PoF Maps: Bounties and...?

Hey -

I've been a huge fan of HoT maps because of the meta system. I think they're the maps I replayed the most in all my hours in GW2. However, since I finished PoF story, I barely returned to the PoF maps (even though I think they're beautiful). The bounty system is not attractive to me and everytime I decided to go back to PoF the maps feel... empty. What is there to do beside the bounties? Am I missing some meta? I've tried Istan (I know it's a LW release) a couple of times and the Champion farming was too brainless for me.

I can't even find regular chain of events in the style of vanilla GW maps (and I mean not like 2-3 following events that feels meaningless, I would like longer chains with a bit bigger objective). Maybe it's just me, maybe I'm looking at the wrong place. But I would really like to play more in those PoF maps. Repeating HoT maps is starting to be a bit boring. I really hope the next expansion, if there's one, that Anet returns to a meta-type map à la HoT or maybe a balance between the two.

Thank you!

I agree, but it is clear they choose a lack of huge map metas due to feedback post hit from the community about too much reliance on them.

I think they were right to reduce them, but they went too far. It needed a better balance. I am a bit surprised they didn’t go back and enhance and tweak the small metas like Serpents Ire, The other Vabbi one and the Desolation one.

The Desolation one was particularly disappointing since they could have really expanded this to be a really major event comparable to Marionette and Vinewrath.

I think Riverlands had a good series of chains though

PoF maps are more of the roam around and explore style. A bit of combat, some gathering, some chests, and events that you come across. It feels more designed for solo play and not tied to any schedule, as compared to the other large metas in non-PoF maps. Smaller events can be completed quickly and can reward good amounts of unid gear and coin.

That said, you should really try Junundu Rising in the Desolation and the fight Tegon and Temar meta in the foundry in Vabbi (forged in fire I think it's called). Both are chains. Junundu is really fun IMO as you lure in wurms and then siege two forts. The Forged with Fire one is also a chain and the Tegon and Temar fight is a good challenge. augury rock in Elon Riverlands is a good chain with a boss fight in the rock, followed by doppelganger a little later - both are decently fun fights.

I believe one of the main reasons HoT metas are still so heavily populated is that they drop materials required for legendaries. Which is actually a great way to incentivize content, and something that was seemingly forgotten for the second expansion.

@"Randulf.7614" said:I think they were right to reduce them, but they went too far. It needed a better balance. I am a bit surprised they didn’t go back and enhance and tweak the small metas like Serpents Ire, The other Vabbi one and the Desolation one.That balance is very hard to get, as a lot of it is not a balance of numbers (loot or otherwise) but due to community issues, too. Either a meta is outstandingly good, then it gets to be the new flavor of the month, propagated by word of mouth, which brings lots of people to try it and a decent enough number to learn the mechanics that it's pretty fail-safe even with enough clueless autoattackers around, or people declare the meta "not worth the effort", which often leads to not enough people learning the mechanics to make it pug viable.

Serpent's Ire is actually a pretty good example of this. To me it feels a lot like the Chak Gerent in the early stages of HoT (pre and post nerf), when not many people would go there which in turn would make the event fail often because not many were aware of the mechanics, which in turn would cause less people to even try (and eventually learn) the event. I'm not sure how much tweaking the event would really need, but I'm pretty sure that the social aspect of many people proclaiming "too hard, not enough loot" plays a huge part in the inaccessability of that event chain.

@Mika.2057 said:everytime I decided to go back to PoF the maps feel... empty. What is there to do beside the bounties? Am I missing some meta?Personally I like to revisit the PoF maps for a multitude of things. Exploration for one: I sometimes enjoy just aimlessly wandering the maps and see what I stumble upon, and PoF maps are great for that. There are hidden chests all over the place, races, adventures, and I do find a good amount of events wherever I go, too. I'm still hoping for some of those elite specialization minis and jump in on the events that drop those every time I come across them. The Crystal Oasis and Desert Highland meta events are fun, too, and something different compared to the same old bounties and meta events you find everywhere else.

The trouble with exploring them, to me, is that you CANNOT dismount to go slower without aggroing ten thousand enemies. So you either zoom through at breakneck speed OR engage in 20 battles trying desperately to remount.

