Path of Fire: Focus on content - Where is it?

Path of Fire was often described to be a content heavy expansion - in contrast to the focus on features in HoT.But what do I get from buying Path of Fire - is it worth it?

Story: It's pretty hard to compare how long the story is - do you count the open world travel time from point A to B? Do you need to grind xp to unlock a mastery to continue the story? The experiences will be different for each player so let's keep it as general as possible. Is it alright to say the story doesn't show a tremendous difference in length, like twice as long or the like? Feel free to comment on the length of the story and your experience.

In this thread someone asked how long the story of PoF is.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:About the same as HoT.

Maps and events

PoF: 5 large maps, more traditional layout. As far as we could see, they don't feature large meta events but rather something that was compared to some maps of Orr plus bounties.HoT: 4 'smaller' maps, partly with multiple layers. They included a large meta event each - while the map Dragon's Stand was basically a large meta event itself.

Other

PoF has 1 Guild Hall - HoT had 2PoF provides masteries that are bound to its mounts. Heart of Thorns had gliding and the different Itzel, Nuhoch, Exalted lore which unlocked different gameplay features.Does anyone know anything about new Legendary weapons in PoF? HoT: 2nd generation - but still not complete until now.

There are still many other points that can be compared. However, I didn't really see a huge difference to HoT that justifies the term content heavy in Path of Fire.When HoT was meant to be a feature heavy expansion but additionally included aprox. the same amount of content, what's special about PoF?

No Legendary Weapons will be released with Path of Fire, as stated long ago in an AMA. Gen2 Legendaries will continue to be released with Living World Season 4 Episodes.

Additionally:

HoT had a new WvW borderland - PoF has noneHoT had a new PvP game mode - PoF has none

Don't know the exact numbers now, but the amount of collections, titles, armor and weapon sets were higher in HoT than PoF.

No offense but HOT has been out for years and we know all there is to know about it - this expansion has only been out a few days and you can't possibly have tried everything in it to make this comparison in any way objective or fair. Your analysis is premature and your "approx. the same amount of content" is more like a chasm you're falling into because you haven't trained your raptor's canyon-leaping mastery yet. Chill out and take your time. Give it a few months and then consider if you feel whether the content is there.

@Tekey.7946 said:Path of Fire was often described to be a content heavy expansion - in contrast to the focus on features in HoT.But what do I get from buying Path of Fire - is it worth it?

I do not know, what you get from PoF, but I have got already a lot of fun and stunning moments in very big and (mostly) breathtaking maps, so that I can say that it totally is worth it for me.

@"Zoltar MacRoth.7146" said:No offense but HOT has been out for years and we know all there is to know about it - this expansion has only been out a few days and you can't possibly have tried everything in it to make this comparison in any way objective or fair. Your analysis is premature and your "approx. the same amount of content" is more like a chasm you're falling into because you haven't trained your raptor's canyon-leaping mastery yet.

The initial post is more like a comparison of the selling points of HoT and PoF with content and features in mind.You just know that 2 guild halls are more than 1, that there will be no legendary weapons in PoF as Inculpatus cedo confirmed, in contrast to the 2nd generation of HoT.Or that HoT added new things in WvW and PvP like VaLee said, while PoF didn't.

I just wondered about the advertising, the hype of PoF when people said:"Alright, HoT had only 4 maps and didn't have a long story because it focused on features. But PoF will be all about content!!!"

And then PoF appears with basically the same amount of content, minus the features.

@Tekey.7946 said:

@"Zoltar MacRoth.7146" said:No offense but HOT has been out for years and we know all there is to know about it - this expansion has only been out a few days and you can't possibly have tried everything in it to make this comparison in any way objective or fair. Your analysis is premature and your "approx. the same amount of content" is more like a chasm you're falling into because you haven't trained your raptor's canyon-leaping mastery yet.

@"Zoltar MacRoth.7146" said:No offense but HOT has been out for years and we know all there is to know about it - this expansion has only been out a few days and you can't possibly have tried everything in it to make this comparison in any way objective or fair. Your analysis is premature and your "approx. the same amount of content" is more like a chasm you're falling into because you haven't trained your raptor's canyon-leaping mastery yet.

It seems cliche to say it but I don't think it's fair to judge the expansion by its selling points/advertising/hype - not if you're looking for an honest comparison of actual content. Sure, one has more guild halls than the other, or it has legendaries or new wvw maps or whatever, but if you're only judging by that shallow, top level how can the comparison possibly be objective? How do they compare for numbers of events, new recipes/items/enemies, collections, etc? And that's not even considering the quality of the content between the two. How do we compare that objectively?

What it comes down to is this: everyone's got different likes, and what you're saying is the new expansion doesn't seem to have content you like, compared to the previous one. That's fine to say. But let's be honest about that. I'm not into legendaries or wvw, so to me the new expansion has more content because it has more stuff I like. Each to his own.

Heart of Thorns also had a long content drought associated with it, whereas Path of Fire will not. So, there's that to consider, as well. = )

It's also half the price.

@Rennie.6750 said:It's also half the price.

Almost, yes. They were advised to release smaller expansions at a faster pace from NCsoft.But I'm not sure how I feel about that. PoF was developed for 2 years now - and lots of players already played through the story and unlocked the every single mount within 2 days. It's certainly not only 1% that rushed through everything, Lion's Arch and Divinity's Reach was literally stuffed full of jackals and griffons already.The only thing that remains is to fully explore the maps and achievements - which is a one-time activity - and do bounties; and I don't know how long it will keep the players busy.

