Should HoT maps be made less difficult?

The HoT maps from what I understand were made to be mostly all group content. The enemies are absurdly challenging, do extremely high damage and have very high health and usually are in large groups, and a lot of the HPs require large groups to fight champion enemies. New and returning players are at a huge disadvantage compared to PoF since most of the content is not soloable and with the release of PoF there are much less people doing the HoT maps. It should be re-balanced to be similar difficulty to the PoF map which has much more reasonable difficulty overall.

HP's can be done with a few players as they're just champions. Nothing special. No large groups needed.

All of the maps are fairly active. Just use the LFG.

All of the meta events can be done solo with the exception of any that have a champ.

Your basic assumption doesn't hold up to scrutiny. I see HoT HP trains regularly and have had no trouble completing the meta.

While I'd personally prefer it to be made less difficult(because I find difficulty tedious), I understand that this will not be a common opinion. The problem is that the expectations in HoT and PoF are quite different. I don't think the vast majority of players are expected to solo champion hero points, so the natural assumption is that we were expected to complete these in groups. When the expansion came out, that was an extremely reasonable assumption, but this is a bit less reasonable if we assume these maps have lower populations. PoF had veterans at hero points, so we were expected to do them solo. I remember seeing HP trains and wondering if they weren't a bit overkill. Perhaps, hero points should scale their difficulty along with map population(rather than just in event range). This would allow those seeking a challenge to find it in more populated areas without penalizing less-skilled individuals(or just those not interested in a challenge) from doing old or less popular content.

I understand that for some games can be challenging and some people don't like challenge. But for me on the other hand, I do like games that does not instantly make you win. When I play a game for the first time, I don't want to plow through it without dieing. I want to learn from my mistakes and feel that I am Getting better. But yes, there are times in games and GW2 is cursed by it too, where there is too much punishment for failure. For example, you are walking a long way, almost doing a JP to get to a HP, this time there are no other players around and it is the first time fighting the boss at the HP and you die and you have to do it all over again.Also, it is an MMO please learn that you play with other players the point is for you to ask for help. I myself rather enjoy playing solo too but I try to not complain about to little solo content in an MMO.

I can only handle that place as a Reaper because I work and play during off hours like over night, keep the Metas the same but change the Map Exploration to make it more solo friendly.

Plus isn't this old content, most MMOs I've played nerf older areas after new content becomes the norm?

@EdgarMTanaka.7291 said:I understand that for some games can be challenging and some people don't like challenge. But for me on the other hand, I do like games that does not instantly make you win. When I play a game for the first time, I don't want to plow through it without dieing. I want to learn from my mistakes and feel that I am Getting better. But yes, there are times in games and GW2 is cursed by it too, where there is too much punishment for failure. For example, you are walking a long way, almost doing a JP to get to a HP, this time there are no other players around and it is the first time fighting the boss at the HP and you die and you have to do it all over again.Also, it is an MMO please learn that you play with other players the point is for you to ask for help. I myself rather enjoy playing solo too but I try to not complain about to little solo content in an MMO.

I can tell you one thing, I work nights and back during season 3 I'd ask for help and get told it's the middle of the night, maybe there should be a mechanic in place that scales back the difficulty depending on the population on the map, or that sets the Metas off like Rift when they hit a population threshold.

I just play an Reaper at this point as it's the only class that works for people like me that plays half the time during off hours.

@AliamRationem.5172 said:Your basic assumption doesn't hold up to scrutiny. I see HoT HP trains regularly and have had no trouble completing the meta.

How about the middle of the night, like now for example?

get some friends or randoms. it's one of the very few areas in game where this is necessary in some situations. if i wanted to play a singel player rpg i'd play the newest release of skyrim

Excelsior.

The difficulty is, in every game, a multi-layered subject.For example, I don't think the enemies itself are difficult, but the amount, the placement or their debuffs.A few examples:

• Those huge beetle things that bounce me back and forth but don't really hurt are difficult, because they leave me open for the others to attack.
• Or the environment: I can not use my class (back then Daredevil) when I have to fight on 50cm (~2ft) narrow walkways, bridges and near ledges in danger of me jumping off a cliff while doing Thief stuff.
• I have stopped the story because I can not find a way to Rata Novus - combined with an already mentioned problem:
• Enemy placement. In congested areas, I often can not get off aggro, so once I fought off 25 mordrem, I can not regain health fast enough and suddenly, there are five respawning. Trying to figure my way through the jungle is not possible with permanent fights, permanent reduced movement speed, permanent damage I take. Bouncing off a mushroom, landing jumps or just walk through an area is sure death often when I would not fight back. But I don't want to fight, I want (and have to) traverse the jungle to reach a waypoint.

