HoT Replayability

I've looked over the forums ever since PoF came out and many here say that HoT has far more replayability than PoF. I'm wondering exactly what people are replaying besides meta events. The only time I deal with the metas in HoT are to get the amalgamated gemstones for legendaries, otherwise I stay away from them. Dragon Stand is the obvious exception since its basically one massive event chain but fron what I've been seeing people seem to like HoT metas more because it directs you were to go and stacks events to keep you around.

Not that that's a bad thing and I would like it if PoF had more event chains with the current enemy strength so people can do them in small groups and not have to wait for people to come on to do anything.

Basically, excluding metas, what replayability are people talking about?

I know this is a very casual MMO, but one thing always bothered me about wide group events is that you only need to show up, do some damage, die and stay dead, get resurected after the event has ended and get loot. And probably that's why most people love them.

You said it yourself: event chains. They have narrative and story, they are dynamic and change the enviroment, they have good fights, they bring people togather, they climax in an epic meta boss battle. Look at Verdant Brink. 5 avanposts, 5 story event chains. To expieriense it all an avarage player has to play through at least 5 night-day cicles.And even after seing it all like dozens of times, sometimes I just hop on the maps and participate in events. Because npcs there have something like character, what you do feels like it matters and changes the enviroment, and it will all end in an epic boss fight. Hell, I still remember naked Lord Faren, warmaster Neary, Laranthir and others.Unfortunately I can't say that for PoF. I don't really want to return to those maps to circle around a literal desert for 5 minutes to help some nonames and get a climax of, well, nothing but some crappy loot.Than again, there are HoT HPs. If I see someone trying to do one, I usually go and help them. The HPs are hard to solo, that person would like a helping hand, right? On PoF maps all HPs are vets, and a green-itemed 80 lvl can burn them in seconds. So I don't even bother to stop and help (unless that player is dying).

@Ider.1276 said:You said it yourself: event chains. They have narrative and story, they are dynamic and change the enviroment, they have good fights, they bring people togather, they climax in an epic meta boss battle.

While you are generally right, even those get tedious quickly, because it is always the same old, same old. I prefer doing the plentiful achievements of PoF that lead you to the most hidden corners of the maps and let you immerse in all their lovely details and breathtakingly beautiful designs. I love the way events were done in core Tyria. I prefer that scale and am glad it's back with PoF. <3

However, of course it wouldn't hurt if those small events would lead to a big meta every three hours or so. It could make for an interesting addition that I wouldn't mind as long as it's not another Auric Basin (I hate that meta, it basically takes up the whole map and everyone in it, and you are the loner if you are doing map completion or something else instead of participating in said meta; everything in HoT is too stressful that way).

It's too soon for me to have a sense of replayability, since I'm still far too busy going around doing stuff. The desert is chock full of interesting NPCs, surprise/hidden collections or scavenger hunts, areas to explore that are often the beaten track, and I've barely touched most of the events.

Ask again in 2 months.

@Ashantara.8731 said:> While you are generally right, even those get tedious quickly, because it is always the same old, same old. I prefer doing the plentiful achievements of PoF that lead you to the most hidden corners of the maps and let you immerse in all their lovely details and breathtakingly beautiful designs. I love the way events were done in core Tyria. I prefer that scale and am glad it's back with PoF. <3Achievements are a one-time content. I do not judge if it is a good or a bad content, this thread is about replayability. Achievements are not replayable. Chain-events and metas are.

@Ider.1276 said:

@Ashantara.8731 said:> While you are generally right, even those get tedious quickly, because it is always the same old, same old. I prefer doing the plentiful achievements of PoF that lead you to the most hidden corners of the maps and let you immerse in all their lovely details and breathtakingly beautiful designs. I love the way events were done in core Tyria. I prefer that scale and am glad it's back with PoF. <3Achievements are a one-time content. I do not judge if it is a good or a bad content, this thread is about replayability. Achievements are not replayable. Chain-events and metas are.

Achievements and replayability are not mutually exclusive though. There's an achievement in HOT to beat tarir 100 times. Therefore that achievement would be directly responsible for you playing the same content over and over. If you did Tarir once a day it would still take more than 3 months to finish that achievement.

More to the point, when people talk about replayability I think they're really talking about what keeps you in the zones and going back to the zones.Just like PoF has a bunch of achievements so did HoT. It's just most people have done the ones they care about already for HoT and most haven't finished what they want to do in PoF yet.

@Vayne.8563 said:Achievements and replayability are not mutually exclusive though. There's an achievement in HOT to beat tarir 100 times. Therefore that achievement would be directly responsible for you playing the same content over and over. If you did Tarir once a day it would still take more than 3 months to finish that achievement.

