Is the quote i hear almost every 2nd post praising PoF. Here's a little something for those gifted with higher intelligence:Why do we never hear the opposite?....

Answer: because HoT is there saving PoF's ass for those who would quit because of PoF pancake map design. They don't like it? They got HoT. If PoF launched first (which should happen as it is far closer to core experience then revolutionary HoT) you'd be reading walls of texts how Path of Fire made ppl go away, and now Heart of Thorns made them come back.

conclusion - all this whining is not result of HoT being a disaster (it's amazing if you ask me), it's a matter of ppl wanting different things from an expansion, which obviously a single xpac could not meet. Now that 2nd is out, it doesn't get half the flack, because first one caters to group that is not happy with second, a safety net HoT did not have.

This needed its own thread? It could have been a post on the current front page thread about HoT.

I feel the occasional HoT rant is annoying, but I doubt antagonizing is the way to go. I think people will start complaining about PoF very soon though, especially so called casuals who are catching up on the game. PoF has meta-events, but the only incentive to play them are meagre achievement points more or less. So it is done and gone. There will be a lot of gnashing of teeth in the vein of "cannot complete content", even more so as those players are more dependend on huge zergs than more invested ones. It has already started.

I've talked to many new people who prefer HoT over PoF. I love HoT, but I did it with a raptor and bunny. I can imagine the pain it was when it first came out without mounts.

@tafahdor.3857 said:I've talked to many new people who prefer HoT over PoF. I love HoT, but I did it with a raptor and bunny. I can imagine the pain it was when it first came out without mounts.

Exactly! Now it is bearable. But I still hate HoT! I go to VB each day for flax. That's it. I spend the rest of my time in PoF or core.

@"ZeftheWicked.3076" said:HoT is there saving PoF's kitten for those who would quit because of PoF pancake map design.PoF ... is far closer to core experience then revolutionary HoTyou'd be reading walls of texts how Path of Fire made ppl go away, and now Heart of Thorns made them come back.

Wait a minute.

So if PoF came out first, you're saying players of core GW2 who were happy with GW2, and if PoF as first expansion introduced maps closer to GW2 which people already like, people would complain about not getting maps like those in an expansion which didn't exist yet in the scenario?

That seems like a bit of a somersault. But here's the thing:

There's some nuance your missing. No entire game/expansion can easily fall under "bad" or "good" or "like" or "hate" unless you have a 6-year old's binary understanding of reality. There is most often some gray there, some degrees of quality on different axes and spectra, and the relevance or importance of each degree is what is principally debated. There's also, very importantly, context. HoT's launch was a total mess compared to PoF's comparatively smooth release, it cost full price for a relative dearth of content compared to core, it introduced PvP leagues (aka the laughable attempt at 'e-sports') that people hated, it crippled/killed WvW, it delayed promised features, and introduced a slew of overtuned or poorly organized and conceived game elements (which remained in place for months upon months unrepaired). When you ask players what they think of HoT, you have to specify, "HoT's game elements, and not HoT as the product originally delivered," because those are two different things, as are "PoF as game vs PoF as product." HoT as product drove people away. I saw it, and can name at least half a dozen close friends who abandoned the game completely a month into its release. The idea that it was responsible for reduced playership is substantiated not only by marginal anecdotes like mine but reflected in the immediately flagging sales figures following its release. The complaints were very loud, and were also in many cases, pretty final. That means the serious complainers have already left, and you're shouting into an echo chamber of people who, at the very least, are willing to tolerate HoT, years after they would have quit over it, if they were going to at all.

That said, in judging the game elements and concepts, there are things HoT did way better than PoF. Often forgotten is the gorgeous full-orchestra soundtrack, on top of the introduction of an engaging horizontal progression system. Easily the best meta maps in the game, on top of the most detailed and memorable map design and enemies of either expansion, and major QoL improvements. But are any of those inherently good, or necessary, or do they alone justify the expansion's existence? That's debatable.

