HoT jungle maps appreciation

[Skaan.1423]

I just thought i'd make a thread to show my appreciation for these maps, because i sometimes get the feeling the fun and beauty of these maps get overshadowed by discussion of the meta events or the difficulty of the mobs there.

These maps are, in my opinion, the best jungle maps i've ever played in in a game. Lots of other games, especially MMO's, often have nice looking jungle maps aswell, but you don't really feel like you're exploring a jungle. It just feels like you're running around on a nice looking map with some nice jungle scenery in the background while you're fighting mobs. In GW2, due to the gliding, verticality of the map, mounts and mushrooms and stuff, you actually feel like you're exploring and traversing through a real jungle. Not to mention that the music is also beautiful and creates a very fitting atmosphere.

Now with the addition of mounts, especially the griffon, it becomes even more fun. I often find myself going to Verdant Brink to soar through the skies and canopy on my griffon and then dive down and fly through the trees a bit, just because i find it so fun.

I can understand that there won't be as much of a focus on map verticality anymore in future maps/expansions (like how i'm not expecting desert maps to have much verticality, for obvious reasons), but i just have to say that the huge focus on verticality in these jungle maps was definitely a great move and which made some very unique maps in the gaming world.

I seem to remeber one of Anet's members mentioning something about how they focus on the joy of movement in the game and i can honestly say i find this to be the major selling point of GW2. The way they combine map design with player movement in mind always makes map exploration a joy. So i can't wait to see what they have in store with their next expansion.

Not trying to sound fanboy-ish, i just always feel the need to give shout-outs whenever i have appreciation for something.

[Randulf.7614]

Ive always liked the HoT maps and the vertical ls3 ones. Verdant Brink and Tangled Depths were great fun for me when they first come out and i still occasionally potter today.

[Jarl Petter Hinrik.1409]

I used to fall all over in the maps at first and was so confused but it eventually grows on you.

[echolynfan.2049]

I totally agree! HOT is a beautiful map and one that I spend the most of my time in but is made a lot better with the introduction of mounts. Nice to see a pro-HOT post for a change because the devs hard work should be recognized.

[Ashen.2907]

I seen comments to the effect that gliding helps make HoT maps feel more like real jungle on several occasions now. I dont see how. Gliding detracts from the jungle vibe IMO. Extensive wingspan pseudo flight through a dense multi-canopy jungle seems counterintuitive to me.

[Draco.9480]

it's the best map design they ever made especially tangled depths to make people die and get lost easily. especially with mounts it's so cool to drive on beetle or use griffon to fly. Too bad they don't do those kind of massive vertical maps anymore. also champs being HPs is good. I really enjoyed the HoT exploration, collection and other things related to it then PoF came and I got bored and didn't bother going back to the desert. desert is just boring flat, too wide, the distance between everything is too much and it eats time for no reason. the jungle of gw2 is the most creative one from all the games.

[Fenom.9457]

Yea I'd love to see those last 3 gaps as new maps sometime soon

[Tails.9372]

TD is easily the best map this game has to offer (in terms of structure and esthetics, closely followed by draconis mons). Too bad the replayability sucks as there is no real point in farming them (thanks A-Net for screwing up the implementation of the map specific meta reward in TD (and some other maps)).

[Skaan.1423]

@Ashen.2907 said:I seen comments to the effect that gliding helps make HoT maps feel more like real jungle on several occasions now. I dont see how. Gliding detracts from the jungle vibe IMO. Extensive wingspan pseudo flight through a dense multi-canopy jungle seems counterintuitive to me.

For me, the reason gliding and flying makes it feel more like a real jungle, is because it allows you to interact with the environment a lot more and reach much more hidden/cool places compared to if you could only walk there. For example, when i was a kid, i loved playing in forests just because i loved climbing in trees and all that stuff and pretending to be Tarzan. You could argue that other MMO's also can give you this feeling, but their flying mounts are almost always just generic swim-in-the-air mounts, and those don't give you that rewarding/adventurous feeling that gliding and the griffon gives you.

With gliding and griffon flight, it gives me similar feelings of soaring/swinging through a jungle and landing on random branches or structures in the air as opposed to just traveling on the ground.

That's why i love these maps, they bring out the kid in me pretending to be Tarzan again.

[Kanimae.1735]

I've spent a massive amount of time there over the past two weeks getting all the map completions, the currency, finishing the mastery trait lines and so on for Nevermore (still a long way to go farming wise though) and while I at first hated it...now I actually vastly prefer it to core and PoF content.

