I remain confident in ANET. But magumma is likely their peak of excellence

[Fueki.4753]

59 minutes ago, TheGrimm.5624 said:

Agree. I do know as a WvW player that was also PvX that without more challenge there was less reasons to PvE since why? HoT was a great addition. More challenging content draws more players to either group up, or rebuild to try and solo, so it adds goals for both groups and those looking to see what they can alone. There really isn't any limits to groupsize so it doesn't limit those not looking to do the first two and allows options for the third. If they just create content that is 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1 they will have an audience, but it will be limited and include bots.

That's only true for the people who were willing to improve (or at least try to do that) and group up more often.

However, many people do not want to improve or change how they play. These people would happily have enjoyed more content of the same level as the core game.

Why anyone would want to play an MMORPG without at least occasionally being willing to form parties is unfathomable to me, but these people do exist.

[Gehenna.3625]

20 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Just my opinion, but I think they had the right idea, but being their first attempt at it they made some mistakes. 

I would agree with that. The one mistake I felt they made is assume that the vast majority of players would be ok with a sudden steep increase of difficulty. I feel it should've been more gradual to appeal to more people. Core maps were easier or rather much easier than HoT maps and the overall difficulty and complexity of the HoT maps was a shock for many I would think.

20 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

Filler masteries and extreme mastery XP requirements being an example of that. 

Personally, I was fine with the masteries themselves. I hesitate to call them filler masteries after EoD released 😉 I do agree with the amount of xp needed though. And I also remember that to get them all initially, you couldn't get enough mastery points unless you did some pretty tough content. That was fixed by placing some more Insights and being more generous with LW3 episodes as well. 

20 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I thought Verdant Brink was an amazing experience and I spent quite a lot of time just exploring that map, unlocking what I could, and completing the story before setting foot into Auric Basin. 

Personal experiences will differ and that's where I feel they made the biggest mistake. They forgot to take into account the larger player base. A lot of people will go for the story first, for example, but were forced to deal with masteries that were kinda tricky to get and, as you said, the xp needed to get to the next level also was prohibitive to just continuing the story at your own pace. Others wanted to go for the elite specs but had to deal with HPs that were a lot harder to do, particularly solo, etc.

20 hours ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I think this is how they intended this expansion to be played.  They clearly expected players to take their time.  But this goes against the core model of rushing around map completing with take-it-or-leave-it events that aren't required for anything.  So unless you enjoyed the exploration and associated mastery progression, HoT probably felt restrictive.  Especially if you also hated the combat. 

You summed it up quite nicely here. They intended it as such but didn't ask or tell the larger player base and as such it became "play it this way" instead of "play it your own way". And that shift was quite a big shift for many people.

[Gehenna.3625]

15 hours ago, Gwynnion.7364 said:

There definitely needed to be a difficulty bump from core Tyria, which was absurdly easy most of the time, but it's like they took all the most annoying and powerful enemy abilities and gave them to basically everything in HoT.  It was just too much, especially using a core build, and was definitely a case of listening to a very specific set of players who demanded it be hard.  They obviously dialed it back for PoF but there are still issues like infinite aggro range.  (And those harpies.) 

I agree, personally, that as you say a bump was needed but there are also many players who were fine with the difficulty of the core maps. Personally, I blame the combat system for a lot of this difficulty conundrum. The output of damage and survivability has an insane gap between players who don't really care about the combat system and those who do. This creates the issue that OW content will forever be too hard for those who don't care and forever be too easy for those who do.

Of course mastering the combat system should be rewarded but there's just too much of a gap to bridge between the two extremes. And that's why they can't raise the difficulty of OW content and story content or they'll lose many casual players, which I think is what happened with HoT. Casual players are a really big part of the population and therefore need to be considered.

And yes, infinite aggro range in PoF is my no. 1 reason why I rarely go back to PoF. I don't have an issue with beating them, it's just the annoyance factor.

15 hours ago, Gwynnion.7364 said:

But I think GW2 has been swerving between extremes for a long time as they can't decide which players it's for or even what release model they want to use.  They haven't wanted to invest HoT / PoF levels of time and money into the game ever since either, which I can kind of understand for a 12-year-old game.  But I think it's clear big expansions are what sell, which is why SOTO was marketed as one even though it's kinda not.

