My experience with the game so far

[ASP.8093]

@"Mickey.4207" said:Core Tyria is for learning and settling in the game. Every MMO has that kind of content where it eases the player into game as it progresses towards more challenging content. I am surprised you coming from WOW and FFXIV. Already don't know that.

I think it's reasonable to say the "easing" is rather overlong, though. Outside the MMOG genre nobody expects the to spend like 50 hours of playing a tutorial. I really like the scenery of Core Tyria but like 80% of the maps aren't very fun to repeat due to how they're tuned.

(I think I like the way Guild Wars 1 did this more. The story is clearly designed to ramp up in difficulty a bit, and some of the individual missions are clearly trying to teach PvP-like structures like team arenas or king-of-the-hill, but most enemies have their "real" aggro AI and actual abilities. Also, the expansions had their own accelerated on-ramps for your subsequent characters, whereas this game mostly achieves that by handing out Tomes.)

[Mahou.3924]

How someone perceives HoT depends also likely on what kind of content they had done in core-Tyria. As a story player with a clear solo play mindest, but terrible at action combat, most of my core-HoT experience was more frustrating than fun. The visual clutter has been growing MUCH worse from here on and many enemies were simply a pita. Having maps consisting of nothing but meta and events felt tiresome and if not for the Ranger pet in Dragon Stand, I'd have never touched the meta at all. Verdant Brink and Auric Basin were fine and luckily the easier maps to get Mastery Point (achievements). Never bothered with Tangled Depth more than necessary. Didn't need more Chaks lol. Ironically or not, despite my disdain, I've put most (I think) of my characters through the HoT story. The battle against Fatty Dragon is way less annoying than the part(s) before it. Tbf, I don't consider myself a "core" customer due to my weird playing habits and vastly prefer single-player action combat (like the Ys series) if the game is built around it. .I need to relearn the game each time I log back in during story updates

[Malitias.8453]

@Mickey.4207 said:Core Tyria is for learning and settling in the game. Every MMO has that kind of content where it eases the player into game as it progresses towards more challenging content. I am surprised you coming from WOW and FFXIV. Already don't know that.

True, it's almost the same there and I failed to point out how much I dislike the open-world content in those games, because of how mindlessly you go through those supposedly dangerous worlds. I probably forgot to mention it because I haven't leveled a character in any of those games for longer than I can remember.

[Malitias.8453]

@Vyr.9387 said:Thus, I assume, the transition was much more smooth for You thanks to the concurrent world state - like, say, riding an escalator; a single step to get onto it, a single step to get off, and the height and distance is covered seamlessly. But, just as You mentioned, the escalator has now been removed, so people are required to either fall deep or climb high in a moment's notice.

Really like the metaphor here. Proper transition in difficulty is something especially MMOs seem to struggle with in my experience. Modern WoW for example is known to be ridiculously easy, but has a sudden spike once you start doing mythic+ and/or higher difficulty raids. Mind you, this content still isn't really difficult for the most part, but the sudden spike makes it appear so, because the game was playable with one hand (Razer Naga owner here) for almost all of its previous content.The transition, or rather lack thereof, to the higher difficulty will probably put most people off if they were okay with the previous content being easy enough to auto-pilot through. Speaking of auto-pilot. I think being in that mindset (auto-pilot) makes you a lot less immersed in the world.What do you think?

[voltaicbore.8012]

@Malitias.8453 said:

At the risk of sounding like a fanboy by now, I did start playing with people and having something akin to an adventure, but only when I started HoT.Someone came to me and asked if I can help him with a hero point in Tangled Depths after an event there. We managed to get the HP and started looking for more of them together. Sometimes we split up looking for them, sometimes we tried to find them together and it was a really fun experience. Probably one of those I will always remember fondly when thinking about the game. There were more of these, but the one in Tangled Depths was really memorable to me because we were both new and tried to figure out what to do and how to get there. This never would have happened if we could have just auto-piloted through there. So in this case the design goal was actually achieved.