Actually, that is my point. I had all the ach. on tripple trouble and tequatle for years, and I'm still doing them from time to time. Because of the fight itself, impressive visuals, spirit of player unity and a good loot. So far didn't find any of sorts in PoF, unfortunately. And, because ach. by themselves are a one time content (you can't undo them and repeat) I was trying to bring them out of this discussion about replayability.

Meta events in HoT offer high-quality entertainment.

In PoF your replayability is hoping from a wp in town, taking the bounty and auto attack it with the group. Doing this for 1-2 hours gets boring. Not to mention that it is not well rewarded, and it shouldn't - nothing challenging in this except 1-2 times when the RNG is the devil itself.

In HoT (as you have excluded the DS map), Chak Garnet, for example, tells a story. You have several lines where you have to complete chain events (all different) and then fight some nasty huge monsters. The event is very nicely designed and people are actually doing some actions there. And the reward is worthy too. Does killing a bounty unlock A WHOLE ROOM/CAVE with chests and a vendor with awesome skins? I don't think so. The whole event may last 1-2 hours and during this time you do different things, so it is not that boring as farming bounties. Even if you go and repeat it, you may choose a different line and have a different gameplay experience.

Bounties are a miserable replacement for HoT map metas and mapwide storytelling.

The PoF maps feel utterly disjointed. You follow a tag and beat on some trivial meat sack for several minutes, collect a crappy reward, and that's it.

I suppose it's perfectly designed for the many people in these fora who represent that charr ranger who use both longbow and shortbow and refused to move to the inner blue circle of the bounty boss because he plays how he wants even if it means most of his attacks being avoided.

i think the main problem people had with the hot meta maps was they were running at set times they might not always be able to join, and if you tried to join it out of hours youd either find an empty map or they would be full.

I'm a bit shocked about how much of the PoF content exists of going to a hard or tricky to reach place, killing a few critters, and interacting with a hidden object. I find very little replayability in that. I know, the season 3 maps had a lot of that too, but I expected more from an expansion. (And I don't mean more hidden objects to interact with.)

@Ider.1276 said:You said it yourself: event chains. They have narrative and story, they are dynamic and change the enviroment, they have good fights, they bring people togather, they climax in an epic meta boss battle. Look at Verdant Brink. 5 avanposts, 5 story event chains. To expieriense it all an avarage player has to play through at least 5 night-day cicles.And even after seing it all like dozens of times, sometimes I just hop on the maps and participate in events. Because npcs there have something like character, what you do feels like it matters and changes the enviroment, and it will all end in an epic boss fight. Hell, I still remember naked Lord Faren, warmaster Neary, Laranthir and others.Unfortunately I can't say that for PoF. I don't really want to return to those maps to circle around a literal desert for 5 minutes to help some nonames and get a climax of, well, nothing but some crappy loot.Than again, there are HoT HPs. If I see someone trying to do one, I usually go and help them. The HPs are hard to solo, that person would like a helping hand, right? On PoF maps all HPs are vets, and a green-itemed 80 lvl can burn them in seconds. So I don't even bother to stop and help (unless that player is dying).

^ This. A thousand times this. I was so happy when I finally maxed my PoF masteries because now I can play HoT maps again for fun and SW for gold because I can't get these things on PoF maps. Maxing PoF masteries was an extremely boring and lonely experience: I was running around repeating Hearts, HPs and doing random events. It was much better to max HoT masteries with meta events, I actually had fun and my exp bar was full in no time. Doing HP trains with other people in HoT is a lot more exciting than these dumbed down solo HPs. Anet should stop listening to solo players and put multiplayer back into "MMORPG"!

I prefer and will replay PoF a lot more than HoT. I only went to HoT maps if I needed something. These new maps however. I can jump in and out of events when I please. Unlike long gated meta events on over complex maps in HoT. PoF goes back to the glory days of GW2 like the early maps. Brings back the magic of randoms helping randoms.

They will bring a meta out in a PoF map. But I hope its only on one map and not such a strict gated event like Dragon stand. The only meta event I enjoyed in HoT was Auric basin. Events like Jormag are much more fun.

I only made it to chapter 3 of hot so i got alot to do

I agree with @lder too. After getting the masteries done and any interesting collection I do not see why I would stay on PoF maps. Unless it is for the Daily.

Heart of Thorns has more replayability because the events there create huge event chains that allow players to group up and finish together.All those events around Path of Fire maps that nobody does is a waste of space, simply use your mount and run around any Path of Fire map and you will find more than dozen random events everywhere, that nobody ever bothers with. They don't progress the overall meta chain, they do not progress nearby renown hearts, they do not give "participation" or anything similar so Path of Fire events are neglected.