Obviously the above are personal opinions, but any degree of disagreement over those underscores my point. It's quibbling about the nuts and bolts here, because to point at the things PoF did "better" or different, (my opinion: accessibility, story, and a better movement mechanic (mounts vs gliders)) is not to equate PoF to being better necessary overall, or necessarily more appealing to any one subset of the community. It comes down to a combination of personal priorities beyond single elements like map design. Diversity of map types is one priority, one which you seem to espouse here, but not necessarily one which everyone shares or which the game necessitates.

So congratulations, we now know what one of your personal priorities are. Throw your "higher intelligence" opinion on the pile.

If PoF launched first....well...let's say things wouldn't be half as rosy as they are today.Say what you want about HoT, but it's replayability (partially due to complexity of the maps) has PoF on the ropes.

If PoF was the first xpac, it would get stale real fast - nothing that different from core maps, and nothing that replayable compared to HoT's huge amount of different collections and long term goals. People wouldn't be leaving cause they were outraged at difficulty, design choices or grindyness. They would be leaving because of lack of these things, ironically. That's why now everyone can freely bash HoT. Because HoT and PoF are in a Yin-Yang relationship. Now both are here and everyone gets a slice of pie they like. Before it was just one.

Yes, early HoT launch was a disaster - i bashed my head with a-net on these very forums over the lack of free slot in a 50$ xpac that introduced new profession, as well as several other...less likeable marketing choices made by a-net then. Also indeed early HoT was merciless grind and seemed small. Only after one truly grasped what the maps are did that feeling go away.

Do HoT's map designs and other systems justify the xpac's existence?

Hell yeah they do!

Guild Wars 2 made me vomit at sight of any 3d mmorpg that does not have events where npcs join the action and lead the player into the fray, where harvesting nodes aren't camping wars between players and beating a boss is not about teamwork but being the guy that gets the drops while others curse the day you were born.It made a difference

HoT did that again - it made me love real 3d maps, with awesome gliding sections, secret paths to canopy level at verdant brink or deepest caves in Tangled Depths...it made exploration experience real. Not to mention awesome metas, awesome environment (jungle) and mastery system that i loved.

Now i hate flat big empty maps, with no mystery, no huge zones i can't access before getting a proper mastery and no outposts that let me achieve the same goal (preparation for map meta) the way i want it, letting me choose from multiple flavors, all equally good for getting to the ending part.

Zeft, while I get that you love HOT and you're annoyed that some people really really like POF, that's as far as it should go. I love HoT too. I mean really love it. I prefer it to POF and always have. However, POF came with mounts and I love mounts, which makes the expansions equal to me, just based on that alone. HOT zones are more fun FOR ME. That's all. For me. That's the issue here.

You don't necessarily have some sort of majority and neither does anyone else, just our own opinions. The problem is there are an awful lot of casual players running around who are either new to MMOs altogether, who are bad at jumping or finding their way around, who have issues with figuring stuff out....those people may come home from work, want to jump into the game and kill stuff without thinking too deeply about what they're doing. Those people may well prefer POF, particularly people who didn't get to play the living world stuff, because the difficulty jump from core to HOT was very big. Too big.

I run a casual guild and I saw a lot of people hate HoT. I'd have seen a lot of people stop playing because of HoT except for one thing. I was in the guild and I was able to teach and show a lot of people personally how to handle the jungle. Some of the most loyal and dedicated players in my guild hated that place, until I took them in multiple times.

HoT, with it's intricate maps are my favorite zones in the game (well that at Draconis Mons). But it's just my opinion. I recognize others, a lot of others, had their issues with HoT.

I think Anet went overboard with their reaction to HOT, making POF a sort of anti-HoT, which obviously didn't work very well but this is Anet's modus operandi. There were lots of vocal complaints about Guild Wars 1 Prophecies being to long and slow-paced, so they came out with Factions which was super fast and short. Too fast and too short in my opinion. The third expansion, Nightfall got it right in my opinion. Not quite as long and drawn out as Prophecies, but also not so fast and furious as Factions. It's like a pendulum swinging. It went too far in both directions and eventually found a middle ground.

I strongly suspect that will happen here too.

I looooove the event structure of HoT. The map-wide metas that will keep those maps alive for as long as the game lives on are brilliant game design.

However I absolutely hate the layered map/environment design. The minimap and map were simply not up to the task of presenting it clearly enough. Ugh.