Glad to hear the game opened up a bit for you with HoT! TD is a map that took me a good long while to get used to, but I found the process of getting to that point very rewarding. Funnily enough, I actually had the opposite direction in HoT - I became that much more interested in soloing as much of HoT as possible, just because the challenge of doing so was finally enough fun.

I have always treated gaming as a more solitary activity for me, and am thus obsessed with soloing absolutely everything I can in MMOs. Sure, it's usually less efficient (and sometimes the rewards are also flat-out worse), but it's a bit of a control thing - it's comforting for me to know that when push comes to shove, I can get something important done on my own without being at the mercy of a group.

So while HoT is where you started playing with others more, HoT is where I truly began to enjoy the solo adventure. Combat HPs in the core game are an absolute joke, but in HoT the combat HPs were actually a challenge. Suddenly almost every aspect of my build mattered, and I had to actually watch what the enemies were doing to win. Being able to solo every single HoT HP (including the notorious Balthazar HP in Auric Basin) is an extremely valuable alt-assessment tool for me. The way I see it, if I roll a new character and try a weird new build on it but cannot solo every single HoT HP on it, then something's wrong. Either the build itself is seriously lacking in a key area, or I'm just not making enough use of the class' innate strengths. I can only get this assessment if I solo the challenges, and HoT gave me so many cool places to try.

You also mentioned trying BDO for a short while. I think that game is the best example of a niche product that is run by a dev team that seriously knows what it's doing. ANet could really take a few notes on how Pearl Abyss (the folks behind BDO) do things on a systems level. PA is not afraid of revisiting old systems that didn't live up to their potential, and radically updating them to give players a reason to give it another shot. As for some BDO systems (like the cancerous RNG gear upgrading system) that are too central to the game's operation and revenue to change significantly, PA adds new systems that allow reasonable workarounds to players' greatest pain points.In contrast, ANet has, for many years now, demonstrated a troubling willingness to straight abandon promising systems. Instead, ANet seems happy to just throw another shiny new thing at us, only to abandon in turn.

It always pains me to see that BDO is financially healthier than GW2, because GW2 is just such a great and generous player experience. I genuinely believe that health difference has more to do with good management and less to do with the games themselves. PA simply knows that most BDO players are there for snappy action combat and the best waifu customizer possible, and that these same players simply accept enormous levels of grind as part of the game. Everything they do leans into this knowledge, and I can't think of anything they've added to the game in the past several years that wasn't a straight improvement for every kind of player. On the other hand, ANet's willingness to always try something new at the expense of fixing what is already there just feels like the studio is lurching around from one failed initiative to the next, even if that's not a very accurate description.

[Malitias.8453]

@"voltaicbore.8012" said:

Glad to hear the game opened up a bit for you with HoT! TD is a map that took me a good long while to get used to, but I found the process of getting to that point very rewarding. Funnily enough, I actually had the opposite direction in HoT - I became that much more interested in soloing as much of HoT as possible, just because the challenge of doing so was finally enough fun.

I have always treated gaming as a more solitary activity for me, and am thus obsessed with soloing absolutely everything I can in MMOs. Sure, it's usually less efficient (and sometimes the rewards are also flat-out worse), but it's a bit of a control thing - it's comforting for me to know that when push comes to shove, I can get something important done on my own without being at the mercy of a group.

So while HoT is where you started playing with others more, HoT is where I truly began to enjoy the solo adventure. Combat HPs in the core game are an absolute joke, but in HoT the combat HPs were actually a challenge. Suddenly almost every aspect of my build mattered, and I had to actually watch what the enemies were doing to win. Being able to solo every single HoT HP (including the notorious Balthazar HP in Auric Basin) is an extremely valuable alt-assessment tool for me. The way I see it, if I roll a new character and try a weird new build on it but cannot solo every single HoT HP on it, then something's wrong. Either the build itself is seriously lacking in a key area, or I'm just not making enough use of the class' innate strengths. I can only get this assessment if I solo the challenges, and HoT gave me so many cool places to try.