So, as you can see, you have several problems at once. Just like a game of Mikado, touching one problem might cause a chain reaction of imbalances, very similar to PvP profession balance.

So, yes, I want it to be easier, but only at certain parts. Less enemies with the same strenght would work, or moving enemies off certain places, or change the environment, which would probably change the feel and design idea of these maps. Then I would say "No", I just need to step up the game a bit. Or, eww, "make online friends". But to me, it feels like aNet was not so sure about the difficulty itself after people complained about GW2 being too easy. The difficulty is in itself very balanced and the same high level troughout the entire expansion, as if aNet was following a fixed roadmap in PoF.

You don't need a large group for HoT. I've done the story and completed most of the maps on a ranger, an elementalist and an engineer so far and I've been playing solo on all of them. (All in a mix of exotics and ascended, mainly ascended trinkets from the laurel vendor and exotic weapons and armour.)

Most of the time you can go around the maps alone, as long as you're careful not to rush around aggroing too many enemies. There's an option to turn on all enemy names which I find very useful because it means you can see what's ahead of you. Take the time to kill things as you're going along and you're much less likely to be overwhelmed. Also a lot of the harder enemies don't need more people to beat, they just need good tactics - learning which ones to attack first (e.g. take down the Mordrem Menders early or they'll drag the fight out and make it much more likely you're overwhelmed) and which attacks are effective against which enemies. For example the Smokescales are hard to hit directly when they're standing in their mist field so I focus on applying damaging conditions so they're taking damage even when I can't hit them, put AoEs on the mist field and move away from it to try and draw them out where I can hit them, or at least stop them hitting me until they're vulnerable.

There are some things which are extremely difficult to do solo, maybe impossible unless you're the kind of person who can solo dungeons. But even then it doesn't need lots of people. I've completed champion hero point challenges with just 1 other person and even for the hardest ones I'd say the most you need is 5 people.

And remember in this game doing something with another person doesn't have to mean meeting them in advance, planning to do it, forming a party and heading out together. You can do hero challenges (and anything else) with anyone who happens to be around so if you're willing to wait you can just hang around the challenge location until another person comes along. Or you can ask in map chat if anyone else needs it or is willing to help. Or you can use the LFG tool to find organised groups going around all the hero challenges (yes they still exist).

Don't touch it, thanks.I sometimes wonder why people play MMOs if they won't group.

There is no need to nerf it. The experience of HoT has already been nerfed with the introduction of mounts and new elite specs, and will forever be constantly nerfed in the future with whatever new content is released within n a new expansion.

Most people seem to forget that HoT got already nerved right after its release.

As someone who played HoT as well as PoF mostly solo (story as well as map-completion) I think it should stay as it is.With HoT you got a mentor tag and there is a LFG-tool, use both to create ad-hoc short-term parties, if you have to kill a champ, usually 2-3 party members are already enough, to distribute aggro a bit and give you time to use your heal-skills.

And keep one think in mind: a glass-canon is a build that do not forgive mistakes, but no one forces you to run around like this solo ;)

The HoT maps have been made easier numerous times since they were release. Yes, the mobs can be frustrating. Yes, there is a high density of them. But this is also enemy territory, it should be crawling with mobs and it should be a bit more challenging to get around than let's say Queensdale.How easy do you want it to be? There's plenty of other maps in the game you can visit. Also, this is an MMorpg, if you struggle at something, chances are others are as well. Apple up while doing stuff in the jungle and ppl will come and join you and make those plant meanies less threatening.

Do PoF if you want solo content, leave HoT for us who like a somewhat difficult open world where we have to think about what to kill first & how to kill it thanks. I've never needed more than 2 people to do all of HoT except for mushroom queen hero point. That includes all hp even champs, and all meta events except for the big ones (t4 vb, octovine, chak gerent, and obviously DS-- meaning you can clear the outposts in TD and AB solo too, though the pylon fights in AB are on and off in terms of soloability there's a few i've done 100% alone.)

