Heart of Thorns ruined this game

[HazyDaisy.4107]

I can't say that I've forgotten how tough it was to level the copious amounts of Hot masteries from just the 4 HOT expansions maps. However, following those 4 maps, we had LS3, which in addition to 6 more maps, some of them provided purchasable experience enhancements to use on those maps.

So, yeah, breakers and fresh HOT buyers may not have an easy time NOW finding populated HOT maps like we did 4 years ago, but then again, these people aren't really looking at 4 maps, they're looking at 10.

[Kongajinken.3182]

@MrRuin.9740 said:I never understood the point of threads like this.Don't play a game for 4 years then come to its forums to create a crying topic that offers no constructive feedback.I don't like many games, but I don't see the point in going to their sites and just to ***** about them. There's a plethora of MMOs out there, find one that better suits you instead of carrying a grudge against a 4 year old expansion you didn't like.

The point is unless I tell Anet why I left, they will continue to make a game I no longer love and will be unable to enjoy again, if they realize their mistake, via me pointing it out, than they can reverse course and make content good again. IE, no gated gimmicks anymore and level design that isn't so rigid. Flying up should have more than one path to get there.

[Kongajinken.3182]

@otto.5684 said:Dude, HoT is 4 years old, where have you been? I am not get in detail about HoT content, but most forums and polls indicate that HoT was superior to PoF. And core tyria, outside of cursed shore or farming low level nodes, there is nothing to do.

I left, because I didn't want anything to do with this mess of an expansion and I shared the experience I had with my friends, none of them decided to buy it.

[Klipso.8653]

The whole game is a test to see how long you'll put up with bad design until you stop logging in daily

[Steve The Cynic.3217]

@Eloc Freidon.5692 said:Masteries are VERY annoying at first. Not being given the glider outright makes traversing dangerous and fatal. Ever try doing Bugs in the Trees with it?! Its your only option when you want experience and everything kills you because you don't understand build nuance.

I cranked a bunch of XP when HoT first came out by soloing the Veteran Stonehead events in eastern Verdant Brink on a hammer Rev with a shamefully rubbish build. (Hammer, hammer, hammer, dodge charge, repeat until it's dead) But I didn't go near anything else, especially Pocket Raptors...

[Kongajinken.3182]

@"Emprer.7256" said:I started playing this game since HoT and bc of HoT I stayed. The maps and meta took some time getting used to, but now navigating the maps is a piece of cake. Things you listed as annoyance, are what keep many people playing. I like that I had to figure everything out instead of having them handed to me. They are also different in nature, but in a coherent way so all things do eventually connect. It's a shame that's a "grind" to you. On the bright side, you can still enjoy the game like you had, as your enjoyment never involved HoT anyway.

Even if I didn't like HoT I wouldn't bother opening a thread saying I hate it because chances are, you aren't going to change anything if that's the direction Anet has decided taking. The game has changed a lot since you left, and it will continue evolving. But I guess posting on forum saying that you will tell your friend to never come back is more liberating.

I loved the original design of GW2 because the world was more open to exploration, HoT made it so hard to try and explore area's it frequently takes me 10+ minutes to even figure out how to reach a location. And its purely due to poor level design. I shouldn't have to wait until night fall, than follow a stream of sky jets to figure out how to reach an island, I still haven't completed the first HoT map as I don't how how the heck to get many points of interest.

[Kongajinken.3182]

@HazyDaisy.4107 said:I can't say that I've forgotten how tough it was to level the copious amounts of Hot masteries from just the 4 HOT expansions maps. However, following those 4 maps, we had LS3, which in addition to 6 more maps, some of them provided purchasable experience enhancements to use on those maps.

So, yeah, breakers and fresh HOT buyers may not have an easy time NOW finding populated HOT maps like we did 4 years ago, but then again, these people aren't really looking at 4 maps, they're looking at 10.

I've noticed blood fen isn't nearly as trashy as the rest of HoT was, I don't own the entirity of season 3 of the living world though so I won't be able to try all the new maps, thinking of trying them though as blood fen was pretty good.

[MetalGirl.2370]

k.............................

[TRDN.6841]

Maybe try to get Raptor and Springer. Mounts make HoT much easier to navigate imo.

With Springer and updraft, you should be able to reach the platforms above in Verdant Brink even in daytime too (not sure tho).

Auric Basin and Dragon's Stand metas throw tons of xp at you and there're many guides on how to get easy mastery points.