Oh, I did try and manage to solo some of the HPs. The Balthazar one was actually one of them (why is it notorious?). I had to adjust my build for most fights as I couldn't find a build that could do all of them solo. In fact I never managed to solo the frog in Verdent Brink for example, because I either died or the time ran out. His invisibility into stunlock dagger combo messed me up most of the time. I probably need better gear too =P

You also mentioned trying BDO for a short while. I think that game is the best example of a niche product that is run by a dev team that seriously knows what it's doing. ANet could really take a few notes on how Pearl Abyss (the folks behind BDO) do things on a systems level. PA is not afraid of revisiting old systems that didn't live up to their potential, and radically updating them to give players a reason to give it another shot. As for some BDO systems (like the cancerous RNG gear upgrading system) that are too central to the game's operation and revenue to change significantly, PA adds new systems that allow reasonable workarounds to players' greatest pain points.In contrast, ANet has, for many years now, demonstrated a troubling willingness to straight abandon promising systems. Instead, ANet seems happy to just throw another shiny new thing at us, only to abandon in turn.

While I agree that they know exactly what they're doing, I don't think it's fair to compare these two games.They usually update/improve systems they already have a monetization scheme for or are otherwise linked to systems with monetization, which gives them an incentive to improve engagement rates with these systems. It looks good at first glance, but only until you really invest time into it and see where they were going with it in the first place.

It always pains me to see that BDO is financially healthier than GW2, because GW2 is just such a great and generous player experience. I genuinely believe that health difference has more to do with good management and less to do with the games themselves. PA simply knows that most BDO players are there for snappy action combat and the best waifu customizer possible, and that these same players simply accept enormous levels of grind as part of the game. Everything they do leans into this knowledge, and I can't think of anything they've added to the game in the past several years that wasn't a straight improvement for every kind of player. On the other hand, ANet's willingness to always try something new at the expense of fixing what is already there just feels like the studio is lurching around from one failed initiative to the next, even if that's not a very accurate description.

They added the whole "pay for lots of convenience" and "pay for faster grinding". Those weren't there from the start.They added more microtransactions which directly improve the efficiency at which you play. I do not consider that an improvement at all.

To be honest, I think GW2 would already see a considerable improvement to their purchases if they simply improved the shops performance.The gem store window lags and stutters so heavily, it discourages from browsing their inventory to the point where I don't bother looking through it all.

I haven't played GW2 long enough to know anything about which systems they've added and/or abandoned, but the topic seems strangely familiar to me.Another game I used to play quite a lot is Warframe, which I also quit playing because of a lack of challenging content paired with way too much repetitive rng.As I said, I haven't played GW2 long enough to make an informed statement, but here's an assumption.I think they're both trying to simply broaden the diversity of their content so you have more choices in what you can do. For Warframe this ended up in having a severe contrast in the quality of these game modes and you still had to do some of the older stuff repeatedly for the dreaded "optimal way" or simply because what you wanted to play with is simply only attainable there.Does GW2 also suffer from this? I haven't gotten to the "endgame" yet, at least it doesn't feel that way, because I'm still just going through the story.

[voltaicbore.8012]

@"Malitias.8453" said:

While I agree that they know exactly what they're doing, I don't think it's fair to compare these two games.They usually update/improve systems they already have a monetization scheme for or are otherwise linked to systems with monetization, which gives them an incentive to improve engagement rates with these systems. It looks good at first glance, but only until you really invest time into it and see where they were going with it in the first place.

Indeed, it's ultimately an apples-to-oranges comparison if you're looking at the games themselves. However, I think there are still good lessons to take from PA with regard to your second point. Yes, most BDO updates have some form of microtransaction in mind, but as you note the entire game has always been built around a great measure of that.

They added the whole "pay for lots of convenience" and "pay for faster grinding". Those weren't there from the start.They added more microtransactions which directly improve the efficiency at which you play. I do not consider that an improvement at all.

