Guild Wars 2

Raine.1394:

It’s interesting that several of the “too difficult” threads answer the problem by suggesting that players ally with large groups in order to do the content successfully. That’s really not the answer for a contemporary MMO where the solo player is a large and growing piece of the player pie. HoT is definitely not solo friendly and that is a problem that will need to be addressed. It’s doable solo, but it’s not fun.

I’m going to sound so white knight right now it makes me sick but…. I want to voice a contrary opinion to the highlighted bits. I get where you’re coming from. I felt the same months ago. But after spending a lot of time in the jungle and getting to know it, I was surprised to find it both fun and friendly enough for a solitary player, even one who plays by mashing buttons. There are plenty of things you can do alone, and some things you need to do with others, which also describes central Tyria.

I think somehow an expectation got started around HOT (and continues to be reinforced) that you have to fight your way through the jungle. There have been statements in these forums that you can’t “skip content the way you do in central.”
This isn’t true fortunately – it would be very tedious if fighting was the only choice.

With a teleport and three stealth options on my mes, plus having completed almost all the masteries, there are no shortage of means for travelling fast around the jungle without getting bogged down in combat all the time. You can and should pick your fights. I’m sure Sun Tzu would agree.

Raizen.7981:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Raizen.7981:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Stuff..

I agree that lag makes adventures a bad experience. However, as somebody who got gold on almost all adventures in less than a week, I can honestly tell you that adventures are only about your skill as a player.

Don’t you think those statements are mutually exclusive? If you agree that lag has an effect, then you can’t honestly say adventures are only about skill. I’m all for skillful adventures. We just need to get the lag out of them so they can be all about skill.

Raizen.7981:

Yes indeed, bugs in branches, ley run, lava floor are all about memorizing routes. That doesn’t make it bad.

Not at all. I’m fine with that. Had the route for ley line memorised quickly enough. Just couldn’t execute it reliably.

Raizen.7981:

And again, for the 81025th time, you do not need to have gold on all the adventures to reach 166 mastery.

I know, I know. But it’s not just about the mastery. I want to be able to conquer all adventures to gold. I want that achievement. The mastery points are just an added incentive.

Raizen.7981:

Getting silver on all of them is a piece of cake, and there’s some adventures that just give free gold for literally 0 skill(salvage pit, flying circus, wings of gold, the one where you drive a motorcycle thingy i can’t remember,

You’re thinking of Drone racer. Yes, did salvage pit again just yesterday and it’s easy as cake.

Raizen.7981:

There’s the medium tier(bugs in branches,punchomatic, the drone one, lava floor). With gold on these you should have absolutely no problem reaching 166

The drone one? You don’t mean drone racer again, do you? You mentioned it as easy above. Is there another drone related adventure?

Yes I’m sorry, I didn’t mean the drone racer again, I wanted to say the one where you kill a lot of chak mobs, scrap rifle. Most mobs there are called chak drones hence why I kittened up the spelling. And when I said adventures are only about skill I pretty much meant it when we’re talking about a lag free environment. It’s obvious that it’s not your fault that 2s ping makes you fall down branches.

About completing all adventures on gold – this takes a load of skill(I’m trash at aiming so the target practice thingy is off limits for me) so it might be a pain in the kitten

Ah, Shooting Gallery. Yeah, still trying to get that one. I end up firing prematurely and shooting the smoke before dummy even appears.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ellieanna.5027:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Ellieanna.5027:

It totally is entitlement.

…Explain to me how that is not entitled? We lost nothing (actually we’re getting more) and yet some feel they deserve more now.

It totally isn’t, from my perspective. Right now, nearly every reward in the game includes XP and it feels wasteful to me that (a) I can’t save it up for use in a future mastery or (b) apply it to something, especially since I have all sorts of XP boosters (and foods and …) that have no value (to me) until there’s a new mastery track.

At the same time, I agree with you that it’s fair to say that we already get the same rewards as before (via spirit shards, which steadily accumulate through new methods) and that turning XP into a new currency would mean we’d be getting more than before. Thus, I’d also be okay if the game simply stopped telling us when we got XP (after maxing masteries) and stopped giving us XP-specific boosters.