The ridiculous aggro range is what keeps me from PoF maps. It single-handedly ruins them for me. Otherwise, PoF maps would be perfect for chilling solo.

@thehipone.6812 said:PoF maps are more of the roam around and explore style. A bit of combat, some gathering, some chests, and events that you come across. It feels more designed for solo play and not tied to any schedule, as compared to the other large metas in non-PoF maps. Smaller events can be completed quickly and can reward good amounts of unid gear and coin.

That said, you should really try Junundu Rising in the Desolation and the fight Tegon and Temar meta in the foundry in Vabbi (forged in fire I think it's called). Both are chains. Junundu is really fun IMO as you lure in wurms and then siege two forts. The Forged with Fire one is also a chain and the Tegon and Temar fight is a good challenge. augury rock in Elon Riverlands is a good chain with a boss fight in the rock, followed by doppelganger a little later - both are decently fun fights.

See that's the problem with PoF maps; I have no idea what you're talking about, nor have I ever heard of either of those two events. But it didn't take very long after making my way to Verdant Brink to learn about its meta, same with AB, TD and DS, especially as those events go off at specific schedules, so I could plan to attend them.

@Etria.3642 said:The trouble with exploring them, to me, is that you CANNOT dismount to go slower without aggroing ten thousand enemies. So you either zoom through at breakneck speed OR engage in 20 battles trying desperately to remount.

This is what they need to fix. It's long overdue. The PoF zones are beautiful exploration zones and would make great solo/duo farm areas except, with lower player population, the mob density and aggro range is really off-putting. It amazes me players have been complaining about this for 2 years and they have yet to do anything about it. They really need to do a better job listening and delivering system updates efficiently.

I think they made a mistake tossing the HoT-style meta out the window with PoF. HoT had issues upon release and there are plenty of players who still aren't fans of it for various reasons. However, the metas have always been popular and remain so today. They give players a reason to keep coming back. As many have observed, that is entirely missing in PoF.

Thank you everyone. I will definately look at Serpent Ire and the other events you recommended!

There's plenty of meta events in PoF, they're just the localized kind seen in the core game rather than the kind that involve the entire map.

@Randulf.7614 said:I agree, but it is clear they choose a lack of huge map metas due to feedback post hit from the community about too much reliance on them.

I think they were right to reduce them, but they went too far. It needed a better balance. I am a bit surprised they didn’t go back and enhance and tweak the small metas like Serpents Ire, The other Vabbi one and the Desolation one.

The Desolation one was particularly disappointing since they could have really expanded this to be a really major event comparable to Marionette and Vinewrath.

I think Riverlands had a good series of chains though

The Desolation one just breaks too easily

Overall I'm not a fan of the PoF maps. They're nice to look at, but they're giant maps specifically designed for the mount in mind associated with that said map, littered with a bunch of mobs and no real reason to revisit once you have your mounts and have completed the story.

People still go the world bosses in the core game and The events in HoT. Instead of PoF being end game level 80 content with more world bosses or Auric Basin type events, they're basically Orr, copy pasted. It really is a shame, because they could of had a bunch of cool events that happen or some type of balth champion world boss.

I'm actually grinding out Trade Contracts ATM to get Harrier's Trinkets. There are several things you can do on the maps, but most of them are pretty well hidden.

In all maps you have the Hero Points. They're easier than they were in HoT, and you can repeat them daily for loot. Also in all maps you have jumping puzzles, which give really solid loot daily. If you have spare contracts, you can buy keys for karma and contracts, which is actually a pretty sweet deal in the long run. There are a few meta-event chains in each map as well. I don't have a comprehensive list, so these are just the ones I remember:

In Crystal Oasis you have the Casino Blitz. It's mostly a coin collecting mini-game, but it ends with a gigantic Choya boss or a stampede if the boss isn't killed.

In the Desert Highlands you have the Treasure Hunt, which can give good rewards. Once you've collected 25 or so treasure hunting kits, head to the highlands for the hunt and reap some loot. There's also the Tomb of the Kings, which is a great place to park inactive characters for their loot.

Elon Riverlands has two big events. The first is Augury Rock, which ends with a legendary doppleganger and some other event that I've never done. The second is the Deadhouse, which can get pretty big and pretty active at times.