Yeah, as I mentioned, there really is no reconciling the two extremes because of the huge difference in output that players can have. Bridging that gap to get closer for OW and story content will achieve that. And they could introduce raid/strike gear infusions that only have an effect in said content, so it doesn't affect the OW/Story content. Like AR in Fractals. However, I do have to ask myself how many people actually want OW content to be harder... it feels like it might be a niche group. 

SoTO was still a bigger expansion than the recent expansions in SWTOR, just saying. People have different ideas about what an expansion should be, but I think that after 10 years most MMOs don't have the population/sales numbers to support bringing out big expansions. Particularly those who don't have a sub model. So as much as I regret not getting as much content as previous expansions, I do get it.

[Val.7826]

I don't want to say that mounts are the problem here, because Gw2 mounts are the best mounts in MMO so far, but while I try to deny this, mounts are the problem here, especially skyscale. I repeat, mounts in this game are great, the best of the best, various, useful, well animated, beautiful, and nicely integrated inside the world, but they destroy the quality of the exploration (not the efficiency, but the pleasure). The reason of the extreme immersiveness of HoT, Verdant Brink above all, besides the actual design of the area, resides in the fact that if you experience the game in chronological order, or maybe, like some people do, just with a rush for the raptor before, but no other mounts, you have to navigate the area facing the perils and the complex labyrinth that all of 4 maps of HoT can provide, struggling to reach places, thinking about which path you should take, trying to unlock meticulously masteries and hero points to proceed in your exploration. While lots of people are ready to complain about how much they "AbSoLutElY haTe ThaNgLEd DePThs I cAn'T UndErStAnd a kItTeN HerE oMG WoRSt mAp EVeR", the complexity of the maps and the difficulties of navigate them make the adventure there more like an actual adventure than all the rest of the game. At the start of my post I blamed mounts because mounts are able to make you skip all of this: distances are not an obstacle anymore, high places? pfff, just fly, or jump with the bunny. Cliffs? Are these even a problem? Enemies along the path? Just run straight on, they can't stop you. Just because of the existence of this amazing content that mounts are, It's not really possible anymore to give players the same adventure experience that HoT was. PoF managed to handle that, mostly because at times there were no skyscale, and PoF is designed for basic mounts, and maps are actually enjoyable and rich considering that are really horizontal (and vertical>horizontal in terms of design complexity almost every time, maybe with a little exception for Draconis Mons that is kinda poor) and sometimes there are mobs and traps that can dismount you so exploration and struggling vibes almost hold, but after skyscale, we must be honest here, everything of this died. Yes I know skyscale is a LW mount, long and complex to obtain, but every player that want to enjoy the game take the skyscale, whether they are able for chronological coherence, whether they want it for efficiency. After the mounts, the game it's basically a rush for objectives and events without actually caring about the place, kitten, I don't even know the geography of New Kaineng City but I exactly know where to go in Tangled Depths if I need to reach something, and that's because in HoT I was forced to learn the map by walking and gliding; after the skyscale entered the game, the exploration was mostly reduced at an helicopter pov were you have go from point A to point B and the only thing that matters is how fast you can reach point B.

HoT maps were vertical, intricate, difficult, sometimes painful and very punitive, along with hard-to-reach Mastery Points and challenging Hero Points, even in therms of combat considering that for many of them you had to fight extremely powerful enemies, and having no mounts the first time you have this experience force you to feel everything, and that's what can make the game way more interesting. Sadly, I doubt ANet will be able to replicate this, not because they are not good anymore, but because they simply can't due to skyscale and mounts in general that completely override gameplay in a way so radical that sometimes override even the glider.

We also should talk about the aesthetic of maps in general because I surely consider Verdant Brink a stunning map, and Auric Basin a fascinating one, and I really was dazed by the enormous ley-line cave where Chak Gerent event takes places in Tangled Depths (I don't appreciate Dragon Stand in the same way tho, I want to be honest, but I really like the meta here), but I agree with the fact that these consideration are very subjective, and many of newer maps are still really good looking almost at the same level.

To conclude, I am not saying that they have to remove mounts, because that's a nonsense now, but sadly I accepted that mounts are made for efficiency and not for immersion, even if they look like so and ANet surely made an excellent job when they added them in the world, I accepted ANet wants us to use them (fair enough), and so maps should be more mount-based, that is inevitably less explorative and enjoyable, you know, if you travel faster you see less. It's not really different from real life, if you want to travel 20km through a big city, there's a big difference between doing it by car or on foot, and it's not only a matter of fatigue, but it's a matter of what you have the opportunity to see and the time you spend along the way.