So when PoF launched I had high hopes of them going back to the simpler, flatter maps but keeping the event structure of HoT. A real shame that they didn’t. Now the PoF maps feel almost as dead as the core Tyria ones because people don’t really see a point in returning to them...

:confused:

@Vayne.8563 said:

I think Anet went overboard with their reaction to HOT, making POF a sort of anti-HoT, which obviously didn't work very well but this is Anet's modus operandi. There were lots of vocal complaints about Guild Wars 1 Prophecies being to long and slow-paced, so they came out with Factions which was super fast and short. Too fast and too short in my opinion. The third expansion, Nightfall got it right in my opinion. Not quite as long and drawn out as Prophecies, but also not so fast and furious as Factions. It's like a pendulum swinging. It went too far in both directions and eventually found a middle ground.

I strongly suspect that will happen here too.

I'd like to think that, too. What would be wrong with having exploration a mostly solo endeavor (a la PoF) and having group events be metas like HoT? I can see why ANet avoided jumping mushrooms in PoF, as they didn't want people to have to have HoT to get around. However, the inclusion of a more challenging-to-movement map or two would not have hurt PoF, either. Something for everyone is, I think, a better approach than having an entire XPac be focused around one play style as opposed to the other.

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:

@Vayne.8563 said:

I think Anet went overboard with their reaction to HOT, making POF a sort of anti-HoT, which obviously didn't work very well but this is Anet's modus operandi. There were lots of vocal complaints about Guild Wars 1 Prophecies being to long and slow-paced, so they came out with Factions which was super fast and short. Too fast and too short in my opinion. The third expansion, Nightfall got it right in my opinion. Not quite as long and drawn out as Prophecies, but also not so fast and furious as Factions. It's like a pendulum swinging. It went too far in both directions and eventually found a middle ground.

I strongly suspect that will happen here too.

Now we get back to what I was saying at the time. HoT wasn't universally reviled...but the sheer negativity by the people who really didn't like it and pounded over and over gain in thread after thread, made it seem like HoT was poison. That's what Anet reacted too..the sheer weight of force of a very loud part of the community.

I also, during that time, saw posts by people who avoided HoT due to the furor for quite a long time and ended up loving it. There's an issue with overstating a case over and over again, in that it drives people away who might like the thing in the first place. And it makes the company think they got it wrong, when in fact, they really didn't get it that wrong.

HoT was good for a lot of people and I believe, even off times, it remains more populated than POF. Not to say POF is dead, but I see lots of people on HOT maps even when metas aren't on, just because they're more interesting long term. They take longer to learn and masteries take longer to farm. It was a major complaint about HOT but it also keeps HOT viable for more people for longer.

HoT was a reaction too a small percentage of the playerbase screaming at the top of their lungs that we didn't have raids/hard end game content, and that's what was missing from this game. That's the Anet pattern. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Anet didn't make an expansion based on the idea of let's give something to everyone. They made an expansion to prove to a very loud percentage of the community that HoT wasn't going to happen.

This is the issue with listening to the community in the first place. The loudest segments of the community aren't always or even often a majority but they look and sound like it. HoT is a result of one loud section of the community and POF is the reaction to another. Both enjoy mixed success, because Anet listened.

People voted with their feet , many of those who hate HoT just plain quit the game without bothering to post their griveances in the forums.

i think Arena.net have the metric on declining players and they adjusted accordingly from HoT to PoF.

@"Vayne.8563" said:snip for length

It's important to remember that HOT changed a lot in the first year. Most of the things people complained about were fully justified, but no longer exist today.

If we judge the fury on release, based on HOT today, it will seem like a major over reaction, and rightly so. It's not the same now as it was then. I really feel that HOT today is the top quality content currently in the game. At release I would have violently disagreed. Even Anet seems to have made this mistake and overcompensated with POF. They didn't make the same mistakes, but they didn't keep any of the real improvements either.

Don't forget that neither would exist without Core, hence Core is superior.

@"Vayne.8563" - you make a lot of good points, but to make myself clear here:

I have no problem with people liking PoF in general. I have a problem with so much vocal protests being thrown at Heart of Thorns merely because it skewes the real picture. I visit these maps daily and they're not ghosttowns. If people hated them so much it would be so.