[rynoxlordofblades.3096]

@Kongajinken.3182 said:

@MrRuin.9740 said:I never understood the point of threads like this.Don't play a game for 4 years then come to its forums to create a crying topic that offers no constructive feedback.I don't like many games, but I don't see the point in going to their sites and just to ***** about them. There's a plethora of MMOs out there, find one that better suits you instead of carrying a grudge against a 4 year old expansion you didn't like.

The point is unless I tell Anet why I left, they will continue to make a game I no longer love and will be unable to enjoy again, if they realize their mistake, via me pointing it out, than they can reverse course and make content good again. IE, no gated gimmicks anymore and level design that isn't so rigid. Flying up should have more than one path to get there.

They have no obligations to please you, why should they go out of their way to to tweak the content for you? have you played pof? you could easily play only Ls3 pof ls4 without playing hot there's no demand for you to play hot it doesn't effect the rest of the game.

[Bristingr.5034]

@Kongajinken.3182 said:I'm not giving you anything. I'm saving it for when they make this game good again, and finally realize that horizontal gimmicks aren't fun.

They said they were done with vertical progression. You might as well give your account away if you're waiting on them to go back to that.

[MrRuin.9740]

@Kongajinken.3182 said:

@"MrRuin.9740" said:I never understood the point of threads like this.Don't play a game for 4 years then come to its forums to create a crying topic that offers no constructive feedback.I don't like many games, but I don't see the point in going to their sites and just to ***** about them. There's a plethora of MMOs out there, find one that better suits you instead of carrying a grudge against a 4 year old expansion you didn't like.

The point is unless I tell Anet why I left, they will continue to make a game I no longer love and will be unable to enjoy again, if they realize their mistake, via me pointing it out, than they can reverse course and make content good again. IE, no gated gimmicks anymore and level design that isn't so rigid. Flying up should have more than one path to get there.

They have zero obligation to tailor the game to your personal tastes. Personally, I like HoT far better than PoF. It has more content, more things to do, more activities, more interesting maps.

The game is alive and well without you or Anet worrying about tailoring specifically to you and don't need to 'reverse course'. You are perfectly free to play the core game and PoF without ever entering the HoT maps, if that's your preference. Besides, were I in the position of Anet, I'd be more inclined to take feedback from people who continue to play and not quit when one aspect isn't tailored for them, only to come back 4 years later only to ***** and moan. They haven't been sitting around wondering "OMG, what can we do to get that one guy back who logged out and never came back 4 years ago". Clearly what they have been doing is fine. HoT maps have been more populated than the newer PoF maps in my experience.There's aspects of this game I do not enjoy, but other people do. I just don;t do them and do the many other things I do like. You can't expect a game that's being made to appeal to thousands of people to have every aspect of it tuned exactly as you want it to be.

Vertical progression is a thing in just about every other MMO out there and is not going to be a part of this one. It'd be far easier to find a different game that appeals to you than trying to get a company to change everything they're doing to suit you.

[VDAC.2137]

@Kongajinken.3182 said:

@"Emprer.7256" said:I started playing this game since HoT and bc of HoT I stayed. The maps and meta took some time getting used to, but now navigating the maps is a piece of cake. Things you listed as annoyance, are what keep many people playing. I like that I had to figure everything out instead of having them handed to me. They are also different in nature, but in a coherent way so all things do eventually connect. It's a shame that's a "grind" to you. On the bright side, you can still enjoy the game like you had, as your enjoyment never involved HoT anyway.

Even if I didn't like HoT I wouldn't bother opening a thread saying I hate it because chances are, you aren't going to change anything if that's the direction Anet has decided taking. The game has changed a lot since you left, and it will continue evolving. But I guess posting on forum saying that you will tell your friend to never come back is more liberating.

I loved the original design of GW2 because the world was more open to exploration, HoT made it so hard to try and explore area's it frequently takes me 10+ minutes to even figure out how to reach a location. And its purely due to poor level design. I shouldn't have to wait until night fall, than follow a stream of sky jets to figure out how to reach an island, I still haven't completed the first HoT map as I don't how how the heck to get many points of interest.

You don’t need events to get to any of the POI’s on the HoT maps — the choppers night just be the most straightforward way to get to them, but if you’d bothered to unlock the basic gliding masteries, you can get to any of them. Really, Tangled Depths is the only map that can be confusing (and Draconis Mons in LWS3 IMHO) without a 3D map. There are multiple ways to get many places on most of the maps and even more if you have even just the raptor and springer mounts.