The Desolation has two big ones. The Maw of Torment requires a group, but it has a really big award at the end. Junundu rising also requires a group, but it rewards a rare mini that sells for 9999 gold (not joking).

The Domain of Vabbi has two as well. Forged with Fire is in an off-location but it has a big loot drop. Vabbi is also home to the hardest meta event in PoF: Serpent's Ire. It's pretty complicated, really hard, and requires quite a few teammates to beat. If you can do it reliably the rewards are good, and again it awards an exclusive mini.

There's plenty of miscellaneous chains that go through the maps, but these seem to be the really big ones.

If elegy mosaics had a better drop rate people would do bounties more. Even 1 or 2 for champion bounties would be better than none.

Legendary-wise HoT way is faster because you can do anything on the map and get map currency. In PoF it's only Superior Buried Treasure and Legendary bounties unless there's a meta (Serpents Ire has poor uptake). Couple that with funerary incenses required and you have a low interest for repetition.

Elegy mosaics are also required for funerary armor boxes (72 for a set of armor).

Considering 300 elegy mosaics are required for the Grieving accessory , most people opt for difluorite + fractal/WvW mist accessory if they want that stat.

P.S. A little known PoF reward is the Realm Portal Spike Finisher in the Desolation area.

@Infusion.7149 said:P.S. A little known PoF reward is the Realm Portal Spike Finisher in the Desolation area.

Only obtainable in PvE but only usable for PvP and WvW the exception of a handful of things...

@Hyper Cutter.9376 said:There's plenty of meta events in PoF, they're just the localized kind seen in the core game rather than the kind that involve the entire map.

Which is great except they aren't accessible because the maps themselves are overtuned for solo and small group players - something that should have been obviously in need of changing for the last two years. I think the POF zones would get a lot more player attention if they weren't set up like the challenge of HoT zones with the rewards of vanilla zones.

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:I agree, but it is clear they choose a lack of huge map metas due to feedback post hit from the community about too much reliance on them.

I think they were right to reduce them, but they went too far. It needed a better balance. I am a bit surprised they didn’t go back and enhance and tweak the small metas like Serpents Ire, The other Vabbi one and the Desolation one.

The Desolation one was particularly disappointing since they could have really expanded this to be a really major event comparable to Marionette and Vinewrath.

I think Riverlands had a good series of chains though

I swear with the number of times that norn goes underground, he must actually be a dwarf that used an embiggening tonic to avoid being found and turned into a stone dwarf.

There is no incentive to run a meta event (or any pve content really) repeteadly if the rewards are inferior to others. You see everything it has to offer gameplay-wise the first time you complete it after all. Anet is aware of maps getting empty, even from the first couple months after PoF hit, but they've obviously made a conscious choice to leave them like that for their own reasons. And no those reasons have nothing to do with community "feedback" from HoT, Anet has metrics showing what people do in game and what they don't. They obviously know HoT maps are more popular and the reasons for them being so.

PoF was designed to not rival HoTs meta events and they've approached it like you would any single player experience. It's fantastic. Beautiful sceneries, lots of environmental story telling and many secrets to explore. Exploration with mounts feels natural and returning to a place but now with the correct abilities is amazing - but it's all a one time experience.

Bold choice for an MMO, but I think it worked really well. Yes, the events that do require a bunch of people are mostly desolate but personally I think that's okay too. People who want the achievements or do bounties for collections etc. will still find enough people to do them since they really aren't too tough. Most of the content is deisnged to be achievable by as little as 10 people, if not less.

@DaFishBob.6518 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Randulf.7614 said:I agree, but it is clear they choose a lack of huge map metas due to feedback post hit from the community about too much reliance on them.

I think they were right to reduce them, but they went too far. It needed a better balance. I am a bit surprised they didn’t go back and enhance and tweak the small metas like Serpents Ire, The other Vabbi one and the Desolation one.

The Desolation one was particularly disappointing since they could have really expanded this to be a really major event comparable to Marionette and Vinewrath.

I think Riverlands had a good series of chains though

I think you mean Dredge :p

Those do a lot more tunneling

@"Blocki.4931" said:PoF was designed to not rival HoTs meta events and they've approached it like you would any single player experience. It's fantastic. Beautiful sceneries, lots of environmental story telling and many secrets to explore. Exploration with mounts feels natural and returning to a place but now with the correct abilities is amazing - but it's all a one time experience.

