” instead of replacing them with something else.

Well that, and for lazy bums to add separate grenade kit hobosack, instead of same one for bomb and grenade kits, cause it was misleading both for others (pvp) and myself (pve).

That aside..yeah tear gets shed for bomb kit hobosack.

If you can still write this, then clearly your hand and body are not yet tangled enough! Return to map and get more tangled!

This is the jungle. I’m loving the fact the map are so vertical an want MOAR! You learn maps by exploring them, often failing, often falling – for nice and tame flat maps you got core Tyria. Here is the jungle son and here you adopt or you die!

I miss the old bomb kit hobosack, it was awesome

I disagree with exp wall being same type. It’s quite the opposite. In current system there are few, very steep (huge exp needed) walls arranged in fixed order.

In my version there are numerous much smaller walls, with greater ability for you to arrange the order you climb them to your own preference.

It’s not about changing how long it all takes and what’s at the end, it’s about changing what’s in the middle – a constant, steady flow of new upgrades and skills that keeps you motivated and close friends with mastery system, rather then once-in a blue moon visit to the mastery panel after days of barren, unrewarding grind.

EDIT:
As for the for unlocks well i’m on the both sides. Doing it with exp lets ppl who hate but need certain mastery to get it the generic way, while practicing a lot with it is natural and would let ppl who like doing it practice it the way they like.

I believe you misunderstood my text. Firstly while there would be many more mastery unlocks to get, each would cost far less then current ones. The idea is to keep them a long term goal, but one with frequent updates & upgrades instead of week long grinds before something finally changes.

Also the idea with updraft specialty is for it to be a sub line of gliding mastery line. Available right after you learn how to glide at all, and not competing with it’s parent.
With sub-lines such as updrafts, ley-line gliding, combat gliding etc, you choose what to master first, after your initial glider mastery unlock. Want ley-line gliding a.s.a.p? Np you can start there ignoring updrafts, combat gliding etc. You will need to put some points into it for full effect but it’s still getting ley-line gliding for around 1/6 of the price you’d need in this system.

This makes it far more your choice with your consequences of such, while still requiring time, effort and dedication to fully master all of it.

The flaws of current mastery system
Long story short – if HoT is to be the mold for each next expansion, then some fixes are required, before the bad gets carried along with the good to the next expansion.

The mastery system is one such case– great idea, misunderstood implementation. We all know what happened – too few maps, too few masteries, game is an MMORPG = anet gated the later masteries with insane exp walls that aren’t fun or engaging at all.
Too fixed order of things also isn’t helping. Wanna ley line glide? Though luck – full glider mastery or go home!
And finally the way of accumulating mastery exp which is by event grinds, more event grinds and if you’re done with grinding events, then just events grinding.

That’s not what a mastery system should be. In my opinion a mastery should entail a steady, progressive journey full of small stepping stones that are relevant to what you’re trying to master, leading to the final goal of becoming one yourself.

And not a set of few “hiccups” that happen once every 100 years granting you superpowers in an instant, all unlockable in the same way.

Ok, nuff of that. Let’s talk about how it can be done right.

More small steps, less steep walls
Rather then current “master it with one point + your arm and a leg” system we should have a series of smaller, far cheaper steps, that gradually accumulate to push you from newbie in certain aspect to relatively competent all the way to true master of art. Let’s take a look at an example featuring updrafts from gliding mastery line.

Right now you put one point into it and BAM! You know all there is to know about updrafts!
How about we split this up into many more, smaller steps that actually feel like we’re mastering something, and not bribing our way to insta-win with one unlock?

Smaller steps example – updraft gliding:

1st point – you learn to use updrafts, but it costs heavier stamina burn then normal gliding when inside it (after all this is the inexperienced you inside a strong air current and not perfect 0 wind conditions)

2nd point – you enhance your grip on the glider reducing stamina burn to normal glide value when inside updraft

3rd point – your learn to angle your glider better vs the wind for a faster lift when inside an updraft. Earlier you were struggling for your dear life, now you’re more experienced and starting to take some control

4th point – you perfect your glider grip and body balance when updrafting and lose no stamina when in an updrafts

5th point – now that you’ve mastered taking advantage of updrafts you learn to actually relax and recover stamina while getting updrafted.

6th step – your finishing touch is learning how to ride the winds updrafts create letting you take advantage of updrafts you’d normally miss, as long as you’re in close proximity (for example you’re flying 5 meters below the lowest part of an updraft. Earlier you’d just keep on flying, now you manage to “hook up” and get pulled in).

And there you go. Make each of these steps around 4-6 times cheaper then the original one point, and what we have here is something that feels like a learning process while also giving you a short term goal to look forward to (the next mastery unlock that is not THAT far away, unlike what we have now).

More choice!
Sub-lines. Another aspect of mastery system I’d like fixed is that current lines offer little choice. They’re too rigid. Wanna ley line glide? Tough luck, it’s at the very end of glider mastery line!

