About future expansions, a question for ANet.

[Renegated.4132]

I'd like to ask, if the plans for the future of the game are already done, will we ever recieve another expansion like Heart of Thorns? I mean, yeah, it was the worse when it comes to survival with all the kittening lizards overkilling us, the shrooms overnuking the people and yet, it's still probably the best expansion due to going into the unknown, making the players work as a team in order to advance to the next maps, raising camps in order to secure points, making the world truly a challenge... Those are things that Cantha and Elona don't have, with Maguuma it was literally us against the world (or the jungle, in this case), with Elona and Cantha we have towns, we have allies...

 

So, as said, will we ever have another expansion that makes the community work as one again in order to survive the world they're facing and without knowing what lies in the next corner?

[IYield.1204]

I agree that Heart of Thorns was a master stroke as far as that feeling of traversing an almost alien world with unknown danger around every corner, the sense of not knowing how to traverse the area at all encouraging exploration and a dark and foreboding narrative. It was really the only expansion so far in GW2 that wasn’t retreading previously visited cultures and areas from the original game and it shows. 

I would say now more than ever, ANET  has the opportunity to tread entirely new ground and stories. They covered ‘current events’ with all the previous GW1 areas and the Elder Dragons are gone. Now is the time for something far more alien. Just like HoT. 

Wholeheartedly agree with this post!

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Pretty sure the Devs aren't going to affirm nor deny the content for the next, or any other, expansion(s). 

[Voyant.1327]

I agree with the spirit of this. I love PoF over HoT but have come to enjoy both. EoD I like the masteries and specs besides Mechanist. 

I look at EoD as the empty land of eyesores, jade tech is downright awful to look at it (turtles, mechs, etc.) I love jade in real life, here it just reminds me of Nickelodeon slime. 

But beyond aesthetics it just feels so empty and hollow. I don't get the sense that Cantha is "alive" or has its own personality like HoT or PoF. It feels it has a lack of one beyond superficial aesthetics that aren't generally liked. 

[Renegated.4132]

It would be good another expansion making us return to Maguuma, but not the part that was controlled by the dragon, the rest of it, i mean, if you look at the map we explored less than 25% of Maguuma as it is.

 

I want to know what lies on the lands something as powerful as Mordremoth was not able to reach xD

 

Also, I just noticed by looking the map, since when do we have a zone named 'Dzalana'?

Edited August 25, 2022 by Renegated.4132

[Randulf.7614]

18 minutes ago, Renegated.4132 said:

It would be good another expansion making us return to Maguuma, but not the part that was controlled by the dragon, the rest of it, i mean, if you look at the map we explored less than 25% of Maguuma as it is.

 

I want to know what lies on the lands something as powerful as Mordremoth was not able to reach xD

 

Also, I just noticed by looking the map, since when do we have a zone named 'Dzalana'?

It was an unexplored area in Guild Wars too. They kept it as that on release of PoF presumably as a nod to the old game. Lore has it as a believed home to harpies and hekets

I believe some more areas of maguuma were planned, but were cut from hot. They were, I believe, still under Mordremoth control even if we didn’t go there. Given mordy reached as far as Ascalonian lands, it’s unlikely he wasn’t in control of the rest of maguuma unless it was dried up desert like dry top

[Asum.4960]

I unfortunately doubt we will get another HoT considering the backlash and subsequent nerfs it got due to players just being too used to the powercreep and OW being pretty much entirely easy solo content to just walk through at this point. 

But I agree, save for the core game with core balance, HoT as the only expansion/added content adjusted to the powercreep of it's time, was some of GW2's best showing so far. It actually felt like an MMO again. 

Players were actually chatting in chat, asking for help, getting together, congregating around Hero Challenges - which in sheer novelty were a challenge again, etc. 

It was such a different feel to stay in these zones for weeks to months after release (or even go back to now years later for some of the things that mostly survived the culling) and help players out and to see actual communication and players engaging with each other, compared to the blast through content solo once in a blur and have no reason to stick around or go back that's been the case for most of PoF and EoD (save for it's last map meta, which actually required players to come together, communicate and try - and how flawlessly that went). 

