Are we really leaving Path of Fire behind?

It's just such a shame. A big new expansion with these huge nostalgic areas... and you never feel like you want to go back there again after acquiring the griffon. You know the one place I DO go? Amnoon. For the Casino Blitz - or more to the point, for the Choya Pinata.

But don't think I'm the only one - people are drawn to the content that provides super rare and exciting infusion drops.You know what to do, Arena-Net, just make more rewards just like this, and pit them in the centre of group metas. That is what we want for open world PvE - look to Auric Basin, Tangled Depths and Silverwastes.

Rewards don't mater too much to me. I just find HoT more fun. Of course, my case is probably the exception, since most people seems to value rewards a lot.

@Ardid.7203 said:Rewards don't mater too much to me. I just find HoT more fun. Of course, my case is probably the exception, since most people seems to value rewards a lot.

Personally, I must be able to justify doing an event in some way. There simply must be an ample reward or chance at a big payout. I am sure the majority feels this way, when you consider the popularity of the events mentioned.

honestly? I find the PoF maps annoying. Pretty, but annoying. Not the maps themselves, but the npcs, the branded, awakened, sandsharks blabla everywhere. Especially the npc chatter is very annoying. I love the NPC chatter in DR, the Grove, Hoelbrak, Queensdale, Siren's Landing etc pp. I love almost all NPC chatter on all maps. Except PoF and Istan.

If I am going PVE just for fun, Core Tyria, LW3 maps or HOT. POF, LW4 only if I have to.

It seems like I finished PoF content faster than HoT (spec weapons for example). So I don't go back to PoF zones often unless I need a daily bounty. But I don't go back to HoT zones either now that I finished my goals there.

Sure, I like good reasons to go back. Even to Dry Top or Silverwastes, or even Southsun Cove!

Yup. I even gave up on Casino Blitz. The chance to get the infusion (to sell it) is around 0,001%. It's better to farm Istan if you want gold, lol.

I like the PoF maps more because has iconic places such as Augury Rock. I never liked the jungle in the old game and was glad to leave it behind in this one. However give me Ferndale back and I might change my mind :)

Different maps, designed to appeal to different people. Before HoT the majority (at least on this forum) seemed to be asking for hard, end-game content with big meta-events like Silverwastes, so that's what we got. But apparently it was too hard and another large group (or possibly some of the same people) complained about needing a group for everything and wanted flatter, easier to navigate maps where everything is available without having to play through long event chains. So that's what we got with PoF.

IMO both expansions should really have been a mix of both, but Anet thought they were responding to what players wanted.

Having said that the main reason I've not spent much time in PoF since finishing the griffon is because I started making a legendary weapon so when I'm not playing one of my low level characters I'm working on that and most the stuff I need is in core maps. I've finished the story and got the griffon but there's a lot I haven't done, like map completion and a lot of the achievements and collections. I still haven't played Serpent's Ire all the way through and I want to do that at least once.

@Danikat.8537 said:

IMO both expansions should really have been a mix of both, but Anet thought they were responding to what players wanted.

Solid point in my opinion.

It's the result of Anet taking out any kind of difficulty and reason to socialize more and more as the years go by.

Vanilla had dungeons as repeatable endgame content, and at release they were far harder than open world, obviously. Open world was the chill casual filler content.

I think HoT tried to merge the two: no dungeons, but they increased the difficulty, replayability, and teamwork needed for open world.

PoF is just the final step of making things even easier. No dungeons, no "meta maps", basically just a bunch of leveling zones without actual leveling. It has no challenge and no real endgame.

Expansions are supposed to bring a lot of repeatable content with them and the "finish & forget" type of content should be used as filler between expansions - except PoF is exactly like that filler content. No longevity at all.

PoF IMO is already the bottom of the barrel, I can't even imagine how an expansion could possibly deliver less and get away with it. I wouldn't even call it an expansion, more like a DLC.

After 1 week I had no real reason to revisit any of the places.