What I’d like to see is each mastery line branch out into sub lines after meeting initial conditions (for example learning to glide at all in glider’s case).
Each sub-line would deal with certain aspect of it’s parent mastery and each be equally available from the start. In glider’s case we could have following sub-lines:

- combat gliding (stealth, damage mitigation when flying, some boons when landing etc)
- updrafts (already covered those)
- glider upgrades (new line, mechanical adjustment for the glider)
- etc.

Point is, you can dive into given aspect of your mastery right away instead of being forced to cope with current fixed order of things. While each sub-line would indeed have it’s own fixed order of things (well you always start at bottom, then climb up to master level, right?) at least you’d be in control of what you actually learn first and what you’ll put off for later. Wanna ley line now, while learning combat gliding later? Ok, knock yourself out, now the road is clear!

Master it the natural way
Finally I would like to see masteries being leveled not only with general exp, but also with activities that actually involve said mastery! Riding updrafts should give out small chunks of exp for updraft mastery. Doing events that help out pact engineers could push forward glider upgrades sub-line. Using Nuloch wallows could help you become a better mole faster

With these changes on board I believe mastery system would become a likeable, and steady part of new xpansion experience, rather then the high hanging fruit that makes majority of players cringe at the mere thought of endless, unrewarding grind until they finally can feel any difference at all once they get there.

Longbow for me. Power/minion weapon. I’d also love for necro to get traps. Only ours wouldn’t be triggered by someone stepping in them, but by somoene falling/dying in their area. Effects would wary based on wheather it was an ally or enemy.

I’m so getting deja’vu with these two posts of ours…well nvm. I said my piece, and i guess truth is in between. It’s probably not a-net planning it all out in cold blood, but then again it’s also not them growing angel wings, since there was a large enough time frame for a huge flame war from players, going as far as to reaching few gaming sites’ attention before a-net decided to take proper action (said refunds).

That aside i’ll be soon posting my piece about improving the next xpac. HoT for what it is i like. I don’t like how it was sold and maybe imbalance the elites present vs regular specs. But over all i LOVE the jungle, i love the gliding and foundation is good, but for the next one to hit home it needs certain adjustments and much straightforward, simple and “no tricks” sales model.

Very well i can settle for “misleading” or said “false advertisement”. Case in point is a-net was industry standard setter when it came to triple A honesty, and HoT made that reputation degrade in eyes of many. I’m looking forward to them redeeming themselves in that area with next xpansion.

Sartharina.3542:

Actually, neither of the instances of “Broken Trust” had anything to do with A-net. Instead, they were assumptions made by the community. Guild Wars veterans expected a free character slot with the new expansion despite no promise of such, due to precedent. The “Need core to play Xpac” wasn’t a Bait+Switch by Anet – The company’s line has ALWAYS been “Buying HoT includes the base game”. But veterans of every other MMO out there made the assumption that the base game was required before purchasing the expansion. (Frankly, I’m not sure why they didn’t go with "all new Full Game activations after that date include baseline HoT, though)

Sorry but you’re wrong. The “must own a core game for xpac” was a pure bait & switch, deliberate or not. For quite a while there was a notice one must own a core game to play xpac, nothing about core game becoming free to play or free if you buy xpac.
The core game refunds for ppl who fell victim to this change in the sale system are the best proof – multimillion dollar gaming projects don’t happily toss money back at ppl cause they’re “good uncles”. They do so because otherwise players might have a easy to win case in court.

@Vayne – well i’m shocked at your post. My hat goes off, sir. But I will correct one mistake you made – free slot was not for pre-orders as far as i recall. It was for pre-purchases, ensuring a-net gets their money before you get a say. Pre-order can be cancelled and you pay majority or all of it’s price once it’s shipped to you.

Thraellic.5147:

This is an excellent post and describes very well my own frustrations with HoT. I’m back playing GW2 after rage quitting taking a break for six months. I still hate that navigation is the main endgame boss in HoT, but Anet did fix a few things with patch updates, most notably dungeons and fractals.

Really hoping they did learn the lessons expressed in the post I quoted. Another expac like this… I’m not sure I’d want to come back again after that. I kinda suspect the same goes for a lot of people.

I have to disagree. While the majority of said post is golden, I very much enjoy the maze-like maps. This is a jungle, the feel that you’re slowly biting your way in with mastery system and you own knowledge of the uncharted as the player is a growing factor for me. It’s one of the things i like most about HoT. It’s the pacing of it (due to insufficient amount of PvE maps for everyone (4) and small amount of masteries in total that made it a chore. The experience of having advantage due to…real experience with given maze-like map, and not just some stats or skills feels epic for me.

HoT per se is quite good, i love the new jungle maps and verticality, it’s a very good add-on.

