HoT >> PoF

[sasya neko.1985]

because HoT is just trying to be dark souls without any soul in it, PoF is more based on story and role play.

[Liewec.2896]

had me very confused at first with the title (HoT "greater than" PoF) 😄

but then i read what you said and completely agree, PoF was a near perfect expansion.

the story was great (you're going to go kill a god! what could be more bad@ss?!)

the maps were new, different and beautiful, the sprawling desert theme was great,

new elite specs? awesome! MOUNTS! great!

the only thing i would like more of from GW2 expansions is more armour skins, GW2 always seems to be lacking in that department when it comes to expansions.

[Ghastly.3914]

They're both good, but HoT at original difficulty could only be good when the expansion was current, I'm glad they nerfed it afterwards. As for which is better? They're both great; I never like ranking things; as long as they're both quality products that's good with me.

1. What I'd like to see from HoT used in the future is more gliding and more dangerous mobs that can't be "ran around." Making people actually have to fight things is a good design, that feeling of "dynamic world that's alive" is something MMOs used to do so well in 2012-2014. Just one request, please give us time to gather logs and stuff after we kill these hard mobs.

2. What I'd like to see from PoF used in the future is deeper reasons for me to love and want to save the people in the location that expansion takes place in. Janthir's doing this really well with the Kodan so far, keep it up!

[Mungrul.9358]

If you want PoF Hard Mode, play as Warrior.
The amount of Blind spam means at least half of your attacks won't hit.

!FUN!

Edit:
Oh, and at the time of release, before all of the power-creep and mounts, core Tyria wasn't Baby Mode. It wasn't stupidly difficult, no, but it certainly wasn't easy, especially the Orrian areas.
People who say it's easy obviously weren't playing at release.

Edited September 20 by Mungrul.9358

[Tula.6021]

On 9/18/2024 at 7:01 AM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

I've spent quite a bit of time contemplating how it is that the average person is so poor at the game.  When it comes down to the depth and complexity of combat, the biggest issue that players face is the paradigm.  GW2 is unlike other RPGs and MMOs in many ways that cause it to favor maximizing damage.  The average player walking into GW2 is going to be completely unaware of this, or how the mechanics of the game cause it to favor maximum damage.

Yes, this game has a surprisingly complicated combat system that requires dedication to learn and the will and concentration to consistently execute what you have learned. Especially the synergy of actions with traits and combos. Movement and position come on top of that. And that's just for yourself. If you apply it to a group of 5 players, there is even more to consider, such as the position to each other, the range of skills for allies.
You have to really like that.
I like to camp in my spot and do my rotation until the enemy is dead. That said, I don't like GW2's combat system when it goes beyond that. The more complicated it gets, the higher my loss of entertainment to the point of stress.

GW1 had a varied combat system and was still uncomplicated.
I wonder how much potential was used there. Do you have any info on that? I bet it was the better combat system, aside from the holy trinity system.

On 9/18/2024 at 7:01 AM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

The average player walking into GW2 is going to be completely unaware of this, or how the mechanics of the game cause it to favor maximum damage.  They'll build themselves with random bits of gear they find (AKA the RNG build), or they'll pick bits of gear for roleplay reasons, or they'll refuse to gear themselves at all, or they're so afraid of dying they'll go 100% into defensive/gear/traits/utilites.  It is a combination of not knowing how to gear a character, and not really caring how they gear a character.  

Not met such players yet. But maybe because I mainly play wvw.

On 9/18/2024 at 7:01 AM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Your assertion, though, is a flawed application of the Pareto Principle.  It isn't that these players "use" 10% of the game.  It is that they have 10% of the damage output of best players.

I wanted to apply the 20/80 rule to the programmers. To reach 80% of their customers, they only need to put in 20% of the effort. Since you described the average player in detail, it's obvious that the average player is actually easy to please and this complicated combat system that takes a lot of time to balance seems to overwhelm the masses and thus is a waste of time. (Time that would have been better spent elsewhere, such as fixing annoying 10 year old bugs. Adapting old maps, quests and events. Changing unpopular metas and rarely played maps.)

Most important: The gap between best damage output and average output wouldn't be so extreme. This opens more content for those avarage players.

On 9/18/2024 at 7:01 AM, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

Quite the opposite, actually: fractals and raids are largely neglected in the development cycle. 

Don't tell me about neglected attention. I've been playing the same 4 maps for four years. And everything the community wants changed and fixed usually doesn't happen. And what ANet changes, nobody asked for, is then also a worsening improvement that makes the game even worse than before.
Because ANet doesn't take into account the consequences that a change from system A has on systems B and C. They offer no alternatives and let system B and C slowly sink. I could get so angry about it. ANet messed up my favorite content so badly with updates that made everything worse that I switched my daily and weekly to PvE this morning. WvW is now too little fun for me to keep playing. Just a year ago I played it every day for 3-4 hours during the week. And that for three years.
And now, I've only just finished my weekly because I completed a few things this morning. Ridiculous. I used to finish them on a good day.

[Freya.9075]

It’s not that bad now compared to what it was when released. It can be overwhelming for a new player, but it’s not that hard to get used to.

Sadly I missed the release of heart of thorns as I started the game way later, but I’ve heard it was an amazing experience 😇