Meaningful, repeatable content will keep an expansion alive. Unfortunately, I did neither find dungeons, nor large meta events or world bosses to be part of PoF.Will bounties alone do the trick? Players will tell after a few weeks.

I know that dungeons were discontinued and fractals are being released whenever they're ready. However, fractals have nothing to do with the expansion and can also be experienced by base game and HoT players, they're independent of PoF.

A reasonable question, but asked too early IMO.

Judging from the amount of actual content at launch, HoT had more content than PoF does atm.What will happen two months from now is irrelevant, it's all about the content at launch.

So one has to wonder what did "content heavy" advertising referred to.

No new dungeons, no new raids, now new meta events, no new legendary, no new stuff to make people work for it, no real progression. Mastery are waaay to easy to level even for the most casual player.People will have nothing fun to do in these maps after a month(they are already pretty empty for a new expansion maps).

Now i get why devs said in the pre-launch stream to "dont rush through the story", cause after that, all we have left is some achievementsI dont get why people got very happy with mounts, its something we have in every other mmo, nothing special, just an ok small addition for me

^glad I did not buy it and chose to stay away from GW2. 4 New dungeons and me and my friends would have been instantly back. I know that the open world is the new "hip" thing, but in the end after you complete the zones, you're not going to do them again. It's a one time thing. And you need repeatable content in MMOs for longevity's sake.

I honestly don't know why PoF is even receiving positive reviews online, because if it was for example World of Warcraft expansion that launched with nothing else, but stories and zones, there would be an outrage.

PoF has three small to medium sized metas that I've seen so far. Accompany that with pretty decent champion trains and very acceptable loot you're going to see people continue playing it.

PoF has a better story, better maps, mounts with unique mechanics, a lot more visual variety than HoT, better voice acting, better dialogue, better LORE, better potential to be used for further story expansions and less claustrophobic vibe to the whole Xpac. The mount animations alone are worth the ticket, and when you get to the Griffon it's ...perfect. Plus, ELONA>generic (beautifully rendered) jungle.

@Tekey.7946 said:PoF provides masteries that are bound to its mounts. Heart of Thorns had gliding and the different Itzel, Nuhoch, Exalted lore which unlocked different gameplay features.yes but you can use the masteries everywhere. The most masteries from HoT are only usable on the Hot Maps.

Yep, PoF masteries are great, especially for those of us who have alts. Having those is gonna make map completion so much more enjoyable... definitely more useful than HoT masteries.

I don't know what you expect as "content" but just mounts in core Tyria completely changed the game. So much fun getting around and to places.Can't wait to make new character and start doing all maps with mounts.

Guild Wars 2 has been reborn.

doublepost

I wondered pre-release where the content is... And there is really not much. Someone said: if this would be a WoW expansion there would be an outrage. And it's true. I really like the maps and the story so far, but not a single dungeon or fractal, no raid, no new PvP modes/maps or WvW, no new profession or race or starter zone, no new crafting discipline etc... That's what people usually expect from an expansion. Especially when it's advertised it's content heavy.

I believe that this expansion was launched before it was finished...we all know what a great job anet made so far with this game. Something really terrible must have happent to make arena net release this expansion in a rush, i mean, they announce it and its live like 1 month later? that looks like despair to me, lets hope not.

MAYBE, just maybe, theres a lot more content ready to be launched and anet wanted to hold it until must of us complete the story mode and then mindblow us with amazing great stuffs. Or maybe the gryphin was just 1 of 100 hidden content that we havent found yet.

Something its really weird here, i refuse to believe that anet would give us only this and call it expansion, it doenst sound like them

Maybe they shifted priorities sometime last year and are working on a new IP or gw2 mobile or something else that requires a lot of money.

5 huge maps.

Lots of events to do in them, but apparently since we don't have a timer in the top right of each of them going "hey, listen" it means there's no big events. I'm still nowhere near fully exploring these maps and I've already put a good 20 hours in.

If you simply rush through map completion amd story everything without bothering to even look around, go for achievements, or do any events, then ya, you're going to run out of things to do. However, if you are the type of player to do that, it makes me wonder why you even play GW2...

Also, the expansion is a lot cheaper than HoT and I'd say the story js longer. HoT just feels about the same length because you had to spend a bunch of time grinding masteries whereas PoF requires very few.

@TheWadeTucker.6173 said:Or maybe the gryphin was just 1 of 100 hidden content that we havent found yet.

Something its really weird here, i refuse to believe that anet would give us only this and call it expansion, it doenst sound like them

People already knew about the griffon before the expansion was announced.. Other than that, I don't think we'll find something else that's huge or something...

@Skyline Crash.6254 said:It's a 30 dollar expansion you idiot. kitten do you expect? Also do you know how much time and effort goes into have development? Jesus Christ I hate people like you.

Oh sure. It's really too much to expect 1 single new dungeon or 1 single world boss like Shatterer or Tequatl in an MMORPG expansion that's been developed for 2 years?

Others have already said it feels like they've released 5 Living World maps at once, not an expansion. I had low expectations but they still managed to undercut them with PoF - you can see how many people in the forums desperately hope to find something huge that's hidden. They can't believe that's it.