And even for the things which do need big groups aside the big metas, i've never had trouble getting the max 5 people needed to do them (eg chak driver). For everything in HoT, it gets easier once you apply a little tactical thinking to it...i could spend all day listing the best way to deal with groups of enemies frankly, it's not too hard once you try and learn how to deal with them.

At worst, apple tag always brings a couple people to whatever you're doing- i got all VB outpost daytime metas done (even blighting tree) with the power of the apple alone.

They should instead incrase PoF map difficulty.They are a total joke.

@Oldirtbeard.9834 said:

@EdgarMTanaka.7291 said:I understand that for some games can be challenging and some people don't like challenge. But for me on the other hand, I do like games that does not instantly make you win. When I play a game for the first time, I don't want to plow through it without dieing. I want to learn from my mistakes and feel that I am Getting better. But yes, there are times in games and GW2 is cursed by it too, where there is too much punishment for failure. For example, you are walking a long way, almost doing a JP to get to a HP, this time there are no other players around and it is the first time fighting the boss at the HP and you die and you have to do it all over again.Also, it is an MMO please learn that you play with other players the point is for you to ask for help. I myself rather enjoy playing solo too but I try to not complain about to little solo content in an MMO.

I don't see the problem, I play solo most of the time as I said and I have completed nearly every achievement in HoT. I don't have time to play nearly at all but I do not ask to ruin the game for everyone else becouse of that. Concerning HoT I never liked the metas there becouse they close of points and stuff so you can't get there if you don't do the meta so I agree with you there but the difficulty should not get changed in my opinion. Group content is for groups, solo players should not be hindered playing their content as it does in some situations in HoT. But small HPs and other minor group event is not hard and if you really need help with them at least I haven't had problem finding at least a guild member or someone on the map who could help me. Most of the stuff in HoT is possible to do duo.

Aside from the champion HP enemies & bosses, I think the majority of HoT enemies are fine for solo play. Sure, some camp/pylot/etc. events will be difficult to solo due to the sheer number of enemies, but then again it's not meant to be solo content. Small groups of players are meant to spread out to further the meta event. The metas and meta rewards in HoT - particularly amalgamated gemstones - keeps the content alive. People will replay them, every day, for those rewards. So to me it makes sense that the content is geared towards larger groups of players. Even so, some bosses, particularly those in Verdant Brink, can be done with very few players. Provided everyone has good CC. I did VB/AB/TD almost every day for a few months when I was making Astralaria, and even this late in the game (around October of last year) at odd hours people were still organizing successful groups.

As for HPs only, I may be wrong but I think that there are enough commune-only HPs across all HoT maps to fully unlock an elite spec, or will at least get you very close to doing so. I did this quite often when I couldn't find others to help me with the champion HPs pre-PoF.

Well I pretty much hated HoT; not necessarily because of the much more difficult enemies, but the friggin navigation/where the waypoints are.I wouldn't mind if it had been advertised that HoT is much harder than the core game (guess I overlooked it?), because then I probably would not have bought HoT.

@"Goettel.4389" said:I sometimes wonder why people play MMOs if they won't group.

MMO does not necessarily mean "being forced to play together" just because all other MMOs did it that way. MMO simply means "there's lots of other actual people". What any specific game makes of that is a different story.
It was one of the defining things of the core game that you could do pretty much everything on your own if you wanted, but you could do it faster/better in a group. And I'm pretty sure it was intentionally designed that way.

I soloed all the HP on the maps the second time I played(map wasnt popular anymore, and I dont want to waste time serching a HP train), with the exception of those mushrooms...but still, they could use some rework, lots of then are Champs, they could use some rework to scale better, a solo player should not be forced to fight a champion.

There are groups advertising in LFG every day for HoT events, HP trains etc. Use them.Adjust to the game like everyone else instead of insisting on the vice versa.

There has to be at least 250 hero points that can be done solo. Other than that, HoT maps are mostly fine.

There has to be at least 25 hero challenges that can be done solo. Other than that, HoT maps are mostly fine.