 

What I kind of wish Anet would do instead is to section off some small parts of maps slightly to have some high challenge OW areas, off the beaten main story path - maybe even without any PoI's, Vista's, but especially Waypoints in there - so no one can complain that they can't get map completion day one solo without ever interacting with another player. 

And then just have pure content there with challenging roaming mob packs, small scale events (where the challenge is beating the mobs/bosses, not tagging them in time before they sheer instantly evaporate)  and such for those who enjoy a rewarding challenge and or want to have an MMO/multiplayer experience outside of 11111 meta zergs or hiding away in a set of very few available instances. 

 

From the Brand areas in PoF, to Old Kaineng, parts of Echovald's underbelly or further reaches of the Jade Sea in EoD, there would have imo been plenty of opportunities to provide such without detracting much or at all from the definitely also valuable hyper casual play main path/experience.

The trick imo is to just not force challenging OW for what's considered mainline progression - nor dropping it completely. 

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

1 hour ago, Asum.4960 said:

I unfortunately doubt we will get another HoT considering the backlash and subsequent nerfs it got due to players just being too used to the powercreep and OW being pretty much entirely easy solo content to just walk through at this point. 

But I agree, save for the core game with core balance, HoT as the only expansion/added content adjusted to the powercreep of it's time, was some of GW2's best showing so far. It actually felt like an MMO again. 

Players were actually chatting in chat, asking for help, getting together, congregating around Hero Challenges - which in sheer novelty were a challenge again, etc. 

It was such a different feel to stay in these zones for weeks to months after release (or even go back to now years later for some of the things that mostly survived the culling) and help players out and to see actual communication and players engaging with each other, compared to the blast through content solo once in a blur and have no reason to stick around or go back that's been the case for most of PoF and EoD (save for it's last map meta, which actually required players to come together, communicate and try - and how flawlessly that went). 

 

What I kind of wish Anet would do instead is to section off some small parts of maps slightly to have some high challenge OW areas, off the beaten main story path - maybe even without any PoI's, Vista's, but especially Waypoints in there - so no one can complain that they can't get map completion day one solo without ever interacting with another player. 

And then just have pure content there with challenging roaming mob packs, small scale events (where the challenge is beating the mobs/bosses, not tagging them in time before they sheer instantly evaporate)  and such for those who enjoy a rewarding challenge and or want to have an MMO/multiplayer experience outside of 11111 meta zergs or hiding away in a set of very few available instances. 

 

From the Brand areas in PoF, to Old Kaineng, parts of Echovald's underbelly or further reaches of the Jade Sea in EoD, there would have imo been plenty of opportunities to provide such without detracting much or at all from the definitely also valuable hyper casual play main path/experience.

The trick imo is to just not force challenging OW for what's considered mainline progression - nor dropping it completely. 

Yeah i hope they repeat the HoT model > challenge , forcing them in tanky gear . (but you got to admit that there where Sylvari Snipers NPCs  at the first map that could one-shot you with their  3 sec channeling-scope and you couldn't keep that  of the time , while you got bombarded by the mini-pack raptors  )

And not the EoD model > high HP + timers , so they are forced to use LI builds (easy max-dps builds)

 

Tanky -Celestial (all stats) gear should be the default gear to get  across the game and "if" they "git gud" they can progress to other Gears . (Hmm , didnt i say the same for raids back in 2015 , or i am getting old ? Alas , the timer debate won over , and the casual should aim for max dps...)

Edited August 26, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[GreenZap.1352]

14 hours ago, Renegated.4132 said:

I'd like to ask, if the plans for the future of the game are already done, will we ever recieve another expansion like Heart of Thorns? I mean, yeah, it was the worse when it comes to survival with all the kittening lizards overkilling us, the shrooms overnuking the people and yet, it's still probably the best expansion due to going into the unknown, making the players work as a team in order to advance to the next maps, raising camps in order to secure points, making the world truly a challenge... Those are things that Cantha and Elona don't have, with Maguuma it was literally us against the world (or the jungle, in this case), with Elona and Cantha we have towns, we have allies...