This is where I'd fundamentally disagree with you, and suspect your experience with BDO is quite outdated. While they do sell things that directly increase your efficiency, all but one of them have been given out for free in significant quantities within the recent past. Aside from the initial purchase of the game, I've spent maybe $50 on cosmetics. Yet I have hundreds of dollars worth of efficiency tools that I didn't even have to grind for, I just happened to be playing actively at the time they were handing the stuff out. The one glaring exception to that is weight limit increases, which they seem to give out the least. It's still available for free in significant quantities, but it just takes a very long time to match cash-shop levels of weight. Fortunately the rest of my (100% free) efficiency kit more than makes up for that deficit.

I haven't played GW2 long enough to know anything about which systems they've added and/or abandoned, but the topic seems strangely familiar to me.Another game I used to play quite a lot is Warframe, which I also quit playing because of a lack of challenging content paired with way too much repetitive rng.As I said, I haven't played GW2 long enough to make an informed statement, but here's an assumption.I think they're both trying to simply broaden the diversity of their content so you have more choices in what you can do.

That's a generous assumption, but I think the truth is far less kind. In the case of dungeons and their total abandonment, we know that it's an issue of technical limitations paired with a lack of willingness to revisit them. So we weren't given fractals because they wanted to give us a more diverse experience (they're essentially dungeon equivalents in terms of content type), but because they couldn't (and didn't want to figure out how to) work with an existing system that served the same purpose. Fractals themselves receive almost no updates at this point. Strike missions are nice (they feel like mini raid bosses without the hassle of actually doing a raid), but I get the feeling they'll go the way of fractals and raids - not officially abandoned, but it could be years between updates on those.

I really don't mean to be a downer about the game - I actually happen to think there's still a lot of mileage left on GW2, although I'd be surprised to see another expansion after End of Dragons. I still haven't found a game that combines tab target and action combat quite as smoothly as this one does, and I think the mounts here are far and away the most superior such system in any existing game. PvE is open enough that I can really try a huge variety of interesting builds, and almost all significant grinds in GW2 are optional. If anything, my negative feelings about the game's present state are probably due to the overall weakness of the Icebrood Saga, and that the Saga repeats some errors from other aspects of the game on top of adding new weaknesses of its own.

[Mickey.4207]

@ASP.8093 said:

@"Mickey.4207" said:Core Tyria is for learning and settling in the game. Every MMO has that kind of content where it eases the player into game as it progresses towards more challenging content. I am surprised you coming from WOW and FFXIV. Already don't know that.

I think it's reasonable to say the "easing" is rather overlong, though. Outside the MMOG genre nobody expects the to spend like 50 hours of playing a tutorial. I really like the scenery of Core Tyria but like 80% of the maps aren't very fun to repeat due to how they're tuned.

(I think I like the way Guild Wars 1 did this more. The story is clearly designed to ramp up in difficulty a bit, and some of the individual missions are clearly trying to teach PvP-like structures like team arenas or king-of-the-hill, but most enemies have their "real" aggro AI and actual abilities. Also, the expansions had their own accelerated on-ramps for your subsequent characters, whereas this game mostly achieves that by handing out Tomes.)

I know lot of players in game and in Guild who love the relaxing and stress free gameplay of core Tyria compared to POF and HOT which can be quite overwhelming. Variety is the key. Not all zones has to be the same

[SoToGR.6238]

On 4/15/2021 at 3:51 PM, Malitias.8453 said:

the enemies suddenly started to actually be a threat

I had a very similar experience 😝 this was the first MMO expansion I actually had to be careful and learn to play my class to survive the open world ! and it is awesome 👏 

[keenedge.9675]

Quote

On 4/15/2021 at 7:21 PM, Linken.6345 said:

I hope its closer to release heart of thorn difficulty myself

 

I vote for higher difficulty as well. 

 

BUT, I'd like to see a larger level 80 beginner attunement zone around the opening venue.  New players will want to see the expansion zone right away.  Let them have some space to breathe and get their bearings.

 

HoT was VERY aggressive to fresh players.  PoF has a buffer zone, but almost nothing in it.