See, I can accept them turning off the XP notice when you kill something. That’s fine. And then when we get new masteries (we all know that’s coming, whether through the next living story, or expansion) we continue to get more experience towards that once launched.

I can see why we can’t save it for the next masteries.
1) What would the cap be, or would there not be a cap.
2) Wouldn’t that give someone an advantage when new masteries came out, and thus someone could actually be at max day 1.

Yes, I’m good either way:

• Turn off XP for people who can’t use it. or
• Offer some sort of something.

At the moment, I feel like it’s a disadvantage to me to complete maps on toons, because all that XP could have gone to something else. (Yes, that’s an example of hoarding and I don’t really expect ANet to care that much about that aspect of it.)

Not hoarding. Prudent use of resources and avoiding waste.

Elstar.7864:

Stopped playing when that jumping puzzle pre-expansion zone was introduced. Came here to forums checking what’s new in the expansion. So, more jumping puzzles and group-only open world content? Not worth buying, I guess.

..or worth buying if you’re into that.

But that’s beside the point, since it’s not group-only content. Plenty you can do solo with only exotics. I know there is because I’m anti-social and I’m enjoying the jungle on my lonesome very much.

The first time you finish DS you get a ley energy converter which can give you a crowbar a day. Not much, but it’s enough to open the airship cargo chest in my home instance.

Rauderi.8706:

Adding my voice to this, too. My particular irk is wiping at Axemaster. It takes forever to make it back after a waypoint if the nearby camp is dead. (And it usually is, so lol.)

Yes, I had a taste of this last night. Fighting axemaster. Fell off the platform. Wp’ed back to Faren’s WP, run up the hill to the chopper and before I got to the canopy I was told I wasn’t participating. A tad over-zealous of the timer.

IndigoSundown.5419:

These complaints should be a wake-up call for ANet. No matter what, if one group is complaining about something, they fix it for that group, a different group is going to get angry.

That said, either complaint, in my mind, is a poster child for the meme: First World Problems.

They’ve had this wake-up call several times in just the past year that I’ve been playing. It doesn’t seem to be waking them. They still release global changes to please one group at the expense of another without seemingly giving any thought to making it optional. But maybe repetition will eventually get the call through.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

I’ve brought this issue up a few weeks ago but no one bothered to respond, I figued I was the only one concerned with it.

You’re definitely not the only one. I think we’re all just getting that talking-to-a-brick-wall feeling that happens when something painfully obvious needs addressing and there’s not even a hint that the PTB are listening.

What’s even stranger are responses from players who seem very passionate about not being rewarded for their efforts, as we’ve seen on this forum, and think that other players are snobs for feeling otherwise. We live in a world where people actively oppose something that not only doesn’t hurt them but would actually benefit them. My mind would boggle if my boggling gland hadn’t already been broken by the endless examples of this insanity.

I’m enjoying these little diversions but it’s a little disappointing that the big prize is a load of xp which isn’t transferrable to another toon. It’s of no use to my favourite level 80 toon since my masteries are complete. I guess I should use another toon that isn’t up to 80. But what about those that don’t have any toons that need xp? Seems a shame to create another toon just to suck up that xp. Would be nice if the reward included something additional to the xp for those that don’t need xp.

Putting aside the reasons why and arguments for or against….

…one little enhancement I wish for is that a recipe would show you if you already have it on another character. It’s a small issue as I just drop recipes in the bank and pick them up with my crafting toon (i have one toon for all crafting) but it would be a nice QoL.

Horrorscope.7632:

HOT maybe one of those things ahead of it’s time, like some music. When launched, misunderstood, too different. Over time as it normalizes to the masses… then it become appreciated. Maybe not. It may not have that expected first impression we seek, but something more acquired. I’d say just be open to something different, once you find your groove you may find the old maps a bit too basic.

^ Indeed. I didn’t get it at first. Now I love it.

I’m happy with HOT and the jungle maps, since you asked. But as to lessons learned.. well, one glaring lesson seems to keep slipping them by: providing options rather than making global changes that change only which subset of the player base is happy rather than making everybody happy.

Lyp Sao.1375:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

…or some kind of green, hairy creature that lives in the trash cans of LA? Gotta search all the trash cans in the city to find him.

Today I saw a green haired charr between the trash cans. But he refused to take my junk.

