Anyone else feel that we have stunning new environments but NOTHING to do in them?

[Zenith.7301]

The maps are hollow. Pretty, but with nowhere the gameplay value of HoT maps.

[dusanyu.4057]

Wait, current event will happen so content will be filtering in. This expansion exploration was touted as a big feature and their is a lot of cool places in these maps that are off the beaten path. Giant map wide. Meta events just get in the way of exploration. Some world bosses would have been cool but giving how the story ends those might be coming in current events.

[Zaltys.7649]

What stunning new environments? Can't say that I've noticed any, though so far I've been so busy dodging the aggros that I haven't got many chances to stop and enjoy the view.

[Vyrulisse.1246]

It wouldn't have killed them to give us at least ONE new world boss.

[Drew.1865]

@Vayne.8563 said:People complained about HoT being on timers and needed groups. Anet made changes based on the very loud complaints of a percentage of the playerbase. I know after I get done with the expansion I'll be spending time in HoT again, because that offers a different experience.

Both experiences are valid. Anet should have made 3 maps without metas and two with metas

The thing people aren't realizing is the mounts and the design of them change every map in the game and how they are played. There are plenty of things to critique gaming developers for but Anet actually listened to the majority of the HOT criticism and designed these maps in response. I have been extremely critical of Anet in the past but I'm actually happy with all they have done.

[mazut.4296]

They need to make a balance. Map wide meta was boring. But maps still can have 2-3 more local big meta events. Think of world bosses+ few additional pre events. Also not necessary ending with big boss...

[Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485]

These maps are huge, why not have multiple metas per map? Or have 3 of the maps have small easy metas and two have large team metas.The only reasons to hate Metas in HoT were that they took over the map, impeding movement and giving players nothing else to do except map them if not taking part.

Look at VB, half the map was unreachable 80% of the time!Then on AB, vines would block paths! And during the meta, you could not even enter what is pretty much the most important place in the whole map!Tangled depths were just a mess to figure out where the hell you were going.... i did not even know it had a meta until today.... (i got out of there asap)Dragon stand is the worst offender. Want to play on this map? Better have all the people in the world, nothing doing there unless a guild is running it (or a taxi gets lucky).

Basically, Make some fun meta's but keep them OUT OF THE WAY. No blocking important things. Keep everything else running normally. That way no one feels obliged to play them like the other maps.Let people who want to play bounties do them while a meta goes on.Let people explore unimpeded!Let people do their story without the meta.

But let people have metas which will help keep them playing these maps! It will benefit everyone!

[Nilson.9865]

You're not leaving them a space for updates with such request. Didn't you teach life lesson? Get all at once will not give you that pleasure as something that you receive part by part.(salaries not included) You're trying swallow whole banana at once but you can slice it and have different taste, better than you had before.

[rapthorne.7345]

I personally prefer the constant localised events, rather than massive map metas, which resulted in the HoT maps being totally dead when the metas were not up.

I do think we should have at least one world boss or large event meta for one of the maps, but I don't ever want them to become the map's sole focus again

[Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485]

@rapthorne.7345 said:I personally prefer the constant localised events, rather than massive map metas, which resulted in the HoT maps being totally dead when the metas were not up.

I do think we should have at least one world boss or large event meta for one of the maps, but I don't ever want them to become the map's sole focus again

remember, core maps have metas that do not take over the map.

[Glacial.9516]

I haven't been to the last 2 maps yet, but so far I agree. The maps are fun for exploring because they're so big and there's a lot of neat little things, but I feel little reason to want to be in the maps. The events are fun once or twice. The heart quests once, if that. I think it'll be a one-time thing for me where I explore and enjoy the map, and then return just for achievements and HPs on alts.. Then again, I feel similarly about most of LS3 - I only return to those for achievements and currency collection.

While I understand (and agree with) the opposition to HoT being all on timers, most of the suggestions I saw were not asking to get rid of metas, but for more Silverwaste style metas that are event driven. Ones we can actually work toward instead of waiting. Tangled Depths could have been perfect for this if the Gerent spawned when all outposts had finished their event chains, instead of some arbitrary timer which makes the event chains pointless outside of farming map currency and getting the achievements. VB and Auric Basin could also follow suit.

@Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485 said:Basically, Make some fun meta's but keep them OUT OF THE WAY. No blocking important things. Keep everything else running normally. That way no one feels obliged to play them like the other maps.Let people who want to play bounties do them while a meta goes on.Let people explore unimpeded!Let people do their story without the meta.I agree with this. The new maps are so big that you could easily devote a portion of them to a Meta and not interfere with most of the map while it's in progress.

[nacario.9417]

i think this was done so that ppl still do HoT meta events, as u still need to do those for t2 legendaries which still will keep being pumped out. PoF is more like a new story and thats that, u dont have to own PoF in order to not miss out on anything, its ok

[Cyndercat.7615]

Anet has this horrible flaw. When they recieve criticism about a feature they just totally trash the feature instead of actually looking into the specifics of what people dislike and fixing it. They did it with dungeons, SAB and now big meta events. They could have easily fixed them by:

• recuding the cycle time to 30mins
• removing content gating
• spacing out rewards thougout the meta (not all at end)
• having some more mindless zerg type, some more structured like HOT.

Intead, once again they just didnt bother to do metas at all. Sigh.