Mounts were the only reason I went there.Maps aren't fun and trawling through hordes of enemies just to open the map was frustrating.The only mount I won't get is griffon.The prospect of soloing more of the story isn't appealing.

the maps in POF are huge and in my opinion not as fun or rewarding as HOT maps mainly because they are to big with not enough going on to be worth visiting again. LW3 and HOT maps are more fun because there is so much to do and more to work for it feels like POF is to handed to you and not as much of a challenge as I was expecting. with maps as big as they are I was expecting a lot more stuff and events and fun things. I think they need more meta events and more rewards to give people a reason to go back. to sum it all up POF is huge and simply needs MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having to redo hearts to access vendors killed it for me.

The loot in the PoF maps is pretty good if what you are looking for is materials for crafting armor and weapons. I'm not looking for that big payout of some crazy rare item that goes for thousands on the TP. Between the trade caches and other goodies I feel well rewarded for my time on the expansion maps.If I want raw gold per hour, I can do silverwastes until my eyes bleed or farm Istan. If I want shinies I can still go back and do the HoT metas which were not replaced in any way. I want trinkets, I go to the S3 maps.I prefer the PoF maps and spend most of my time on them to this day. I prefer their size and scope, I find the reward structures more convenient and they are more of what I enjoy, rather than running another Vinewraith/DS/Octovine.While I wish we had gotten one good map-wide meta, it has nothing to to with the rewards but more the scope of the activity. To this day the co-ordination and scope of SW and AB's metas stands out to me as the one thing I was hoping to get and PoF and didn't.

Imo, if PoF didn't add mounts it would've been the worst expansion I've ever seen for an MMORPG.

• Story was quite decent for an MMO
• Mounts are super cool
• Environmental map design was good

Other than that, everything else was bad or non existent

• No replayability at all
• Still only a short story experience
• No engaging quests, events or anything that would carry the lore or story outside of the few main story missions
• No new big metas or world bosses added
• Super lame repeatable heart system was once more reused
• Very few new armor/weapon sets and skins
• No new legendaries
• No mount skins available through PoF collections
• Not much or nothing at all in terms of fractals or dungeons or PvP modes or WvW maps (literally, what's the longterm aspect of this expac?)
• Mastery system as progression system, to make up for the lack of raising the level cap has gotten even more useless, to a point where Anet should go back to the drawing board and ask themselves if there's not any better solution to make masteries a longterm goal with some use in the game and not something you only care for 5 days after an release
• No new races or classes
• No major class overhaul with an expac

With PoF I've got 2 weeks of fun. We got an awesome new mechanic with mounts, that gives the entire game a new touch. We got new elite specializations to play for the next two years.

But other than that, PoF felt like a bundle of LS episodes, all we basically got besides mounts was story and 5 maps. If you didn't like vanilla or HoT you should really not buy PoF, because you'll be sooner as you might think back to playing the old content for the next years.

I mean, I don't go back to PoF because i find HoT metas fun and repetitively rewarding - you can barely even make gold out of PoF metas, and even though some of the metas for PoF are fun (even if absolutely fps killing even worse than HoT >.>) they're too small, short and easy for me to like even near as much as i like HoT. Some people despise everything about HoT metas....i don't know what would keep those types of people playing because i'm not one of them lol.

POF needs meta events similar to HOT added to all the maps. Also including black diamonds and the items needed to make vipers gear added to the POF maps would help.

I don't really think infusion drops are what makes people play those events. They're certainly a plus and there are for sure some players motivated by that, but when you look at the amount of people playing those events and the market offer of those items, you easily realize that the chance of getting one of them is too remote to even bother abiut them.It has probably more to do with a mix of massive multiplayer experince, overall decent reward and, in the case of HoT maps, a fixed schedule which allows interested players to easily gather up. Palawadan still fills several maps each time and there's no infusion drop AFAIK.

I personally play Tarir and Auric Basic metas because I still need currency from those maps, just like I play Casino Blitz form time to time because I stiill want casino coins or like I play Maws of Torment or Junundu Rising because I want contracts/mosaics and I hate bounty trains .The things that have attracted me the most in terms of rare drops are those where the drop itself isn't that expensive but at least looks like something possible which I would eventually get if I kept playing. Things like the off world boss train items for the Treasure Hunter achievement (Eye of Zhaitan, Ogre Wars, Rhendak, ...) or even the profession minis from PoF.