He always does the opposite of what you ask. Try asking for his junk and I’m sure he’ll take yours. ;D

Agemnon.4608:

Why should I care about that when Overwatch will be much better on the CPU while still being graphically superior?

Isn’t Overwatch a squad based first person shooter? I’m no big city game comparer but it seems to me that’s different from a mmorpg.

Stevieboy.4192:

Stevieboy.4192:

Open world maps should be just that, open world.

Not sure why you think they aren’t
Areas of map blocked by ‘Vines’ reliant on map meta to proceed is why.

Sort of blocked. Some of the AB vine walls can be glided over.

I’ve been spending almost all my time in the jungle lately (and enjoying it) but there are two little issues with the participation timers that detract from the experience:

1. I still get advised that I’m no longer participating in an event…. minutes after it has finished. It’s not a big issue but it’s continued existence after all these months just seems a little embarrassing.

2. Some participation time-outs seem too strict. I spent ages completing the entire Friend of the Frogs chain from start to finish and when I got to the Chak Blitzer at the end, things took a turn for the worst. There were only the three of us, we were in the tunnel just north of the Rata Sum waypoint and the chak attacked en masse. I died and, restarting at the Rata Sum waypoint – being the closest one, ran back to the event. Before I could get there, I was told I was no longer participating. That’s not a good feeling after all the time spent. I don’t know what the time allowance is, or if it’s dynamic, but in this instance it would have helped to have another ten seconds to get there.

So, yeah. Having a ball in the jungle. Just a few minor annoyances.

Eirdyne.9843:

A Place for Girlfriend, Girl Friends, and Couples?
20. Have the Devs stopped making the game such a grind/time-gate everyone’s girlfriend will quit?
21. If you’re a couple playing the game do you feel it’s fair again to play or is still difficult to do things together?
23. Anything else impacting couples negatively or be prepared for?

I found a lot of your questions to be answerable by a little research on the wiki, or so subjective or biased as to be unanswerable or just a little out of left field, like the couples questions.

On the subject of girlfriends (why the plural? Do you mean friends who are girls or that you have multiple girlfriends?) or couples, my girlfriend and I see no negative issues at all. We sometimes play together, and sometimes play apart while talking on the phone as the fancy takes us. We have different interests and time availabilities, as do you and your girlfriend (or girlfriends). We don’t feel any particular need to play together to enjoy the game. There aren’t any negative issues that would keep a couple apart if they decided to play together.

If I may be honest, the phrasing of your questions suggests that you have a bias against the game. You’re already looking for problems. If you come into it like that, you’re not going to enjoy it. Maybe it’s not the time to come back. Give it a little longer and come into it gently when the animosity dies down.

Lyp Sao.1375:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Agreed. It’s so useless all you can do is destroy it. But it’s so important you have to confirm its destruction.

You must confirm the one and only option. Great (“Are you sure? [x] YES”).

We need a Star of Trash or a Princess of Trash

…or some kind of green, hairy creature that lives in the trash cans of LA? Gotta search all the trash cans in the city to find him.

EDIT: Put my reply within the quote instead of outside it. D’oh.

Thank you, Gaile and devs!

Do we really need to interact with them? I like that the speed mushrooms in HOT activate just by walking through them. Would love it if an anvil just repaired by walking through it. Then anet can surround them with all kinds of inane npcs who spout repetitive dialogue when interacted with. I’ll just run through without interacting. Everybody wins.

stale.9785:

StinVec.3621:

I may be wrong, but this may be related to the 64-bit client now being automatically downloaded and used instead of the 32-bit client (if it ‘detects’ that it should be).

Previously, when I would switch the client bit version from using the 32 to using the 64beta, several personal settings would get lost, such as the inventory size and position. I needed to resize and position it (as well as correct several other settings) every time I switched client bit version.

Your size/position settings should be remembered and work properly and persist after you set them and restart the game.

---

One may wonder why I was switching back and forth between bit versions – system stability and functionality tests (memory usage/temps/graphics/different ReShade versions and settings). I had decided to stick with the 32bit in the end. I’m really not thrilled that they are now forcing the 64bit client. Of all the stuff that has nearly made me walk away, this may be the last one that actually does it unless I can find a way to force the 32bit exe to be used.

Curious – why exactly do you prefer the 32 bit client?