Damage done to the game “by HoT” is actually in 3 areas non-gameplay related:

1. abysmal rate of new content releases/balance patches. Raid wings alone do not a new content make for non-raiders.
2. abysmal expansion size for ridicilous official price. If HoT is “a foundation” and that’s one time case only, ok. But many will be very wary before the next xpac, wanting to first be sure it’s “content rich” not “something else (PR jibba-jabba) rich”.
3. broken trust – remember the war over free xpac slot? Or the bait and switch with needing core game to play xpac, then players getting mass refunds after justly raising a kittenstorm? Before when you heard a-net you just opened your wallet, you knew awesome deal with no tricks is coming your way. Now many people will be wary and weigh their options before opening their wallets.

So i don’t blame the xpac itself – it’s great. I blame their development/balance patch speed, sales tricks, and low content to price ratio.

i got more then handful of nitpicks with a-net and HoT, but maps aren’t one of them. On that they get S+

Looking forward to challenge your statement on their “success” when the next xpac rolls, and it will soon.

Currently gw2 does rake almost twice the money as it did before HoT. But key thing to remember is that before HoT it was a barren wasteland in terms of content updates – so it was naturally at an all time low in terms of active players and ergo gem store income.

Also with HoT it went F2P which gathered lotsa new players that weren’t interested in B2P GW2 at all. A great move to be sure, but that works only once. The next xpac will not get tons of F2P new players, because they’re already here after HoT. While the tarnished opinion of anet’s honesty and shady sales practices will reap it’s harvest when it comes to next expansion pre-purchases and hype.

^ if you mean my #3 about sales and marketing team then let me remind you their “slight” flops such as:

- forcing veteran players to pay full game price with xpac, when it should’ve been much cheaper for them – “Do not Pre-Purchase Heart of Thorns” from that time is a legendary topic on reddit, probs the biggest one ever regarding GW2.

- refusal to add a free character slot for revenant in xpac that costed 50$ at it’s cheapest. Only after HUGE flames from players did they change that to “IF you pre-purchase” (so basically cough up money for a cat in a bag at that point).

- not letting a lot ppl test out the xpac before they buy. Only those who pre-purchased had a guaranteed beta slot, rest was either lucky or had to wait for official launch and reviews.

- bait & switch with “need a core game to play xpac” which pushed core game sales, only to discover some time later that no, you don’t need core game. After solar storm level flames erupted they had to refund quite of lot of core game purchases after that, and that’s a plus for them that they did, but this “mistake” shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

- inadequate price vs content. Notice the metacritic player reviews. Recently they are bad and i don’t blame them. The xpac is great, but it is too small, forcing it to be too grindy, and many a person strongly dissatisfied with price vs content ratio. And thus negative reviews pour our like a river. Can you blame them? Having to pay nearly (or completely if with slot) full game price for something that’s clearly not even 1/3 core game size, regardless whether you own a core game or not?

All these “small things” pile up in a mass of angry players (that will probably once again get real angry when next xpac launches with 50$ tag for 4 new PvE maps + 2 or so guild halls) if you’re not a newcomer to the series (while offering said newcomers best deal on the market).

Be it honest mistakes, or a push to sell HoT copies at 50$ no matter the consequences (you decide which) sales and marketing team managed to seriously tarnish a-net’s crystal clear reputation as extremely honest dev when it comes to both amount of content and sales policies. If i were their boss ppl responsible for this damage would be flying out of their job the first chance i get to replace them with someone who knows how to appeal to customers instead of sinking the hard earned good name of my brand.

Here are areas they should seriously do their homework on:

1. basic economy and marketing. In a-net’s case very, very basic. Like the fact that if you sell something cheaper, then you get more buyers, and it evens out or often outclasses the gains out of selling less copies for bigger price.

Also a great move PR wise as even if the offering is not 10/10 if it’s sold for reasonable price you’ll get far less voices of discontent (like you do now for xpac just being too small for it’s price).

2. Communication on the forums. No, i don’t mean forum mods. I mean devs actually speaking with players in the first and foremost place such discussion should take place. A nice roadmap is always nice. And no 6 moths silence when players are wondering what’s next? Few mmos can get away with being absolutely silent on upcoming content for longer then 3 months.

3. New sales and marketing team. A-net had a great reputation for being class AAA honest dev. Now with HoT sales policies which were to put it bluntly a straight up war with veteran players on nearly every step don’t expect neither the hype or pre-orders/pre-purchases for the next xpac to look as good as for HoT. And that’s just the stuff that happened before the launch. Post-launch is the “it’s feature not content rich” issue which doesn’t sit well with everyone for their 50$.

A-net’s now got a loong haul to get back into community’s graces (least a lot of veterans), and it’s gonna be one tough crowd after the numerous pricing/pr/content failures of HoT.

My advice:

if you can get a 33% or more discount on official a-net price give it a go. If you have to shell out full 50$ i’d pass and wait for opportunity.