Edit:

I forgot to make a little disclaimer. Obviously using mounts is a choice and everyone who wants can decide to walk everywhere, but the point is that maps now have to be designed considering mounts, and I believe that could reduce the quality of the immersive experience in favor of, as I said, efficiency.

Btw I'm prepared to receive a lot of disagreement from skyscale obsessed enjoyers, so yeah I know it is an amazing mount, if I was not clear, I still believe mounts in this game are amazing and extremely well made, probably the best I personally have seen in a game so far.

Edited April 11 by Val.7826
Grammar

[AliamRationem.5172]

53 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Yeah, as I mentioned, there really is no reconciling the two extremes because of the huge difference in output that players can have. Bridging that gap to get closer for OW and story content will achieve that. And they could introduce raid/strike gear infusions that only have an effect in said content, so it doesn't affect the OW/Story content. Like AR in Fractals. However, I do have to ask myself how many people actually want OW content to be harder... it feels like it might be a niche group. 

I think the overall difficulty of open world content in the expansions is fine.  I don't think that it's gotten all that much easier (aside from personal objectives like hero points) since HoT.  If anything, I'd say the roving bands of ranged enemies that spam conditions and CC and often include elites in EoD are tougher than most of the normal enemies you encounter in HoT.  SotO took a bit of a step back.  Enemies seem to have more health, but are generally less threatening, which I don't feel is an improvement.

[Gehenna.3625]

15 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

I think the overall difficulty of open world content in the expansions is fine.  I don't think that it's gotten all that much easier (aside from personal objectives like hero points) since HoT.  If anything, I'd say the roving bands of ranged enemies that spam conditions and CC and often include elites in EoD are tougher than most of the normal enemies you encounter in HoT.  SotO took a bit of a step back.  Enemies seem to have more health, but are generally less threatening, which I don't feel is an improvement.

Well, I do agree with you to a degree but do understand that when HoT came out there were no mounts and that's what the players then had to deal with. I'm sure that if there were no mounts added to the game PoF and EoD would've been problematic also.

So mounts did make things a lot easier, even when the mobs arguably didn't. And of course there's the power creep issue. I do disagree with you on just the HP being harder though. Navigating the maps of HoT still is harder than the rest of the expansions even with mounts. 

[Ashantara.8731]

On 4/8/2024 at 9:44 PM, Gwynnion.7364 said:

And without all those years in the game like other people, I don't have the same confidence in the company.

It's been almost 19 years for me (namely since the release of GW1), and my confidence too is completely non-existent at this point, simply because I remember how much better ANet's product(s) used to be.

[Zok.4956]

21 hours ago, fourhim.3584 said:

HOT literally ALMOST made me quit the game when it first came out.  New players today just don't get it, especially if they get the whole package and do HOT LAST (as my wife recently did, for reasons I will explain soon.)  A player with mounts (especially skyscale) coming into HOT for the first time, can't imagine how hard it once was.  I had a basic glider on my back, that didn't have a "go faster" option, couldn't use those beautiful updrafts, couldn't stealth, couldn't get a jade bot boost to go higher, etc.  I saw these wonderful bouncing mushrooms to get to higher spots, but couldn't use them.  I saw these Nuhoch Wallow tunnels, but couldn't use them.  I wanted to get to those Hero Points to try out the new specializations, but I can't solo champions.  I coveted those Mastery Points, but they are impossible to get to until I get, uhh, more Mastery points?

I respect your statement/opinion that you didn't have fun with it. I don't want to dispute that, but I have a different experience/opinion. I also played when HoT was released and I had a lot of fun.

BTW: When I was killed by the small and mean mini-raptors right at the beginning of Verdank Brink, I had to laugh out loud and felt like I was in Jurrassic Park. 😉

What you are describing is the Metroidvania-like progression and map exploration system of the HoT maps: The player must first find the right path, complete a difficult path or a task in order to get to a certain place. He has to interact with the content. And once he's done that, a shortcut opens up, a much easier and faster way (mushrooms, gliding, poison, etc.) through the map.

Not everyone likes that, but I had a lot of fun with it when HoT was released. I still find this type of progression system much better than simply increasing the max level with each expansion (as is common in other games).