I swapped to the 64bit client when it first went beta, haven’t gone back. It’s been a far better experience.

Guessing this is seriously a “your mileage may vary” issue?

I tried the 64-bit client a couple of months ago. My experience of it was that it would pause suddenly, usually in the middle of combat, and when it came back I was dead. I tried the 64-bit client because I thought it would help with my DCs, but in the end it didn’t and only a new, better router helped with that. The 32 bit client didn’t pause intermittently so I stuck with it.

I’m curious to see how the 64-bit client goes now. Time to give it another go.

There’s a good quote from Ian Fleming’s “Goldfinger” novel: “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.”

If we’re supposed to “play as we want”, we’re going to need options. Forcing another global change on everybody with no options after the debacle of the last few global changes… well, as they say, once or twice is coincidence…

Yes, it’s expensive, but I have to satisfy my compulsion to collect all converters/gobblers. Herta, Star of Gratitude, Princess, Mawdrey II, Ley Energy Converter… and one day… the Karmic Converter.

Raizen.7981:

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

Stuff..

I agree that lag makes adventures a bad experience. However, as somebody who got gold on almost all adventures in less than a week, I can honestly tell you that adventures are only about your skill as a player.

Don’t you think those statements are mutually exclusive? If you agree that lag has an effect, then you can’t honestly say adventures are only about skill. I’m all for skillful adventures. We just need to get the lag out of them so they can be all about skill.

Raizen.7981:

Yes indeed, bugs in branches, ley run, lava floor are all about memorizing routes. That doesn’t make it bad.

Not at all. I’m fine with that. Had the route for ley line memorised quickly enough. Just couldn’t execute it reliably.

Raizen.7981:

And again, for the 81025th time, you do not need to have gold on all the adventures to reach 166 mastery.

I know, I know. But it’s not just about the mastery. I want to be able to conquer all adventures to gold. I want that achievement. The mastery points are just an added incentive.

Raizen.7981:

Getting silver on all of them is a piece of cake, and there’s some adventures that just give free gold for literally 0 skill(salvage pit, flying circus, wings of gold, the one where you drive a motorcycle thingy i can’t remember,

You’re thinking of Drone racer. Yes, did salvage pit again just yesterday and it’s easy as cake.

Raizen.7981:

There’s the medium tier(bugs in branches,punchomatic, the drone one, lava floor). With gold on these you should have absolutely no problem reaching 166

The drone one? You don’t mean drone racer again, do you? You mentioned it as easy above. Is there another drone related adventure?

You wouldn’t want to eat them. They’re full of mercury.

I’m of the mind that if this is considered a problem there are technical solutions to it that don’t require players to big brother each other.

Just my thoughts:

1. Events could ignore players that are not moving/using skills for X minutes and not include them in scaling.

2. Pets could stop attacking for/defending players who are not moving/using skills for X minutes.

3. Auto-heals could stop working if a player hasn’t …etc, etc

4. If a player hasn’t moved, used a skill or chatted in X minutes, an icon of some sort could appear over their heads indicating AFK and maybe indicating some time since last action. This would obviously help other players determine if somebody has been afk longer than a timer should allow, but for me it would help to know if some corpse is afk so I don’t risk my life ressing someone afk in a dangerous situation.

These aren’t the only solutions or even the best ones, but I’m sure there are technical solutions anet could look into if they were inclined, rather than leaving it to players to judge each other and guess who’s legitimately afk and who isn’t.

At Teq, there’s an NPC who shouts out warnings like when Teq is about to breathe fear or cause a shockwave. Is there anything like that at Shat? I can’t remember. If some NPC shouted out, “Get to da launch pad” at the appropriate moments in an Arnie type voice I think more people would do it.

At the very least, I wish the Found Bandit Chest wouldn’t move around. Being able to place the nodes would be even nicer.

It would also be nice if each event introduced a new node as a memento of the event, even if that node was purely cosmetic. E.g. the Dragonbash festival could have offered a Dragonball sculpture that you could place in your home.

Sindex.9520:

Also I treat the whole “I’ll contact the dev’s and get back to you as soon as I can” as a huge red flag. Since the majority of the time nothing ever really comes back. For a long time.