 

So, as said, will we ever have another expansion that makes the community work as one again in order to survive the world they're facing and without knowing what lies in the next corner?

Heart of Thorns was the best expac ever made for GW2.

Real exploration and danger around every corner. Maps that were replayable (still are). Maps that were not boring and flat and required investment to learn how to find where to go.

 

Basically the opposite of EoD's boring maps.

 

I am the most casual GW2 player that only plays Celestial non meta builds (Like Wizard (only staff) burn firebrand) and HoT is the best expac this game has IMO.

 

PoF and EoD were huge downgrades and dissapointments over Factions and Nightfall for me. Especially the writing, the overly used tongue-in-cheek, and what they did yo my man Joko was unforgiveable.

 

I really miss villains like Shiro, Joko and the charr-human conflict overall.

 

GW2 has good story but it's way too fuzzy wuzzy at times.

Bangar was awesome but he was quickly destroyed.

 

For next expac, please more HoT-like map/diffixulty and definately less EoD.

Edited August 26, 2022 by GreenZap.1352

[Fipmip.7219]

Imo the best OW mob design is to keep the challenging mobs, but to spread them out into more deliberate encounters where they make sense, rather than trying to paint the map with aggro radii and archaic mob placement. Make it so hostile POIs have specifically placed mobs, have a few patrolling groups on specially modelled pathways, and then you'll have a bunch of packaged encounters that have the potential for some dynamic changes depending on placement (maybe two hostile patrols walk into eachother or a patrol moves through a POI), but mostly dont have the annoying domino aggro effect you get in many of the new areas. Then add the metas and hearts on top of that, and I think you have the perfect OW design for mobs.

[Teratus.2859]

HoT was the way it was to counter the heavy glass canon faceroll DPS melee metas of the time.
People still run HoT with pure damage focused glass canons and get wrecked by all the mobs that are just too spongey to face roll with pure damage.

It forces players to play a bit more defensively, and makes avoiding damage far more important to survival than the old whack it till it dies meta.
The problem is the that the base game never really prepared you for that and that's why the difficulty spike of HoT remains a subject of complaint event after all these years.

Personally I love that HoT was built that way.
I only wish that the core game did a better job at preparing people for the spike.

[GreenZap.1352]

3 hours ago, Teratus.2859 said:

HoT was the way it was to counter the heavy glass canon faceroll DPS melee metas of the time.
People still run HoT with pure damage focused glass canons and get wrecked by all the mobs that are just too spongey to face roll with pure damage.

It forces players to play a bit more defensively, and makes avoiding damage far more important to survival than the old whack it till it dies meta.
The problem is the that the base game never really prepared you for that and that's why the difficulty spike of HoT remains a subject of complaint event after all these years.

Personally I love that HoT was built that way.
I only wish that the core game did a better job at preparing people for the spike.

Agree with what you are saying.

 

The core game prepared us badly for HoT but the core game (I purschased at release) also never made me stick to GW2. I always got bored after awhile in core.

 

HoT was the expac that got me to fall in love with GW2 with it's somewhat less "chill" feeling that core was overabundant with. 

 

HoT feels like the pacing is better. Like we are actually in danger of losing to the bad guy. The expac also feels more focused and the new addee mechanics are fun.

 

And as I said before; I'm super casual and terrible at souls-like games and Nioh, but I really, really love HoT.

 

 

[Leger.3724]

Verdant Brink is still my least favorite map of any expansion or living story.

 

The Heart of Thorns expansion led to me taking several years off from the game.

 

Now it's okay-ish because of mounts but traversing Verdant Brink to work together was a challenge in and of itself. Unlocking skill points for elite specializations was another huge challenge you essentially needed a group to access basic skills content, something Guild Wars has tended to shy away from.