Also let's keep in mind that for all the flak casuals throw at HoT, these are 4 maps outta how many? 40? I say tha's s a pretty vast disproportion, yet complaining piles up like it was half of the game that's been "spoilt" that way. I just hope this one single time a-net actually does what it usually does, and ignores forum while focusing on real data they get from player population on a given map.

I don't think you can really argue that PoF maps are scarcely populated

Several times as a Commander I've tried to organize Champions bounty trains for fun, yet I've often failed because of low population (<<10)Yes yes, you can complete the Champs with 4 or 5 people, but you've got small error margin, everyone has to play well, know the mechanics and so onIt would be very smooth with 10 ppl or so, but was difficult to gather that many

In several HP runs on alts, while traveling the maps I seldom encounter other players

It's hard to shake off the impression of playing in "desert" maps

Quick reminder that those that left the game when Heart of Thorns was released missed the big balance update for it. For example, when HoT was released you had to play the events before the big meta began and increase your participation, in order to get rewarded by the meta. This meant that players had to spend a significant amount of time to get their meta rewards. I can understand why that would turn many players away of the game, but hey that was "fixed" a very long time ago. I can say that HoT on release was worse than PoF on release, as evident by how much it changed over the years while PoF remained mostly the same.

And the meta structure was only one part of what HoT got wrong. There was also nothing to do in HoT areas once you finished the outpost events, other than wait for the meta. They fixed that by adding lots of repeating events around the areas so you have more to do while waiting for the meta. There were locked adventures for the majority of the time (Shooting Gallery prime example) that were really annoying. They fixed that by making most adventures readily available, unless (for obvious reasons) there are events running right next to them. There were more champion hero points back on release, they made lots of them veterans, especially in Verdant Brink so players could progress their elite specs faster. They reduced the challenge levels of some mobs that were really problematic on release and killed many unsuspecting players (like the release Shadowleapers, or does anyone remember the Mordrem Snipers in beta?)

Overall, HoT changed A LOT over the years, while PoF is still mostly the same, in that way PoF is better than HoT. But after those massive changes, HoT has become a better experience than PoF, and they should've used the -modified- HoT as an example for their future expansion.

Edit: I believe those returning now and saying that PoF is much better than HoT and that they left when HoT was released, remember the release mess of HoT and compare it to PoF, in that way they are right. But I think it will be fair if they compare current HoT, with current PoF instead.

HoT took a huge risk and singlehandedly changed the face of GW2 and the entire MMORPG genre, proposing ways to play, explore, challenge players and even grind that were never seen before. Vertical maps, non cheap gliding, map depending movement, multi team metas, loot racing, horizontal character progression, non vertical specializations... without mentioning all the huge changes to gameplay and the revenant addition. Many systems were incomplete or ineffective (many still are), but overall the leap was gigantic, the art was astounding and the change was revolutionary.

PoF eradicated all and any risks and played the most sure path, only betting for the mounts, which were a super safe investment from the beginning anyway. They did remarkably well with said mounts, but didn't proposed anything new, just recoiled and minimized the addition of content to a basic minimum, distributing it across large extensions of repetitive maps to make it seem more than it actually is.

IMO PoF is a good expansion, although very limited on real content.On the contrary, I think HoT was much more than a good expansion. It made history and will be remembered and praised for decades.

@Rhyse.8179 said:

@"Vayne.8563" said:snip for length

That was pretty good misdirection on Anet's part. Having played HoT continually all along, I can tell you the changes, with the exception of one was pretty modest. One single hero point changed from champion to veteran. The rest that were champs all remained champs. The leveling of masteries got no easier, nor did the attainment of mastery points. A few veteran events were added as sort of an overlay, but this wasn't thrilling content, it was killing vet, so you get a bit of currency and karma, but all in all, it wasn't a big change. In a couple of areas, as in like two, they thinned a few mobs out...but these were areas you didn't have to pass through in the first place.

The only big change in that update was uncoupling day from day, and I can pretty much guarantee most people who complained about HoT, the vast majority, not only weren't aware that that was an issue, but also of all the issues it was the least complained about.

