Guild Wars 2

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Caeden

Golden Baronet of the Realm
7,580
12,534
It looked like every class just got a desert themed spec. That seems..terrible from a fantasy point of view. Will it be that you have to use those specs? I quit after single playering HoT, but I remember it was all about your elite spec, right?
 

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
8,311
10,289
How bad is HoT?
Let's be simple.

I did log almost daily (save for a few stretches where I had really other stuff keeping me busy) since GW2 came out.

I stopped logging about 2 weeks after HoT, and logged in exactly once per living season chapter (since that unlocked them for free) "just in case, maybe one day".
 
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Grim1

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,903
6,889
How bad is HoT?

I like the base game mostly because of WvW

If you WvW then you want the elites from HoT.

There are some good parts to HoT, I really enjoyed the gliding stuff, and had fun for a couple of weeks in the new zones. But for the most part HoT was a disaster (especially for WvW). They have fixed many of those initial issues though.
 

Zindan

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
7,002
4,668
The thing is they force you to buy the 2 expansions bundle. You canno't just buy the current expansion, you have to pre-order the new one too.
How do they force you to buy the bundle, when they specifically said that PoF is a stand alone expansion which did not require that you own HoT?
 

Zaara

I'm With HER ♀
1,635
7,583
How bad is HoT?

I like the base game mostly because of WvW

I don't PVE, can only comment on PvP stuff.
WvW tanked. The new Conquest map they came out with is an absolute dud that nobody queues for (reasonable idea in copying a second-rate MOBA, horrible in execution.)

sPvP's...alright, I guess. They've been pretty good about cycling the metas season to season so you're not stuck playing the same kind of people over the course of six months. The player pool is incredibly shallow, however. They retooled the ranks to accomodate less people queueing, though, so it doesn't really mean much if you're platinum-rated anymore. The top 250/people of that MMR are a bunch of assholes, and there was a recent mass-ban of some of the 'elite' players engaging in account boosting. Queue times are okay, long as you're not doing team unranked. Nonexistent PvP guild community, unless you put yourself into one of those 100+ strong PvX guilds.
 

Malkav

French Madman
2,686
1,583
How do they force you to buy the bundle, when they specifically said that PoF is a stand alone expansion which did not require that you own HoT?

Right now, the only way to buy HoT is adding it from your shopping cart when you pre-order PoF. As soon as you add HoT to your cart, the item changes from PoF to the HoT+PoF bundle as seen in the screenshot posted earlier. You can't remove PoF from your cart and and just add HoT.

But you can buy PoF alone though, yes. Just not HoT.
 

Zindan

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
7,002
4,668
Right now, the only way to buy HoT is adding it from your shopping cart when you pre-order PoF. As soon as you add HoT to your cart, the item changes from PoF to the HoT+PoF bundle as seen in the screenshot posted earlier. You can't remove PoF from your cart and and just add HoT.

But you can buy PoF alone though, yes. Just not HoT.
Oooh, ok, kinda cheesy. Is HoT really important? After the initial hype of a hearing a GW2 Xpac, I lost interest in HoT so never bought it. This new xpac sounds really good, so I'd rather just get PoF and ignore HoT unless there are really useful skills / items that can only be had in HoT.
 

Zaphid

Trakanon Raider
5,862
294
How bad is HoT?

I like the base game mostly because of WvW
Every new map was like Orr on crack, really hard to explore solo with huge events cycling every hour or two, so unless you were in the right phase, you were fucked. The events could also be rather challenging, so if you failed - thank you, come again, even though you had very little chance to influence the outcome solo. The new mastery system was touted as sidegrade progression, but it mostly meant that you had to hit every minigame, PoI and event to get max points, which got very tedious, especially when they weren't soloable. Some of those things got improved, like they slashed the mastery grind, but it still left a very sour taste in people's mouths. Oh, and they put in raids.
 

Treesong

Bronze Knight of the Realm
362
29
I am usually trying to not be too much of a fanboi but I feel I have to stick up for HoT here. Thing is, I felt the same hate when I first entered HoT, after having a blast in the original.
It was like hurdles to the fun had been thrown up in so many ways: hugely confusing maps, lots of movement mechanics behind achievement locks like gliding, jumping shrooms, Wallochs and last but not least, lots of tough mobs everywhere that just love to cripple you so moving around becomes even more of a pain.