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:It's just such a shame. A big new expansion with these huge nostalgic areas... and you never feel like you want to go back there again after acquiring the griffon. You know the one place I DO go? Amnoon. For the Casino Blitz - or more to the point, for the Choya Pinata.

But don't think I'm the only one - people are drawn to the content that provides super rare and exciting infusion drops.You know what to do, Arena-Net, just make more rewards just like this, and pit them in the centre of group metas. That is what we want for open world PvE - look to Auric Basin, Tangled Depths and Silverwastes.

Actually I do Casino Blitz for the choya tonic, kites and other stuff not the infusion.

@Drew.1865 said:POF needs meta events similar to HOT added to all the maps. Also including black diamonds and the items needed to make vipers gear added to the POF maps would help.

Black Diamonds drop from Buried Treasures(unfortunately the mechanics for these suck ...) and Sunspear Caches.

If I had known that the Griffon mount that I paid for in the expansion was this hard to get, I wouldn't of got PoF in the first place.Soloing the story is not what I call fun.I have opened the other mounts, wasn't easy but I expect that...Why does the Griffon have to be hidden behind hours of long grinding story?I paid for it right?Why isn't it unlocked like the others?Hearts?Bragging rights I assume.This is why PoF gets my back turned to it and I head off back to the jungle...At least until the game I'm downloading finishes...

An idea I posted before was to have reward tracks and pips like WvW in each desert map. There also being rare drops from track completion, which can only be fulfilled through events and bosses.

I absolutely loved right after the expansion came out, finding random little events suddenly teaming with a bunch of people to work together. I miss that.

@"witcher.3197" said:PoF IMO is already the bottom of the barrel, I can't even imagine how an expansion could possibly deliver less and get away with it. I wouldn't even call it an expansion, more like a DLC.After 1 week I had no real reason to revisit any of the places.

Sooo much this. I actually quit for a few months and came back recently. But I'm in the same place I was before I quit. There's nothing to do!! Raids are out for me; because I'm stuck working 80 hours per week. And dungeons are dead. That leaves fractals. But I'm bored to death of them. I mean, seriously... how many times am I supposed to run Urban Battleground, or Dredge Facility? 200? 300? 1000?? Just, No.

So I started crafting a legendary weapon. But then I realized, I'd quickly be standing around, doing nothing again, with a staff that shoots ravens.

And it's amazing to me that this is the state of the game so soon after a MAJOR release! "I can't even imagine how an expansion could possibly deliver less and get away with it." Yep... Couldn't have said it better myself.

I find content of PoF areas OK (events, hearts....), however, I do not return there simply because free exploring is boring to me. To freely explore in PoF areas is zero fun - to me - due to all the fighting that can't be avoided. Don't get me wrong: I don't say it is bad. It is a hard area so it is part of it to have loads of foes. However, for me, free exploring in such conditions is a bother and I prefer to go elsewhere.Side note: To my eyes, to rush on a mount through out an area is not what I understand as "exploring". :)

At the top of it, I have no farming motivation there either: The only differences to other areas are some plants, like the lentils, and since I do not need those for anything I am doing, I don't feel like I would miss anything.

@Adenin.5973 said:

• No new big metas or world bosses addedThis is a straight-up lie. Every single map has large meta events, most of which end in huge boss fights. They just don't involve the entire map (also they don't shower you in loot, which is what people are really complaining about when they talk about the lack of meta events in PoF).

I deleted the game today. It's not even boredom, but already exasperation.PvP turned into a senseless and toxic lottery, with a constant imbalance.WvW is better, but too bored. Pve does not interest me especially.At the same time, constant disconnects, lag, hanging games.The game should be fun, if I understand correctly:) And not anger.It's amazing how the developers themselves are ripping their games. Blizz spoiled WoW by Cataclysm and Pandas, Anet also tried...

I am sorry for my bad English.