Future maps should be as difficult as Heart of Thorn's

[Astralporing.1957]

4 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

It’s not only because of the meta events. The HoT maps are popular because they have rewarding meta events, a great design and a good difficulty. The overall package is right. 

If by "good difficulty" you mean nobody has to worry about failing, then you're right. Notice, though, that those things that are actually more difficult generally aren't very popular at all. Like, for example, VG night meta, of which people generally bother only with Matriarch.

[yoni.7015]

4 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

If by "good difficulty" you mean nobody has to worry about failing, then you're right. Notice, though, that those things that are actually more difficult generally aren't very popular at all. Like, for example, VG night meta, of which people generally bother only with Matriarch.

I personally would like events that have a chance to fail at the beginning, like the DE meta. But I know that a lot of players prefer open world to be unchallenging. 

[Zok.4956]

9 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

I personally would like events that have a chance to fail at the beginning, like the DE meta. But I know that a lot of players prefer open world to be unchallenging. 

With the exception of the overtuned Chak Gerrent meta I liked the difficulty of the HoT maps and all the (meta-)event chains at release before the nerfs. And I do like openworld events that have a chance of failing. But please no more of way too long and unrewarding and "ad-hoc unfriendly" meta events like the DE meta.

[squeegee.4320]

I love Tangled Depths for the difficulty. I rarely play it for the same reason. I still want more of it.

[Randulf.7614]

20 hours ago, Erich.1783 said:

I am not sure that the degree of difficulty is the thing that makes the HoT maps more enjoyable to keep playing, but rather I think it is the events/event chains in those zones.  That said, I am not opposed to the level of difficulty involved in those maps, pre or post nerfs, and if that is what is required to get maps that have replay value I am fine with that.

This sums it up for me.

I’d also like a few more like Tangled Depths since that is an excellent map. Maze like, but surprisingly varied with jungle, extensive caverns, insectoid hives, underground rivers and lakes, a native Hylek village and an abandoned technological city. Lots of varied events, loved the spelunking style exploration and tons of atmosphere. It was just fun to explore and play around in. There were glimmers of this in EoD, but it just didn’t push the atmosphere or the events/content enough. It also isn’t completely trivialised by the skyscale which is a rarity.
 

I get people hate Tangled Depths, but the uniqueness of maps like this and Draconis Mons is what helps set GW2 apart.

[Labjax.2465]

4 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

But that's not because they are difficult or challenging. Quite the opposite - it's because the map metas are rewarding while at the same time not being a significant challenge. When you go to HoT map meta event now, you don't have to worry about it failing, and you know you will be rewarded for showing up. So, people do show up.

This tracks with the popularity I see of HoT metas.

AB is easiest, doesn't take long, and is most rewarding for repeating it, and gets a lot of people every time.

TD can still fail, but doesn't take long, has a pretty high success rate, and has the repeatable chance of the super rare infusion.

VB is hard to organize for t4 and I see pug attempts at t4 and the occasional success, but from what I've seen, people are mostly parking a character at matriarch and killing it when it spawns for the easy daily chest. It also takes a while to do and the rewards for doing t4 aren't that great along the way. The stat selectable armor is very useful if you need it, but some won't need it anymore. I also see a guild or two that does t4 runs of this map.

DS is pretty dependent on having enough people and not that hard when you have a lot, especially with knowledgeable commanders, but becomes significantly harder with less. I still see it happening now and then, but not as reliably, as say, AB or TD, and a number of groups are kind of rough runs with lower-ish number groups doing it. The rewards for it are a pretty specialized need, I think, once you have all the machined weapons and whatnot (if you want them) with a lot of people probably showing up for the crystalline ore from pods for making a gen 2 legendary weapon. You get some decent loot from killing mobs along the way if you are there the whole time and can kill 3 tms at the end, but it's also a lot of time investment for a full run of the map. This is another one I see guilds doing as part of a train sometimes.

In summary: The pattern I see is that fast + easy + rewarding makes for a popular meta, which probably isn't too surprising. And when a meta is longer (pulling from experience with maps like drizzlewood and its popularity) it needs to be noticeably rewarding along the way to make up for how long it takes, for it to match the popularity of a shorter meta. I'm not as sure about how significantly difficulty factors in, though it does seem like if the perception is that a meta has a significant chance of failure, then the longer it is, the more likely it is people will avoid it, even if it's rewarding at the end (EoD final meta probably being an example of this).

[Valfar.3761]

I loved the lethality of the pre-nerf mobs, I just didn't like their massive HP pools. So your average encounter would last at least a minute but if you screwed up once you died. That's too exhausting.

[Omega.6801]

Yes.