HoT has become easier these days with various updates. And especially thanks to the Skyscale, a kind of universal shortcut for map travel, various of the Metroidvania-like game mechanics of the HoT maps can be ignored if players want that. I don't want to tell anyone how to play the game. Nevertheless, I think it's a shame because many parts of the content of the HoT maps have become obsolete and the content has been devalued because of Skyscale.

And one more thing: It was once a core design philosophy of GW2 that players spontaneously work together in the open world to complete various tasks (ad hoc cooperation). HoT has implemented this very well with the theme of a hostile jungle in which you are stranded and in which you look for others and can only complete some tasks and survive together. You couldn't just roll through the undergrowth like in Core Tyria, you had to think carefully about your path and sometimes get other players to help you. And at the release of HoT, other players were always there to help if you asked on the map.

However, if you didn't like this type of ad-hoc cooperation, you probably had a very difficult time in the HoT maps.

Compared to Core Tyria, when HoT was released, it was probably too big a jump for many players who were not prepared for it. Anet should have built a ramp and introduced players to it better.

21 hours ago, fourhim.3584 said:

Have "we casuals" forgotten what that was like?

I was and still am (just a little older) also a casual. I haven't forgotten what it was like.
Even when I see mini-raptors today, and even though they are no longer really dangerous to me because of the power creep, I hate and love them at the same time. 😉

 

Edited April 11 by Zok.4956

[Zok.4956]

5 hours ago, Val.7826 said:

To conclude, I am not saying that they have to remove mounts, because that's a nonsense now, but sadly I accepted that mounts are made for efficiency and not for immersion, even if they look like so and ANet surely made an excellent job when they added them in the world,

I don't think it was a mistake to put mounts in the game. The real mistake (the original cardinal sin, if you will) was that mastery progressions were not limited to the actual "mastery maps" (HoT masteries and gliding only work in HoT maps, PoF masteries/mounts only work in PoF maps etc.) as was originally planned for this type of horizontal progression.

Because gliding was such a huge success when HoT was released, but it only worked in HoT maps (not in Core Tyria), there were a lot of players (including me) who begged Anet to also be able to glide in Core Tyria maps. In hindsight I think that may have been a mistake.

The mounts were also initially just a metroidvania-like way of map exploration. They all had very specialized tasks for specific parts of the PoF maps. But (after the positive experience with gliding) they could be used anywhere in the open world right from the start.

And then at some point Skyscale came along and changed the game even more than any mount before it. I love using the Skyscale, but looking back I have to say that all the points that critics made in the distant past against the introduction of mounts in GW2 apply to the Skyscale.

If Anet had managed to limit the horizontal progression of an expansion to just the maps and content of that expansion, we would probably have a better game today. Unfortunately, we now have to say that the mastery system of horizontal progression has reached its limits one step further with each expansion.

And to me it no longer gives the impression that Anet has the will and creative power to improve the mastery system or replace it with something better. All expansions after HoT use the mastery system but have not improved it.

And because there seems to be no further mount-progression after Skyscale (turtle is niche), it was re-released as an essential mount by SotO (BTW: It's completely OK that there is now a second way for new players to get the mount, good for them).

The two biggest new features or selling points (for many players) of SotO are the Skyscale and the open-world legendary armor. However, neither can be used again for the next expansion, which will come this year. So what could it be instead?

 

Edited April 11 by Zok.4956

[nosleepdemon.1368]

Ah here come the complaints about HoT being hard. So guys, you know this is an MMO right? It’s not single player. I don’t know if this is a cultural thing or what, but for some reason I often get the impression (outside of PvP) that many players want this game to be massively single player. HoT was only too hard if you a) Didn’t observe enemy behaviour b) Didn’t switch your build to be more defensive and c) Didn’t ask for help or group up. I really don’t think catering to players who haven’t actually learnt the game or who can’t/won’t interact with others is a good thing.

[Gwynnion.7364]

I get tired of the assumption even casual players don't want to work together or get better and just want to solo champions while auto-attacking or whatever.  Open world group content is one of the things that made me excited for GW2 in the first place!  I'm always happy to dive in to help somebody with an egregious HP or group event or whatever, and I don't mind asking for help or using LFG either.  HoT and other content pushed me to get better at builds, strategies, etc. to compensate.  But there are times when difficulty can come across as excessive or mean-spirited.  HoT often seemed hard for hard's sake with the attitude of, "Well, you asked for it!"  And clearly, some did.  But I think if you lost a lot of players then you miscalculated.