[cesmode.4257]

Heart of thorns was the best thing to ever happen to the game and for me ranks as top 5 expansions out of any true mmo

[mindcircus.1506]

@"sarbonn.7182" said:I, on the other hand, really like HOT and POF, but my one problem is that they're extremely difficult and I'm really tired of dying all of the time. I keep trying to learn the gimmicks that are required to survive, but I don't seem to get the hang of it. And I really want to play through this area. Last night, I reached a new part of HOT and went forward, literally about ten feet, and I was seriously overwhelmed by some elite that was rushing through the area. Dead again.

I keep trying to get information to help me at least create builds, but I keep finding opposing information, and whenever I ask for help in game, I get the inevitable: "Just play whatever you want. All builds are great." But they're not, and it's really frustrating.

And keep in mind, this is coming from someone who actually loves the game, not someone who comes here to complain.

You may have some luck posting for some advice in the Players Helping Players forum. The whole "play whatever you like, it's Open World" is a meme that experienced and skilled players like to spread.Post your build, preffered play style and content and see if people can help you out.HoT can be a gut check. There is nothing wrong with adapting your gear and build.

Just do yourself a favor and try to honestly solicit help instead of beaking off like the OP. As you can see by the dogpile, this forum is growing increasingly hostile to that.

[castlemanic.3198]

I hated heart of thorns with a passion, i actually stopped playing the game until season 3 rolled around because of how unenjoyable of an expansion it was, and then I found out heart of thorns was nerfed to actually tolerable levels (at the very end of my tolerance meter but still tolerable), and that includes the higher exp earned.

As for the mastery system as a whole, I think it works very very well. I would much rather prefer a system that gives me the room to improve my account than a never ending gear treadmill where even legendary weapons become supplanted by common items of the next expansion. Gliding will always be relevant (i do wish we could get more mileage for the rest of the hot masteries, the recent season 4 efforts have helped loads), and the mounts from path of fire will also always be relevant. i continue to hope that things will be relevant and that the next expansion's masteries will also carry forward (and backwards) into anything that we do. (i know the next expansion isn't even confirmed yet, but just as a 'potential' thing it would be nice to keep in mind). So yeah, for me, the mastery system is way better than anything that other mmos do right now. And I hope that GW2 will remain for the foreseeable future.

[Vayne.8563]

HoT is great. The fact that you don't know how to play it isn't really Hot's problem. It's yours. You say you're waiting for an event and there's no one in the zone. That's literally never happened to me, and I spend a ton of time in HoT. I go to timer sites, so I know when events are coming. I get to those zones early. I use looking for group to see if a server is advertising that event. I join that server. This works better than 90% of the time. If i'm late, it may not work because the busiest server may be full which doesn't mean the meta event won't happen on the second server. It just has to be organized. And sometimes I've done that and successfully completed that meta anyway.

I also solo HoT quite frequently and find it to be some of the best content in the game. The zones aren't badly designed. You just don't like the design. To me, the HoT zones are the BEST designed zones in the game.

Annecdotally there are more people in HoT that any other area of the game, except new areas when they're released. A good portion of the playerbase ends up returning to HoT.;

HoT didn't ruin the game. You just don't like it. And I'd wager you've soloed most stuff and tried to figure out everything on your own without trying to actually learn what to do to play HOT.

Since you've already made up your mind, there's no real point in making the offer, but I'll make it anyway. If you're on a US server, I can teach you how to play HoT. I've done this for a number of people who used to not like it, and most of them now really like it.

[Zephyra.4709]

I needed a good laugh, thanks OP.

[Thornwolf.9721]

HoT was better than PoF and im going on via Launch vs Launch. HoT kept me playing while PoF did not I liked the enviorments of HoT while I hated the ones of PoF; I've never liked desert maps so all of PoF was kind of a wash for me. PoF is easier by a wide margin and doesn't require you to know or learn the game once so ever; And frankly you can be carried way easier as most of the decent players meshed in hunting their mounts/legendaries through PoF understand mechanics (CC and such.)

HoT was not perfect, the story sucked and the whole thing was a jumbled mess at launch. But it gave us a new class (My main from then on) And gave us new systems which now are expanded upon and are better than ever. It gave us the chance for things to look forward too when Vanilla in my opinion was horrible; I got bored and moved on because after you did dungeons there wasn't much to really do. Fractals when they came about sure, zerg surfing in wvw? sure. And pvp but I mean the shine wore off really fast. Frankly Im glad the game is evolving and growing so it can survive because the model they followed from vanilla through the living world up to HoT was unsustainable, and would not be saving A-net as guild wars 2 currently is.

[Yasi.9065]

PoF and living story ruined this game.