@ZeftheWicked.3076 said:@"Vayne.8563" - you make a lot of good points, but to make myself clear here:

I have no problem with people liking PoF in general. I have a problem with so much vocal protests being thrown at Heart of Thorns merely because it skewes the real picture. I visit these maps daily and they're not ghosttowns. If people hated them so much it would be so.

Also let's keep in mind that for all the flak casuals throw at HoT, these are 4 maps outta how many? 40? I say tha's s a pretty vast disproportion, yet complaining piles up like it was half of the game that's been "spoilt" that way. I just hope this one single time a-net actually does what it usually does, and ignores forum while focusing on real data they get from player population on a given map.

You're not correct. PoF maps are not ghost towns, and I visit them many times a week, if not daily. Ghost towns implies people aren't playing. What they're not is zerged. There are plenty of people doing content on those maps.

I feel there are valid points on both sides, and pros and cons. And I can only hope that the next expansion is basically a marinade of the better points of both HoT and PoF.

That being said, owning both means playing whatever challenge style I feel like choosing at that moment and not having to pick between them. :) Love whatever you love!

Ok ......I feel like you are jumping over a looooooot of stuff to get to your "conclusion". HoT missed a lot of things promised on release date, and I believe some of those things still has not come out because they could not finish them. They could simply not deliver on promise, which is a huuuuuge minus, and I dont just mean political bs rave that people on each side is on about kind of minus, I mean honest morally a huge minus that did affect the people.

People believed it was going to be huge maps, somewhat compared to the original Gw2, since you actually bought the game. Many people "myself included", dont see much fun grinding....literally at all. I get that it might be nessecary, but the sole reason I got hooked on Gw2, was because the "adventure aspect" like finding random holes in a mountain where you can not be in the shadow, or events that lead to a sad story event, or a witch in a forest trying to eat all the kids and lead to an amazing boss fight. Basically small stuff that made the world seem "living" rather than NPC talks to you, you do A you get pixels(Really not a rant, just trying to make you understand, that I do get people want to grind, or at the very least, believes its impossible to have an MMO without grind, but on the other end Gw2 became amazingly huge because of the "No grind mentality")

Conclusion Based on how things are now, I should clap back and call this a whine upon whine, and only focus on that aspect. But I decided to contradict that thought and be grown up about this to explain to you where you might have missed a huge portion of why HoT might not have been so great as you think.

Side Note Could you show me where PoF did not get half the sales as HoT? its not that I dont believe you, based on the age of the game....Its just that I dont believe you, based on the number of people in Istan vs HoT xD....maybe not 100% grown up....I Tried tho

@Vayne.8563 said:

You're not correct. PoF maps are not ghost towns, and I visit them many times a week, if not daily. Ghost towns implies people aren't playing. What they're not is zerged. There are plenty of people doing content on those maps.

I was saying HoT maps are being played and aren't deserted despite people being so vocal about it on forums. That means HoT is fun and has a sufficiently large playerbase that likes to hop in and get some action there.

As for PoF i wouldn't know. I avoid it like the plague, but others clearly don't. I can believe it's alive and well, just i don't want ppl (and most certainly devs) getting idea that PoF is the golden way, while HoT is barely surviving because of it's design choices. I can attest HoT zones are alive and kicking.

I agree it give some interesting content with map metas, elite specs, gliding, masteries, raids, better enemy AI and adventures.

However, most problemas with HoT came with its original implementation and the context of its release.The original implementation was super grindy and reduced dungeons and fractals rewards.Balance problems and a poor initial league system hitted PvP and desert borderlands as the only borderland map did it even worst to WvW.

The context: we had a very long content drown and the expa was feature oriented.

Hot started bad because having both to pay old bad decisions and terrible implementation choices.

For a new player or someone that didnt eat the pre HoT situation, HoT was just grindy and they fixed it.Now many of Hot isseues are fixed: the current balances issues are more about PoF standars and they alredy added again the snow borderlands.

Edit: Also HoT was nearly as expensive as the main game, 66% higher than PoF.Pd: Its not my main language.

I wonder what our next expansion would be called. Reflection of Ocean?