Yes.. most recently the “May the stars..” thread got one of those 14 days ago. I asked if there was any more info six days ago. Still waiting.

Agreed. It’s so useless all you can do is destroy it. But it’s so important you have to confirm its destruction.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Another thing you can do is say a few things in map or guild chat every now and then… anything at all… then there’s a LOG of you being at your computer interacting with the game, even if someone does try and report you.

Incidentally, chatting doesn’t count as activity. I was sitting around on Broken Wall with a friend once, chatting away while we watched the sun go down and the stars come out, and I kept getting the inactivity warnings. I don’t know if chatting should reset the timer, as I can see ways of faking chat to get around the timer, but it highlights that activity in the game requires movement or skill use.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

I report the people I see standing in the exact same spot for long periods of time. If I see someone hanging out, fine… but if I come back semi-frequently and they haven’t moved at all, that’s when I report them. If I see them move even a little, then I know they’re at their keyboard.

That.. sounds a bit intrusive, to be honest. Like the nosy neighbour who’s always watching you and checking that you’ve put your bin out at the right time and it’s exactly the right distance from the kerb. I know it’s not a good metaphor since we’re all out in a public space in the game, but that’s the feeling your statement gives me.

How do you know if they’re ‘hanging out’? How do you know they’re not having a conversation with somebody? How do you know that they didn’t use a skill while you weren’t watching them? Do you take screenshots? See, it gets creepy really fast.

I’m not arguing for or against reporting supposed afk farmers. Just saying that this attitude of players watching each other to check if we’re afk makes me uncomfortable.

Anet have the logs. They should be able to determine where a timer should have kicked in but didn’t and why. I work with databases and it seems like there could be an automated process that would do this kind of data mining and simply warn anet when a possible situation comes up. They have the data. They’re in the best position to know what’s really going on. I’m happy to leave the big brother stuff to them and just play the game.

To provide some small contribution to the conversation, if I haven’t already, what about a diminishing returns on scaling then? One complaint is that afk’ers scale up events they’re in. Why couldn’t the scaling just ignore players that haven’t shown activity in some period of time? Would that go any way to addressing that concern?

PopeUrban.2578:

Casual

People keep using that word, without understanding what it means.

Casual is a distinction in amount played, not skill brought to the table.

I would argue that the meaning of some words, like casual, is so subjective as to be a useless term for debates. Even if we take it as a distinction in amount played, where is the line? How much do you have to play to go from casual to ..elite?

I value any attempt to clarify something but I think in the case of ‘casual’ we’re doomed to haggle over the meaning, if we’re looking for an absolute one. I think the only use we’re going to get out of it is in relative comparisons; e.g. Person X plays Y hours. I play Y + 5 hours, therefore person X is more casual than me.

Apart from that, I agree with the rest of your post and I do (now) enjoy the difficulty of HOT. It’s even got me excited to see what the next expansion might bring and.. if it might be a little harder still.

EDIT: typo

PopeUrban.2578:

I think he’s complaining that getting to high fractals doesn’t make your stats more uber.

Cedric, that’s the point. GW2 is a game where maximizing your stats is quick and easy, and the remainder of a character’s combat ability is down to personal skill, not gear.

The payoff for the thing in question, fractals, is higher monetary rewards for doing harder content. It’s not supposed to reward you better for making content easier. It’s supposed to reward you better because content is more difficult. Agony Resistance is a balancing lever put there to prevent even the most skilled players from advancing too quickly to the highest levels and immediately earning the most valuable rewards, so that there is a sense of progression.

Many of your complaints about GW2 stem from an assumption that the game should scale character power in a similar manner to other games. GW2 doesn’t do that. It’s deliberate and one of the main reasons people that enjoy this game continue to play it.

There’s nothing wrong with disliking that, but what you view as a negative, most of the community views as a positive.

I admire how calmly and rationally you’re answering the OP. Personally, I don’t believe Cedric is a real person anymore. I think he’s a focus group of uni psychology students who are conducting some kind of experiment on how groups in an anonymous medium respond to injections of irrationality into the group dynamic. Some of ‘his’ posts just seem too ..formulated to be incidental.

Yeah, and I still haven’t received your stuff, Cedric!

Ellieanna.5027:

I have no issues with the Guild Hall mats being added, or Blade Shards. But some of the things you want added are really a waste of storage space and Anet’s time to add.

