Do you want EoD maps to be more like HOT or POF maps?

[zealex.9410]

Games so powercrept since hot launched that you could give us release hot dificulty and ppl would be fine.

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

I'm hoping to see beautiful maps with nice soundtracks like in HoT (I'm looking at you, Auric Basin 😄) but easy to navigate like in PoF. I'm also hoping to see less mobs this time. Seriously, I can't stop for 1 second to clean my inventory or take a screenshot or drink water without being attacked by the local fauna. 

[Bast.7253]

HoT maps for sure. Not only in design but the fact that they're all jammed full of events. There's always SOMETHING going on. 

The one thing I would change about it is have the Hero Challenges be more like PoF. I think the meta events and everything can still be HoT style though.

As far as the map layout being "complex" like HoT - remember that we have mounts now. We kind of NEED that complexity to make them engaging. I'd love to see them go balls to the wall with verticality now that we have things like Griffon and Skyscale. 

And honestly the game felt much more alive during HoT than it did during PoF. You can blame that on the difficulty level of HoT but I think there were a lot more factors than that that drove people away. 

[radda.8920]

3 hours ago, Malitias.8453 said:

I found the concept of the map(drizzlewood coast) to be very interesting. The problem the map has IMO is, like you mentioned, the enemies. They don't have mechanics you engage with nor require any teamplay/coordination, which makes them boring to me and makes those HP bars probably appear longer than they actually are.
Most of them are just badly designed, no matter how you look at it. A lot of attacks that have any kind of impact are just an annoyance, but don't deal enough damage to actually be a threat. You can facetank almost everything the map throws at you.
Having said that, I do believe the concept of the map itself has a lot of potential and is worth giving another shot.

 

 

Yes, the concept in itself is not bad, at least I can understand that it may appeal to some players.

Personally, I always have a little trouble with maps where you have to follow a single bus, from start to finish. I find that it doesn't leave enough freedom and makes the map a bit too mechanical. It prevents a little from exploiting the lore of the area and enriching it, but that's my opinion

I like  meta on a map but more when they separate the players, with  full of small groups like on the auric basin for example or verdant brink

 

But yes ,the map could have been bearable if the mobs / champions and especially the final boss had been worked with interesting mechanics. There you spend your time spamming 1 while falling asleep on the keyboard. It's okay once but having to repeat it several times, it's pretty horrible ...

Edited May 29, 2021 by radda.8920

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Definitely HoT.

I love the map design - the complexity, gradual exploration, the theme (verdance), the outpost system and packing lot of content into tighter areas, but more vertical ones.
Replay value was also though the roof, which i highly approve of.

[Armen.1483]

HoT maps were designed without mounts taken into consideration. So probably EoD will be more like PoF maybe with higher places to fly because we have skyscale and deeper places to dive with a skimmer. Whatever it will be I just don't want the multi layer be like hell that makes no sense and has nothing to do with the minimap like for example Tangled Depths.

[Mysticjedi.6053]

EoD maps need to be designed like PoF maps with metas like HoT. 

[cloudsareyum.8120]

can it be both? solo friendly, but plenty of potential to have a lot of fun group content! So if everyone's off doing a popular meta, I can enjoy the map and events there, but there's also tons of fun group event type things that if people are on map we can all do as well!  (but i really also like the fun meta event things too)

 

maybe something scale-able?  Like, even if there aren't a lot of us on map, we can all complete some interesting style metas and teamwork and fight interesting boss(es). 

Edited May 29, 2021 by cloudsareyum.8120

[Stx.4857]

I like the terrain of Path of Fire.  I like the difficulty of Heart of Thorns.  

[Malitias.8453]

9 hours ago, radda.8920 said:

Personally, I always have a little trouble with maps where you have to follow a single bus, from start to finish. I find that it doesn't leave enough freedom and makes the map a bit too mechanical.

Absolutely. Drizzlewood Coast is progressed in a largely linear way. The first part has an eastern and western wing, so to speak, but they're still just lanes with events/sieges with no multitasking to be done. Still, I remember it being really fun the first time I went there. A lot more memorable to me than pretty much all other LW maps tbh.
I was imagining a version in which each section is connected to multiple other sections, each having a "supply type" like weapons, medicine, wood, etc. and to start a siege on a connected section an area needs to be stocked up on some of these supplies.
Sieges could also be improved with more optional goals, before and during the siege. Sabotaging their supply lines could affect the number of elites present during the siege or prevent the boss from using a certain dangerous ability and so on.
Just something that involves a little bit of strategy. The concept itself has so much potential for depth and I'd love for ANet to explore that a bit more.
We're not that stupid, you can test us a bit more from time to time, ANet. 😜

[Ardenwolfe.8590]

As long as the maps aren't like Tangled Depths, I don't mind either.

[Stalkingwolf.6035]

PoF are great the first time when getting your mounts and traveling around.

But after that i prefer the HoT maps. IMO the PoF are too large. I like the vertical structure of the HoT Maps more.

[Bast.7253]

I've been doing map completion in PoF and HoT zones and I must say, aside from the Desolation which is just kind of annoying to get around in general...

Heart of Thorns maps feel WAYYY larger than PoF. I'm sure to an extent it's the verticality and the fact that there are so many different things on different layers but just traveling on my mount feels like it takes quite awhile to get across the zone. The only thing that would make all of them seem trivial in size is zooming from a high ledge on a griffon.

Definitely looking forward to Echovald though. If they manage to do a PoF size zone with the verticality of HoT then it could be quite a beast.

Are we sure PoF zones are actually larger though? I know they're longer and wider, but I'm not so sure they're larger. Even length and width I'm not sure of though. From the map overview they look larger but that's just artistic interpretation of the maps as a 2d image.

On a sidenote, aside from a few select hp's like Mushroom Queen doing them on my cele firebrand has felt like using cheatcodes. 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Bast.7253

[Gorani.7205]

HOT aggro range (~900 units), not POF aggro range (~1200 units)

HOT/normal alert range of mobs, not POF alert range

=> that's one of the worst things about POF, because it is so hard to break combat there

POF usefulness of the "M"-map over HOT map nightmare (I am looking at you TD!) Paths you can "walk" on and reach areas should be visible on the map.

HOT style and balance of map wide meta events (where you can start out at several points on the map (alone, or in a small group) and you all come together when the meta reaches its final phase) over POF style (which happens mostly at one location).

Core Hearts over POF repeatable hearts (because some of them take forever, which everyone knows who did them for Incence in Vabbi)

1/3 HOT & 2/3 POF for Hero Points; Some HOT HPs are too hard to solo, although I don't really want just "commune" hero points.

Obstacles behind masteries should be clear visually (more HOT style) and not map (mount) depended. If you saw a visible ley line, you knew you had to get that mastery done. Skyskale has made a lot of mastery related obstacles obsolete.

"Skill tells" have been better in HOT. POF suffers from "flashy skills" you can't see anything in. In conjunction with that => less aoe spam of blind fields (sand lions, scrabs) and "evades".
 

[SoulGuardian.6203]

On 5/28/2021 at 12:16 AM, Blur.3465 said:

Both! Both is good.
It's good popping into game after a hard day and then just roaming without much stress and completing tasks on your own if you don't feel like teaming up or spending time with anyone.
However there should also be a certain dose of group content as well, fun lil tasks to complete with group.
So kinda a mix of both?

Exactly this.

 

But we should be able to solo most of it.

Have Metas to join other people, not vital for the story, but for extras; such as achievements.