I think open world content has gotten noticeably easier because of power creep and bonuses like the jade bot protocols.  And of course, the ability to bypass things using mounts.  Yeah, in EoD, you sometimes get swarmed by a dozen guys at a time, including elites, but they're almost a nuisance compared to certain parts of Maguuma.  It's helpful, in fact, when you've gotta kill a bunch of Cantha mobs for the dailies and weeklies!  They're just not that hard.  And the Kryptis are just boring.  So I think there's a middle ground where most players would be happy and GW2 has been trying unsuccessfully to find it for years.

HoT and PoF both stand out primarily because of the amount of effort Anet invested in them, and I think that's what most people are nostalgic for.

[Doam.8305]

True but HoT did have issues they closed off all the Sylvari plot line from hidden trees, nightmare court, silent, and so forth. They just brought an axe and said no more Sylvari in that expansion and after countless other content patches the Mother Tree remains broken and the Sylvari might as well not exist. More so no that the dragon cycle is over and the dragon minion race was nowhere to be seen or heard during its end.

[Gwynnion.7364]

41 minutes ago, Doam.8305 said:

True but HoT did have issues they closed off all the Sylvari plot line from hidden trees, nightmare court, silent, and so forth.

Oh, yeah.  People frequently point out HoT felt unfinished from the start.  Anet seemed as bored by the Sylvari then as they were by Cantha recently.  "Let's just move on."  I'm always surprised when I run into  that lone Sylvari in current content! 

The same could be said of a lot of the setting.  Destiny's Edge was "important" but then they weren't, as they just got in the way of the Commander's story.  But now Zojja's back!  And I don't really care.  It's like running into Logan in Lake Doric and then in Dragon's End.  "Oh, you're still here?"  The Pact is irrelevant now, as are the orders.  They rushed through stories about the White Mantle in Season 3 and the Norn and Charr in IBS.  And while I understand there's a business aspect behind these decisions, such as SOTO being "all new, all different," the Dragon Cycle really defined the game from its inception and it feels kinda weird watching the game limp along without it just because they never gave it the resources it deserved.

Honestly, it was a little too on the nose to start SOTO with the Commander being bored and kinda sad because nobody needs them anymore and all their friends have moved on without them.

Edited April 11 by Gwynnion.7364

[Izzy.2951]

On 4/7/2024 at 8:29 AM, Cuks.8241 said:

There are 2 main reasons I kept playing this game. Great pvp combat mechanics and keeping the hopes up we get another Hot.

I think you should try other PvP games which are way better and way more populated, in fact they have thousands of people watching tournaments cos PvP is great there. I just dont understand people saying this game have great combat aside of fluidity (which most games does unless you have just touched WoW), combat is a spam fest mess in gw2. PvP is dead and the pve endgame is worst than many other games aswell xD.

And as for HoT, yeah, good luck you wont be getting another HoT ever. The most your gonna get is another SoTo which i dont even think, cos they putted a lot of stuff in SoTo to sold us the new expansion cycle, so i think with the resources they are putting in GW2 and GW3 being in development the next expac is gonna be even worst than SoTo. And SoTo was already bad.

Edited April 11 by Izzy.2951

[Cuks.8241]

13 hours ago, Izzy.2951 said:

I think you should try other PvP games which are way better and way more populated, in fact they have thousands of people watching tournaments cos PvP is great there. I just dont understand people saying this game have great combat aside of fluidity (which most games does unless you have just touched WoW), combat is a spam fest mess in gw2. PvP is dead and the pve endgame is worst than many other games aswell xD.

And as for HoT, yeah, good luck you wont be getting another HoT ever. The most your gonna get is another SoTo which i dont even think, cos they putted a lot of stuff in SoTo to sold us the new expansion cycle, so i think with the resources they are putting in GW2 and GW3 being in development the next expac is gonna be even worst than SoTo. And SoTo was already bad.

Oh I play plenty pvp games. Gw2 is not my primary pvp game and no mmo can compare to dedicated competitive games. The systems are good for mmorpg. Gw2 is spamy sure but its quite precise which is my mayor comlaint in many mmorpgs.

Why I like pvp in mmorpg is because pvp utilises the whole build, everything at your disposal. When I compare combat systems in mmorpgs I think pvp. Pve is mostly on tracks and builds are often specialised and mostly utilise only a part of the arsenal, follow rotations. So pvp in mmorpgs for me is fun and to test and play with builds and characters.