 

The other problem is if the next expansion does this - the old content like Heart of Thorns becomes less populated. How many times is Dragon's Stand attempted per day? How about the Verdant Brink meta?

 

I worry more expansions is going to spread the playerbase a bit thinner and make catching up that much more difficult.

 

I love the PvE content in this game. To me the content I would want to see is more along the lines of Drizzlewood Coast and Dragon's End or even Dragon's Stand for that matter (Heart of Thorns).

 

Introducing players to an expansion with a map like Verdant Brink is not good. It turns people off. It turned me off. I went back to playing League of Legends PvP exclusively where my skill mattered and it wasn't "yeah this skill point challenge has a billion HP, hits like a truck and you only have 2 dodges so you're not getting this done solo without cheesing it". It also takes you 5-10 minutes to get to the skill point in the first place to find out you can't solo it. Now with mounts, with 2 other expansions it's not so bad. But it was a terrible experience at launch. And for any new player going through the expansions in order, they're going to feel that same pain only worse as they see old players zooming around on the map on mounts + full gliding mastery.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Leger.3724

[kharmin.7683]

The design and implementation of PoF and EoD should tell you all you need to know about how Anet views whatever level of success HoT had on their bottom line.  Some very vocal players loved the challenge (even post-nerf, to a point) but Anet's statistics probably show a much clearer picture which is probably why PoF/EoD were nowhere near HoT.

[Ashen.2907]

I hope not.

[Renegated.4132]

1 hour ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I hope not.

 

I hope yes, not only because of the challenge, but because it made the world being alive, not something you just traverse and "kitten this kitten i'm out", it was a literal jungle, one wrong step could lead you to the coffin, and that's what made that area fun, having to cooperate in order to face the challenge it was going against the unknown. For example, the Dzalana region, if they ever implement it, it should be exactly like HoT, some safe places like the hilek town on VB (iirc they're hilek) and then the rest is time to face the unknown, since literally, you're going somewhere that has not even been explored. Same goes for the shiverpeaks, there's a lot of it that iirc, has not been explored yet by the tyrians, doing an expansion based on the premise of going to the unknown and doing it pacific would be almost insulting xD

[GreenZap.1352]

16 hours ago, Leger.3724 said:

Verdant Brink is still my least favorite map of any expansion or living story.

 

The Heart of Thorns expansion led to me taking several years off from the game.

 

Now it's okay-ish because of mounts but traversing Verdant Brink to work together was a challenge in and of itself. Unlocking skill points for elite specializations was another huge challenge you essentially needed a group to access basic skills content, something Guild Wars has tended to shy away from.

 

The other problem is if the next expansion does this - the old content like Heart of Thorns becomes less populated. How many times is Dragon's Stand attempted per day? How about the Verdant Brink meta?

 

I worry more expansions is going to spread the playerbase a bit thinner and make catching up that much more difficult.

 

I love the PvE content in this game. To me the content I would want to see is more along the lines of Drizzlewood Coast and Dragon's End or even Dragon's Stand for that matter (Heart of Thorns).

 

Introducing players to an expansion with a map like Verdant Brink is not good. It turns people off. It turned me off. I went back to playing League of Legends PvP exclusively where my skill mattered and it wasn't "yeah this skill point challenge has a billion HP, hits like a truck and you only have 2 dodges so you're not getting this done solo without cheesing it". It also takes you 5-10 minutes to get to the skill point in the first place to find out you can't solo it. Now with mounts, with 2 other expansions it's not so bad. But it was a terrible experience at launch. And for any new player going through the expansions in order, they're going to feel that same pain only worse as they see old players zooming around on the map on mounts + full gliding mastery.

If I remember correctly; all of the HoT HP's were soloable if you had the correct builds. 

 

Mushroom Queen is annoying because you fight in such a small area, but as long as you had bursty Power builds you could roll over most of the HP's (bats, robots) by yourself before they could do anything to you.

 

Personally I liked asking people for help with HP's because that made the game feel more alive and social and as always GW2 community were awesome and someone always helped you out. 