Debating whether it’s a fair use of anet’s time i can understand but… a waste of storage space? How does that work? Is there some physical limit on the material storage vault?

Agree on more HOT armour, as armour so you can mix and match. The whole outfit idea is so conformist.

Yes, it’s not clear whether adventures were intended for multiple players or should just be single player instances. Salvage pit is another one that’s easy and fun by yourself but with several people in it, it becomes unplayable because of the amount of red circles flying around.

I’m still trying to get gold on Floor is Lava. I will succeed. Though I might go mad.

I enjoyed the feeling of progressing various skills which the mastery system provided. There was a definite feeling of envy when I only had basic gliding and others flew over me on the ley lines. And that feeling becomes satisfaction (and a little bit of smugness, I admit) when I was able to fly along the ley lines and gaze down upon the unwashed masses. There are arguably things about the masteries that frustrate me, such as the waste of xp after they’re capped, but overall the masteries are something I appreciate.

I’m glad to hear the OP is enjoying HOT now. I know I am.

I never thought I’d care enough to comment on adventures. That’s until I sat down last night and focused on completing a few for the mastery points and the achievement of doing them to gold. Now I feel very different about them. And not in a good way.

Some are genuinely fun. Salvage pit, Drone race and Wings of Gold were enjoyable and with practice it didn’t take long to get gold. They’re even fun to replay.

Ley line run… not so fun.

I was determined to beat it last night. I watched videos. I practiced the run slowly to get the hang of the skills. And after two hours I got my gold. But those were two hours of frustration and swearing I’ll never get back. And I never want to do this ‘adventure’ again… which is a shame. It’s ostensibly a fast-paced race high above the ground. That sounds thrilling. The reality isn’t.

I live in Australian and I definitely felt the ping/lag other Australians have reported. Skills fired inconsistently. Sometimes pressing 1 would dash me forward immediately, sometimes it would take a second. When you have to press jump soon after to fly across a gap, you’re likely as not find yourself falling because you pressed jump before the skill fired.

I knew the course and the best path through it by heart after half an hour. I was pressing the right buttons. I was following the gold video almost exactly. And I was fighting the interface the entire time. What’s weird is that Salvage pit, drone race and wings of gold don’t seem to have this issue, or at least it isn’t significant enough in those to be noticeable. They’re perhaps more forgiving of lag. But when you’re racing a spark high above the ground to beat a 45 second countdown, suddenly every second is very important. And an unreliable interface becomes deadly.

I don’t know if it’s lag or something else, but several times I would also find myself stuck inside the models of the rocks after a dash or teleport.

And then there’s the final insult to this adventure: to get gold, it seems like you have to do it in 45 seconds. I did it in 45 seconds and didn’t get gold. I did this several times. It showed my score – 45 seconds – and below it showed the gold time – 45 seconds. But it wouldn’t award me gold. Now I know that you don’t get gold for finishing in 45 seconds. You get it for finishing BELOW 45 seconds. I tried again and again and eventually got it down to 44. Mission accomplished. Enjoyable.. not so much. And why the misleading time? If you want it done in 44 seconds, just write 44 seconds.

I don’t know how I feel about gating mastery points behind adventures. It felt satisfying to finish Salvage/Drone/Wings and get those mastery points. It felt …not satisfying, but earned.. to get them from ley line run. I worked really hard for those, and I don’t mind working hard, but in the end victory depended more on luck more than work and repeating the same actions over and over until you get a run where every skill fires when you use it. Some adventures aren’t a test of skill. They’re a test of patience.

Rivindor.7258:

The playstyle you need to adopt in HoT is to fight – not run – your way through and take things one step at a time.

Or.. you could run through, as I do on my mesmer. With blink, decoy and mass invis I can bypass a lot of critters and avoid fighting altogether. By all means fight if you want to, but it doesn’t have to be the only available play style. You have options. Constant fighting can get a little dull. Sometimes you just want to get somewhere, you know?

Haleydawn.3764:

This is an MMO, if we had tutorials on absolutely everything the game would be incredibly cluttered.

We don’t need tutorials on everything. There are already tutorials in the game. We just need one more for CC.