[Lethalvriend.1723]

This is actually a concern I had before PoF launched, the living story season 3 maps all lacked a meta on the scale of silverwastes/dry top etc. Then when the beta weekend hit I enjoyed playing around for a bit but the content density felt lacking, I shook it off as just being the first part of the first map and it was just the beta weekend. However now that the expansion has released it seems from what I'm hearing that they indeed did a full 180 regarding HoT when it comes to meta events. As others have already mentioned, they should have or could have made 3 normal maps and 2 meta maps or some other variation of that. I actually didn't prepurchase PoF because of this, unlike HoT. I was one of the few players that loved Heart of Thorns, the map design, the verticality, the meta events. Obviously HoT had it's issues even for me, but it seems I will not be buying PoF for a while untill I have an actual good unbiased view of what it contains.

I always considered the large scale meta events to be 'raiding for those who can't stick to a weekly schedule'. Sure the difficulty is not really comparable, but they require actual thinking to overcome them even if they became farmable by everyone willing to take the time to learn them. One thing I did enjoy during the beta was doing the legendary choya bounty, it used a lot of combat mechanics but it's obviously not the same feeling you get like when you defend Verdant Brink, or lay siege on Mordremoth.

[Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485]

I hope they look a these threads (they wont, plus they will see people arrogantly defending their total removal) and splice in some metas on top of the maps as they are. Should be completely doable.

[maddoctor.2738]

@Vayne.8563 said:People complained about HoT being on timers and needed groups. Anet made changes based on the very loud complaints of a percentage of the playerbase. I know after I get done with the expansion I'll be spending time in HoT again, because that offers a different experience.

Both experiences are valid. Anet should have made 3 maps without metas and two with metas

Exactly this. We'll soon see the results of this change in direction. In a few months will PoF be a wasteland or not?Because even 2 years after release HoT maps are very well populated, even the release of PoF did very little to harm HoT metas (if that's because of the constant DCs or not remains to be seen)

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485" said:I hope they look a these threads (they wont, plus they will see people arrogantly defending their total removal) and splice in some metas on top of the maps as they are. Should be completely doable.

I doubt it's "doable". But they might do this with LS4

[Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485]

@maddoctor.2738 said:

@"Cloud Windfoot Omega.7485" said:I hope they look a these threads (they wont, plus they will see people arrogantly defending their total removal) and splice in some metas on top of the maps as they are. Should be completely doable.

I doubt it's "doable". But they might do this with LS4

you doubt it is doable? On what grounds cant they do it?The only restriction i see is money and time, but those costs would be extremely small in comparison to new maps or a new season. The structure for Meta should already be available for them to add in. All the work they would have to do is asset based and maybe a little bit of programming.

[killermanjaro.5670]

I've now explored 3 of the maps, and I'm quite disappointed at the lack of metas. There's quite a few dynamic events, but nothing really amazing, they're just like standard ones from core maps. It also seems like there's a lot of 'dead zones' on the map where just nothing at all happens.

I did join a bounty hunting squad for a while and that was quite fun. But after about an hour the novelty wore off and I realised that it's just really a glorified champ train like the ones in Orr. I'll come back and do them occasionally for 30 mins or so, but they won't be enough to keep bringing me back.

It really does feel like the maps are lacking, I enjoy maps like the Silverwastes, Dry Top, and HoT maps where it feels like your progressing the map and working towards something. The PoF maps lack that.

[Raithwall.8201]

i'll just explore every map to 100% get all mounts and achievements which should take like 2 weeks maximum and then never enter those maps again.why?no incentive to play them. thats why. the only thing halfways fun is the bounty hunts, which just get insanely easy when stacking players

[Madman.6912]

@Vayne.8563 said:People complained about HoT being on timers and needed groups. Anet made changes based on the very loud complaints of a percentage of the playerbase. I know after I get done with the expansion I'll be spending time in HoT again, because that offers a different experience.

Both experiences are valid. Anet should have made 3 maps without metas and two with metas

The problem they still seem to not understand is that you don't have to take something away in order to add something in... Keeping large scale events AND add something to cater for ppl that didn't like those would have been a much better experience

[TwilightSoul.9048]

So far I absolutely love the new maps BECAUSE there are no huge metas. The maps aren't entirely useless up to a certain point in time like the HoT maps (Dragons stand isn't even a map unless the meta is running..) In PoF maps there are events everywhere, and no matter where you go you can find some treasure, event, whatever, it actually feels like you're exploring a map rather then raiding a map. If you just want to hit 1 until you get loot you can go back to HoT or maybe play some clicker game? I think a Multiplayer Clicker game would be among the best MMO's for most players complaining about PoF...

[Nick.6972]

Pretty disappointing. The maps feel great, the art is beautiful, but why would I return to them after I've done 100% once or twice? Personally, I'm not an achievement guy.

I don't think there should be map wide events every 30 minutes or so like in HoT, but every our or so would be nice.

[Shyanmar.5936]

I actually like the lack of map-wide metas. In HoT maps you would be hard-pressed to find any other players that do not participate in the meta (to the point of sometimes being flamed for not doing so yourself).

I've seen a few metas in the PoF maps and feel they have exactly the right scale. And that aside ... how is there nothing to do on these maps?I really don't see it.

[Shaman.2034]

@Shyanmar.5936 said:In HoT maps you would be hard-pressed to find any other players that do not participate in the meta (to the point of sometimes being flamed for not doing so yourself).

Well, in PoF you don't see anyone else at all, so...