 

Also there were constant HP trains going on so getting the HP's were a non-issue if you didn't want to/couldn't solo them.

 

I don't remember Verdant Brink being too difficult? Tangled Depths were the one I remember being difficult to both navigate and had a lot of deadly enemies roaming everywhere. 

 

But that also is what makes me love those maps!

 

You didn't complete them in one sitting like you do with the EoD maps that are mostly just vast empty space with no real content  no replayability and boring meta events.

 

HoT really nailed the "being lost and alone in the dangerous jungle" feeling. It also birthed a lot of cool looking armor styles on gw2style.com, something EoD didn't/have not yet manage to the same degree.

 

My take

Edited August 27, 2022 by GreenZap.1352

[Asum.4960]

15 hours ago, Leger.3724 said:

Introducing players to an expansion with a map like Verdant Brink is not good. It turns people off. It turned me off. I went back to playing League of Legends PvP exclusively where my skill mattered and it wasn't "yeah this skill point challenge has a billion HP, hits like a truck and you only have 2 dodges so you're not getting this done solo without cheesing it". It also takes you 5-10 minutes to get to the skill point in the first place to find out you can't solo it. Now with mounts, with 2 other expansions it's not so bad. But it was a terrible experience at launch. And for any new player going through the expansions in order, they're going to feel that same pain only worse as they see old players zooming around on the map on mounts + full gliding mastery.

I think it's fair to not like it, I don't think it's fair to imply skill didn't matter. That (alongside feeling more like an MMO again) is the main thing I appreciated about HoT, the various tools professions had/the game mechanics, thought and adaptability and skill mattered. Even pre the big HoT nerf, all these things were solo-able with good buildcraft and skill - plus even then there was a surplus of Hero Points for exactly this reason, so all of the really challenging ones could be skipped/done later without impeding Specialisation progression. 

 

I'll always say, the problem isn't that Verdant Brink was balanced around the powercreep of it's time, it's that the core content leading up to it wasn't ever updated to at all keep up. 

I still remember players coming together in the core game asking for help with Hero Point Challenges too - it's just these days those things get bursted in < 3 seconds because players do about 5 times the damage (while being far tankier with more sustain and shorter CD's) than at launch - so they have no idea how to make functioning builds, how to adapt and play them, because the game never before demanded that they do.

 

15 hours ago, kharmin.7683 said:

The design and implementation of PoF and EoD should tell you all you need to know about how Anet views whatever level of success HoT had on their bottom line.  Some very vocal players loved the challenge (even post-nerf, to a point) but Anet's statistics probably show a much clearer picture which is probably why PoF/EoD were nowhere near HoT.

 

Iirc HoT/2015 is still by far the highest revenue year since launch year/2012, and still the highest revenue jump compared to it's previous year.

And that was before the gold mines of Mount Skins and co., with a very conservatively monetized Gemstore. 

I've also never seen a representative community poll anywhere in which HoT didn't win as overall favourite Expansion.* 

The main problem for the game at large was the following content draught after, especially in terms of more casual content, alongside some very vocal players who hated the challenge (which always scared Anet off way to quickly from trying anything interesting and giving players a chance to adapt before hitting it with a hammer). 

What Anet did learn though is to reduce initial expansion pricing, mometizing the in-game store more and to have follow-up content close to ready to transition into.

 

/E: *which is especially impressive considering HoT wasn't even sold as mainly content expansion, but as a way for Anet to create the core systems (such as Masteries, Elite Specialisations, Endgame content structure, etc.) to lay the ground work for future expansions, to be more focused on content. 

And yet it also has the most memorable, liked and replayable content to date.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Asum.4960

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

1 hour ago, Asum.4960 said:

The main problem for the game at large was the following content draught after, especially in terms of more casual content, alongside some very vocal players who hated the challenge (which always scared Anet off way to quickly from trying anything interesting and giving players a chance to adapt before hitting it with a hammer). 

 

Can you imagine if they "locked" the HoT gliders behinds raids (just like the Turtle in EoD) and plummet even more their revenue , for not allowing themselves to sell skins ?