I kind of don't even want to leave there. Ever x3 the rest is so bland in comparison.

[Zushada.6108]

Although I hated the mobs, I LOVED the HoT maps and the whole HoT experience. When I compared them in my head to Central Tyria, it was really just mind blowing to consider that a team could come up with such a highly interactive, multi-layered system of maps with brilliant meta events and multi-levelled exploration. Even though I have a Griffon now, I still run about the HoT maps on foot and climb the trees etc every now and then.

[Devilman.1532]

HoT > PoF x 1000

[Dante.1763]

Hot maps where so much better than pofs, but the mobs there where 100000000x worse IMO so..

Mounts made them alot more fun to navigate too.

[mindcircus.1506]

Verdant Brink is where I really fell in love with this game. The brutal enemies, incredible scenery, the mind bending map design... all of it. It's where Guild Wars really clicked with me.The map actually changed the way I look at MMOs.

After doing the Jungle Anomaly on the new map, I find myself wishing we could get a new LS map with the same quality set in Maguuma.

[Hesacon.8735]

HoT maps are great when you have all your masteries. Before you acquire all the movement masteries they're pretty miserable.

With masteries: 10/10Without masteries: shoot me/10

[kharmin.7683]

Personally, I detest HoT and never travel there if I can help it. However, I give a lot of credit to the team for the design of them. They are truly revolutionary for an MMO and clearly have a large amount of the community's affection. What is great about GW2 for me, being a very casual player, is that I am not forced into maps that I do not enjoy. I'm glad that others enjoy them, though!

[Cyninja.2954]

Agreed.

What many underestimate about Hot maps (especially TD which is one of the best maps in the game) is that they come with a learning curve. Yes Tangled Depths can be very frustrating the first few times, but if you invest the time while playing to adapt to the map you are rewarded greatly with a very well built map with an insane amount of connections and secret areas.

I get that some people just want to get from A to B and not want to worry about the terrain, but they are missing out on how a well designed map can enrich your gaming experience once you have mastered it.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I just hope that now that the HoT-type fans are satisfied, and the PoF-type fans are satisfied, in the next expansion we can have extremely complex maps that have both large spans of horizontal flatness and towering and twisting vertical zones as well.

[ugrakarma.9416]

by far HoT maps are pure state of art.

[Opopanax.1803]

I liked HoT maps far better once I got unlimited gliding.

Before that it was difficult and deadly. Getting through that hump is easy to forget, but that was not super fun.

[Dashingsteel.3410]

The only HoT map I like is Auric Basin. I much prefer the PoF maps.

[Danikat.8537]

I agree completely. I'm often disappointed with jungle maps in other games because it's more like 'beach' woodland - lots of big trees but all very flat and open often with clear roads through it. HoT feels much more like you're trekking through uncharted territory and actual jungle. I also really enjoy the maps - the fact that almost every time I go through them I find something I haven't noticed before, and often end up doing things I hadn't expected or hadn't planned on along the way to my goal (which for me is a very good thing). They're some of the most fun maps I've ever played.

Edit: Had to misspell the name of the trees I was referring to because the correct spelling changed to kitten, possibly because it could be a mispronunciation of the technical term for a female dog.

[Skaan.1423]

@Danikat.8537 said:I agree completely. I'm often disappointed with jungle maps in other games because it's more like kitten woodland - lots of big trees but all very flat and open often with clear roads through it. HoT feels much more like you're trekking through uncharted territory and actual jungle. I also really enjoy the maps - the fact that almost every time I go through them I find something I haven't noticed before, and often end up doing things I hadn't expected or hadn't planned on along the way to my goal (which for me is a very good thing). They're some of the most fun maps I've ever played.

That's something i also experience a lot. For example, i always tend to start at the same waypoint in Verdant Brink and go straight to the canopies, but always end up on a place i've never seen before.

[Fipmip.7219]

cant wait for the next expansion where we get the PoF map appreciation thread

[Danikat.8537]

@"Fipmip.7219" said:cant wait for the next expansion where we get the PoF map appreciation thread

Probably not, because the PoF maps have never received the kind of hate the HoT maps did, so an appreciation topic would be redundant. There was a lot of talk about how PoF maps are so much better and Anet have "come to their senses" and done what "everyone" wanted when PoF launched, but there's no point in going on about how they've produced an expansion with very conventional maps.

Which is not to say they're not pretty, or even interesting. But they don't stand out in the same way HoT does, and therefore also don't polarise opinions as much.