Hmm.. intriguing

Okay, seriously then. No, that’s not all the expansion is about. And you’re not playing it incorrectly, you’re just not playing everything yet. The expansion is much more than the jungle, but to keep it brief let’s just discuss the jungle:

The individual events you’ve seen form chains, which form an overall meta-event. In VB, this means taking control of various camps, which ultimately leads to choppers arriving and flying you up to the canopy where you fight giant bosses.

In addition to mastery points, hero points and the usual vistas and poi, there are also strongboxes to be found in the jungle maps. There are many new achievements, invisible mushrooms, adventures, and a couple of jumping puzzles, new guild halls which you have to fight to claim, two new gadgets (Herta and the Ley Energy Converter) for converting currencies and three chests you can add to your home instance.

And there are the other three maps you haven’t tried yet: Auric Basin, with it’s city of gold and a large meta about defending it, Tangled Depths with it’s lanes of different allied creatures fighting the insectoid chak and a hidden asuran city. And Dragon’s Stand, a battle through the depths of the jungle to Mordremoth’s lair (or at least his mouth, hard to explain).

You could take the opinion of the posters who are saying there’s not much to it. But you’d be doing yourself a disservice. There’s plenty to do. Look for commanders in the jungle maps and tag along. You’ll pick it up and find what you like to do in the jungle.

Well, I play it naked so correctly is relative.

(Just kidding. Or am I?)

But seriously, Dante… you’ve complained about HOT in various threads for some time now. I know the frustration you describe – I felt it too when HOT first came out. I hated the jungle. I hated DS. I fumed about it.

But I don’t anymore. I wander around by myself, taking part in events and completing maps. I even enjoy DS. The jungle doesn’t feel much harder than other zones anymore. I didn’t want to believe it for the longest time, but what some people were saying is true: if you adapt to the jungle, if you get to know its critters and use the right build and get the masteries, it does get easier. And fun.

Dante.1508:

Also i take it you have all masteries are in Ascended / Legendary gears and weapons.. So of course Hot will be easier..

From the way you said that, it sounds like you’re not keen on getting the masteries. Why is that? There is a system in place that improves your abilities and helps you survive the jungle.. You may not like the system. It may even be frustrating to acquire, but if you refuse to use it can you honestly say you’ve really tried your best to prepare?

In case you’re interested, my fav toon for playing in the jungle is a mesmer with exotic gear. I use that utility that teleports, that other utility that stealths and of course the portal so I can help other people get around. My elite skill is the mass invisibility and the mes is traited to increase the duration of stealth and to increase revive. This setup gives me a satisfying mobility around the jungle and the ability to help others.

We all have specific situations/available time/biological differences that may legitimately account for finding the jungle difficult. But we also have our own self-imposed limitations that get in our own way, usually without us knowing they’re even there. It comes down to intellectual honesty. If you’ve honestly done everything within your power to prepare for something and it’s still beyond you, fair enough. But ask yourself… do you feel you’ve done enough, or are you limiting yourself and your enjoyment?

Dante.1508:

I haven’t even bothered logging in for 4 days now, and am probably just going to uninstall.

Before anyone else asks, can I have your stuff?

Dante.1508:

Been playing it for two weeks and 4 characters how long is the adjustment period supposed to be?

Because i haven’t adjusted.

It varies by person but expecting such a speedy result is the surest way to set yourself up for disappointment, and not just in this game. Allow things to take their natural course and you’ll find your mojo in the jungle.

I have a problem with so much content coercing me to do PVP. I don’t like PVP, whether it’s SPVP or WvW, yet there are two whole tabs of dailies pressuring me to do it!!
Not to mention that the so-called PVE activities are also PVP. There’s a conspiracy in this game to make people fight each other. To create conflict. Why so much pressure!?!?!?!?

/s

DarcShriek.5829:

If we allowed just anyone to buy crowbars it would be total chaos. Think of all the car windshields that would be smashed.

But on the other hand, incidents of Head-crab Facial Assaults (HFA) would go down. With your help, we can eliminate HFA in our lifetime!

mauried.5608:

Is HOT a gear based zone?
How many people are playing in HOT with green gear or less and enjoying it?

Sometimes I run around there in my underpants and it’s fun. I found finishing the masteries and choosing the right utilities to be the most useful thing.