While the people that try  to force  chalenge in OW , they are telling to  those casuals : " You dont need the mount . Work for it rather than handed to you .Who told you that expansion features should be give to you free" . Forcing themselves to sell PoF skins instead?

People always remember the HoT area , but not the Raids ... it seems they didnt have enought LI

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[yoni.7015]

11 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

 

Can you imagine if they "locked" the HoT gliders behinds raids (just like the Turtle in EoD) and plummet even more their revenue , for not allowing themselves to sell skins ? Forcing themselves to sell PoF skins instead?

 

They didn’t lock the turtle behind raids, they locked it behind an easy strike mission. 

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

28 minutes ago, yoni.7015 said:

They didn’t lock the turtle behind raids, they locked it behind an easy strike mission. 

And EoD meta . While the majority didn't have a problem with the fight ,but hated the RNG and "wanted more time" (aka less Boss HP) , while the "pros"(including you)  were telling people to "git gud" and shouldn't than handed for free the expansion features  (gliders , pof mounts?)

Edited August 27, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[GreenZap.1352]

7 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

And EoD meta .

While you where one of the many that where telling the people that they don't need it and should work for it .

EoD is the worst expac ANet have done to date.

 

What more is new??

[Mik.3401]

Expansions like HoT require much development effort it seems which is why only the original dev team took this challenge. The new team expansions are not only easier, however also bring much less to the table. EoD is notably less significant than even PoF. So I wouldn’t expect that, the next expansion will be mostly about new maps and open world events I would bet + some minor gimmicks like jade bot

Edited August 27, 2022 by Mik.3401

[Killthehealersffs.8940]

33 minutes ago, GreenZap.1352 said:

EoD is the worst expac ANet have done to date.

 

What more is new??

 

As far as HoT difficulty ,  the majority dont have a problem , now they are  are using defensive  gear and dont care about their dps . But this goes against the "pros" group  plan to increase their dps

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Killthehealersffs.8940

[Asum.4960]

1 hour ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

 

Can you imagine if they "locked" the HoT gliders behinds raids (just like the Turtle in EoD) and plummet even more their revenue , for not allowing themselves to sell skins ?

I'm not sure what point you are arguing here? 

As I said in my original post in this thread: 

On 8/26/2022 at 6:50 AM, Asum.4960 said:

The trick imo is to just not force challenging OW for what's considered mainline progression - nor dropping it completely. 

 

You can have both challenging OW and Raid-like content, and not have advertised headline features of the expansion locked behind them (not that I think the Turtle at all ended up being a major deal, nor that it's skins generated much revenue - but I get players want that main feature set completion). 

That said, I also think it's an issue that Anet caves to players not just expecting, but demanding to be able to complete all an expansion has to offer in one week of solo play. Same with players having figured out that it's literally easier to demand Anet nerf content than it is to learn a game mechanic like breakbars (see Eater of Souls with PoF). Anyway, that's a tangent. 

 

30 minutes ago, Killthehealersffs.8940 said:

 

As far as HoT difficulty ,  the majority dont have a problem , now they are  are using defensive  gear and dont care about their dps . But this goes against the "pros" group  plan to increase their dps

 

Again I'm not really sure where that came from or what point you are arguing - but I don't think anyone is recommending defensive gear (unless you count Celestial, Marauder and the like). 

It's pretty well known that highly defensive gear = no damage = way longer fights = getting lower value out of active defensive CD's and limited defensive resources like dodges = taking more damage = having a way harder time with the game. 

If anyone is having problems with the game, it's exactly because they are running overly defensive setups that don't really do anything, rather than investing into Might, Fury, Vuln, etc. access - as well as lacking fundamental understanding of the game mechanically with things like Breakbars, dodge timing, circle strafing and the like.

The problem isn't gear, it's lack of understanding of the games mechanics and ability to make functioning builds - because the game so rarely checks for it, especially outside of instanced away content.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Asum.4960