Bold choice for an MMO, but I think it worked really well. Yes, the events that do require a bunch of people are mostly desolate but personally I think that's okay too. People who want the achievements or do bounties for collections etc. will still find enough people to do them since they really aren't too tough. Most of the content is deisnged to be achievable by as little as 10 people, if not less.

Aren't mmos by nature the exact opposite of an "one time experience"? Creating content that will get abandoned so soon into an expansion's life, seems counterproductive for an mmo to me. Player retention is the lifeblood of online games after all.

You don't even need to copy the HoT model for maps to be active and populated. PoF tries to be more like core maps but I remember some of those being very active well into the game's life. Orr and Frostgorge had numerous farming trains keeping the maps alive for years. Why? Because the rewards were worth the repetitiveness.

@AlexxxDelta.1806 said:

@"Blocki.4931" said:PoF was designed to not rival HoTs meta events and they've approached it like you would any single player experience. It's fantastic. Beautiful sceneries, lots of environmental story telling and many secrets to explore. Exploration with mounts feels natural and returning to a place but now with the correct abilities is amazing - but it's all a one time experience.

Bold choice for an MMO, but I think it worked really well. Yes, the events that do require a bunch of people are mostly desolate but personally I think that's okay too. People who want the achievements or do bounties for collections etc. will still find enough people to do them since they really aren't too tough. Most of the content is deisnged to be achievable by as little as 10 people, if not less.

Well, that's how the entirety of GW2 is designed. Every Living World Episode is a "One and Done" kind of deal. Some of them are filled with Events that increase replayability, but the story will always stay the same. HoT was different because all of the maps featured full map wide meta events that were rewarding enough to repeat, with some super rare rewards you might get and with enough achievements to it all that one cannot feasibly get them all in one go.

How does PoF do on that front? There are a couple events you need to do more than once (Shadows events, where you have to collect these tokens + Realm Portal Spikes, the last missing achievement for the entirety of PoF for me, because I can't be bothered to run that broken and boring meta just to only get 2 spikes done before the other players finish the rest).

Season 3 was pretty much dead except for the most recent release every time until they released Aurora, which revived most of them for a couple of weeks. We have reason to assume that the end of S4 will release another legendary trinket (that is hopefully not just the ring from raids requiring to visit those older maps). However, each map that came out was rewarding enough to "replace" the previous map in terms of farming and it was pretty healthy. Season 4 started with Istan and seemed promising to make up for the lack of farmable meta events from PoF.. only that Episode 2 didn't follow up on that trend and leave us hanging.

It went downhill from there and judging from how the latest map looks, well... I think Anet have forgotten how to design engaging map events. Even Istan is awful, because it's so heavily restricted to GH and Pala, areas that are impossible to free roam in because of the mob density. The map is pretty much dead outside those hotspots, whereas something like Verdant Brink always feels full and alive when those events are happening. Wherever you go, some defense or recapture event is happening, finishing off with a boss gauntlet that has fun mechanics that alter the usual 1111 CC 1111 rotations.

PoF fights are: Walk out of that red circle -> Use CC -> Watch for "bounty mechanic" -> Ignore that mechanic 90% of the time because it doesn't do anything -> 10% of the time? Walk to the orbs to avoid dying/Walk out of the laser -> 1111111111111. Honestly, living story bosses are more fun and engaging than that. Makes sense storywise, but having the same 5 types of Awakened for the greater half of the season was awful. I'm sick and tired of that "Sandstorm" attack that swirls you around and that everybody just ignores because you can just walk out the last second, yet it was one of the only things that required more than just 1 1 1 1 1ing to victory.

I really hope that the internal restructuring and "new main focus on GW2" that was a result of that will help them design more interesting maps. Imagine if we got Verdant Brink but it was part of a living story release. How amazing would that be? Huge, tons of events, tons of achievements, tons of secrets, interesting enemies and wildlife, interesting NPCs and lots of varying events. If Season 5 can deliver any of THIS feeling I will say that they have truly achieved the "expansion scale" content they were proud of creating through living story.