[Cristalyan.5728]

@otto.5684 said:Dude, HoT is 4 years old, where have you been? I am not get in detail about HoT content, but most forums and polls indicate that HoT was superior to PoF. And core tyria, outside of cursed shore or farming low level nodes, there is nothing to do.

Hot is very new. I can say it is fresh. Did you forget that Anet just finished the work to it? Last month you had the last Legendary Weapon from the set promissed it will be ingame from the start. So, in my opinion, HoT is the newest complete content released in the game.

And YES, I agree with the OP - the way HoT gated the story with mastery level and the mastery with the map completion and the map completion with the story, and the story .... It gives you less flexibility than the old GW2 I know.

[Derdzvero.7051]

HOT is great. Just don't approach it as if it's a GW2 content, rather than Dark Souls ;)Especially without mounts.;)

[Cyninja.2954]

@Kongajinken.3182 said:

@"Emprer.7256" said:I started playing this game since HoT and bc of HoT I stayed. The maps and meta took some time getting used to, but now navigating the maps is a piece of cake. Things you listed as annoyance, are what keep many people playing. I like that I had to figure everything out instead of having them handed to me. They are also different in nature, but in a coherent way so all things do eventually connect. It's a shame that's a "grind" to you. On the bright side, you can still enjoy the game like you had, as your enjoyment never involved HoT anyway.

Even if I didn't like HoT I wouldn't bother opening a thread saying I hate it because chances are, you aren't going to change anything if that's the direction Anet has decided taking. The game has changed a lot since you left, and it will continue evolving. But I guess posting on forum saying that you will tell your friend to never come back is more liberating.

I loved the original design of GW2 because the world was more open to exploration, HoT made it so hard to try and explore area's it frequently takes me 10+ minutes to even figure out how to reach a location. And its purely due to poor level design. I shouldn't have to wait until night fall, than follow a stream of sky jets to figure out how to reach an island, I still haven't completed the first HoT map as I don't how how the heck to get many points of interest.

Actually, it is quite commonly agreed upon that the HoT maps belong to some best, most intelligent designed, multiple layer maps across any MMO.

The maps and all the paths are interconnected, no you do not require night time and jets to get to an island, even less so with mounts. You do require the appropriate masteries though, and the correct knowledge of how to traverse the map. Both acquired while playing the maps. That was the central design idea behind the mastery system: provide increased movement mastery within the jungle and make players appreciate how initially difficult terrain becomes easier to traverse with increasing mastery (both experience related and actual mastery related).

You are complaining out of ignorance. You do not understand the HoT maps and are unwilling and/or unable to acquire basic understanding of how the maps are constructed. That is fine, if your goal is low bar spoon fed 1 layer flat maps with 0 intelligent design, you'll be happy to hear that the vast majority of the game is designed that way. Which is ironic since any explorer worth their salt would jump at the opportunity to explore and figure things out and find secret paths (of which there is dozens in HoT maps).

[Loki.4871]

Levelling the masteries was suffering in HoT, and it's telling the next Xpack slashed the number of masteries and their time required (iirc HoT masteries require 2 million xp to unlock levelling for, while hot is 500k).Until you get a few specific ones (mushrooms and gliding) even just getting around is an utter slog. It was frustrating not being able to do so much for the map (and who can forget stuff like the Wyvern Patriarch, which is outright locked until you can do updrafts) so I can understand OP's frustration. It's much better once you do have the mobility stuff unlocked, and pof's mounts (much like with original gw2 areas) broke the mobility issues over it's knee for essentially everywhere.Until then though, yes it's suffering. Bit late, however tough it out. It's honestly the best content of the 'three bits' (base, xpack 1 and xpack 2) of the game, imo.

[Vayne.8563]

@Cristalyan.5728 said:

@otto.5684 said:Dude, HoT is 4 years old, where have you been? I am not get in detail about HoT content, but most forums and polls indicate that HoT was superior to PoF. And core tyria, outside of cursed shore or farming low level nodes, there is nothing to do.

Hot is very new. I can say it is fresh. Did you forget that Anet just finished the work to it? Last month you had the last Legendary Weapon from the set promissed it will be ingame from the start. So, in my opinion, HoT is the newest complete content released in the game.

And YES, I agree with the OP - the way HoT gated the story with mastery level and the mastery with the map completion and the map completion with the story, and the story .... It gives you less flexibility than the old GW2 I know.

I don't know. I leveled the masteries I needed to complete the story far faster than I leveled the Guild Wars character I needed to get to the level 80 story. And considering half the story is in the zones themselves in the open world, you could only not level those masteries if you were ignoring half the story. Story doesn't just have to equal instances.