I don't understand what people mean that bountys are just going to a point and doing 1111. The bountys are really hard and if you go 1111 at them you will contribute to very little of the DPS of the group. I can join in on dragonstand and stand on one platform and just go 1111 when the dragon appears, I will not be effective but since the rest of the group is doing more than 1111 I will get reward from it. The same goes for the bountys. I haven't done many bountys now but they seem to have different buffs that makes them more interesting to fight. Last time I fought a bounty we got it down to 10% and just because people don't care and just goes 1111 the boss healed upp to almost full health.

I don't mind HoT meta events but I like the bountys and PoF maps and st the moment i can enjoy them a long time and I bet I won't get tired of them before next season starts.

I did a Legendary with one other guy last night(I think in the last 20% a 3rd player joined). That was very hard and we killed it in the last 10 seconds which was cool, but I still do not see me doing them a lot. Having a "hard", close fight is not really the thing I am after constantly but I can understand that others might. As they are now, the Legendaries have very little replay value for me.

@EdgarMTanaka.7291 said:I don't understand what people mean that bountys are just going to a point and doing 1111. The bountys are really hard and if you go 1111 at them you will contribute to very little of the DPS of the group. I can join in on dragonstand and stand on one platform and just go 1111 when the dragon appears, I will not be effective but since the rest of the group is doing more than 1111 I will get reward from it. The same goes for the bountys. I haven't done many bountys now but they seem to have different buffs that makes them more interesting to fight. Last time I fought a bounty we got it down to 10% and just because people don't care and just goes 1111 the boss healed upp to almost full health.

I don't mind HoT meta events but I like the bountys and PoF maps and st the moment i can enjoy them a long time and I bet I won't get tired of them before next season starts.

OFT. One does not simply walk into a legendary bounty and spam 1.

Also, If you haven't had everyone on Elon Riverlands rushing overmap to murder your legendary doppleganger, you haven't lived. If you see the words, "something is coming for you" on your screen, believe and tag up. If you like the metas (and I'll be honest, I do), bounties and this softer style of meta may not be the thing you want to be doing, but it's great for those people who couldn't make it into the squad at the right time.

@Bish.8627 said:I prefer and will replay PoF a lot more than HoT. I only went to HoT maps if I needed something. These new maps however. I can jump in and out of events when I please. Unlike long gated meta events on over complex maps in HoT. PoF goes back to the glory days of GW2 like the early maps. Brings back the magic of randoms helping randoms.

They will bring a meta out in a PoF map. But I hope its only on one map and not such a strict gated event like Dragon stand. The only meta event I enjoyed in HoT was Auric basin. Events like Jormag are much more fun.

so much this, also, where the HoT maps that busy a year ago? i only returned there to farm so i could play the new specialisations, or when i tried to finish a collection. tbh i was hibernating a bit last year and when i played, then wvw

@MrRay.3027 said:I know this is a very casual MMO, but one thing always bothered me about wide group events is that you only need to show up, do some damage, die and stay dead, get resurected after the event has ended and get loot. And probably that's why most people love them.

Don't think you cando that anymore, as it discredits you because of lack of participation

Dont mistake a vocal minority on a forum with the playerbase. I for myself was not a fan of the endless mapwide meta events of Hot. They consumed too much time. I prefer the much more casual solo friendly Pof events and Meta events (just like in LS3). For me, they are what brings me back. Exploration, adventure, action, solo casual jumping into events.

The biggest reason why I prefer PoF to HoT is that it feels more like core Tyria. Don't get me wrong, the difficulty spike in HoT was something I enjoyed and going from event to event feels nice but to me it took away from the exploration aspect of GW2. I, like many others, don't even go to the HoT maps unless a meta is going and I've seen it multiple times when I would need to farm map currencies at any time of day.

PoF does need a ton more events, or more event chains however. All that space and they could cram events literally everywhere, even if its just something like kill such and such champ or defeat this patrol of forged or awakened. I'd rather have reduced open world monsters and more events to fill in the space. More events adds replayability, at least for me. But I'll still prefer and will explore PoF because its beautiful and has lots of little nooks and crannies to explore.

Love the mounts and the maps of POF. HOwever, after doing a bounty chain on each map and getting the achievements, completing specialty collection on several toons, getting map completion - what's the point in staying around in POF? I already find myself going back and doing TD, AB, DS and VB metas at reset. I get that some people did not like map locked metas - but there is a way to have huge meta events and not lock the map.