So I almost never made it to the moment where I could even just glide. I can not really remember how I trucked through to the point where I started enjoying the Vertical maps and the events, but gliding had a lot to do with it. You get your first Mastery point that learns you how to glide pretty fast, btw. And then the "Masteries, must collect them all" bug hit me, and in the next 3 months I "finished" HoT, including having made Astralaria. I have max Mastery points exept for the 8 that you earn with the Raids. I also am missing a lot of achievements like a lot of Gold medals for some of the MIni-games, but getting Bronze and SIlver for those was actually a lot of fun.

So once you unlock Gliding and some of the first map, then a few Masteries and off course your Elite spec, it may still pull you in. I do not even like my Elite spec (Druid) so never used that anyway. But I also enjoyed how I managed to become better at beating those mobs: the old world had become rather easy, even for a mediocre player like me. So in HoT I can feel like a (PvE) boss (I know, it's sad). :)

I will not say that HoT is now my favorite place to be: it is not. But I definately go there from time to time and join a Meta. The stuff you earn there is still valuable (Legendaries, trinkets that use HoT currencies, lots and lots of regular loot during Meta's) And off course it looks cool to have that 185 number next to your name (your Mastery level). :p (193 is max when you also do the Raids and earn the Masteries there)

My playstyle: PvE is my thing and the thing I enjoy most is doing the Collection quests for all the precursors of the Legendaries, which take you all over the world and have you do lots of different stuff. (takes you into WvW too btw. )

I agree though that HoT has a different vibe then the old world. It is not nearly as relaxed, especially for solo, very hectic maps and really only fun if you join a group/zerg to do some events or Meta(after you have gotten all out of HoT when it comes to Masteries and Achievements).
 
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Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
12,245
11,897
That maps are extremely frustrating in HoT, especially if you are OCD and want to just collect all the points. I still have 20+ points that were always blocked off or I could never figure out how to get to. It was also extremely retarded of them to put abilities behind unlocks that was the only way to get to certain points in the maps.

I give them props for trying something new and different with map design but it ruined the experience. Other than that the expansion was great, it just sucked it was all focused around that map design.
 

Xenrauk

Trakanon Raider
1,246
914

Grim1

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,903
6,889
One of the 3 home server maps is the HoT map. The other 2 are Alpine. They started doing that a few months ago.
 

Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer
10,061
10,388
For me.. GW2 didnt catch my attention when it first launched. I quit playing at lvl 18 and didnt look back. Someone told me I should play it a couple months ago and I dove in since it was free. Next thing I know - Im racing through content all the way up to max level. I was really enjoying the game.

Then, I bought HoT because I wanted to follow the rest of the story (nevermind that I couldnt play the part of season 1 where Jinx or w/e her name is goes ape shit, but I digress). The story was really what kept me racing through content in the original content. But not with HoT.

With HoT... the maps are all kinds of fucked up. What you think should be easy to get to turns out that you have to go all the way down half the map and then back up some hill, jump a fucking shroom and do some fucking elemental shit to get through a maze to get up there. All the while facing a horde of mobs that will snare, root and/or silence you.

Thats all well and cool if you've already grinded out the mastery points for just the basic shit alone. You end up having to go through 2-3 maps in HoT just skipping over shit because you dont have the mastery points for it yet. Sometimes I felt like I was stumped, but was unsure if it was because I didnt have one of the Mastery Point abilities or just because I havent thought out how to get to that location. So you move on and make a mental note to come back later.

But thats completionist shit so it didnt really phase me at first. Until I couldnt progress in the story any fucking further because I didnt have those masteries. The one thing that drove my urge to play was gated behind some shit that really... I just dont care about.

I tried to like HoT, I really did. But then I did a raid and it was a clusterfuck. No idea if that was because of the group that I was in, or because the design of the game makes it that way. But I absolutely hate raiding in GW2. Maybe Im just a fan of WoW's organized chaos? So now, Im sitting pretty in my ascended gear thats notttttttttttt quite as cool as raid gear, but if I have to do that circus shit for it then Im out. Looking back, all this culminated into me just not logging in one day. I dont feel like I can progress doing anything else that I want to do.

Im seeing more of the same shit from this upcoming expansion, but it has some light at the end of the tunnel. Mounts have been sorely needed in this fucking game since day one. Anyone that says it makes the game like WoW is fucking retarded anyways.
 

Zindan

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
7,002
4,668
I never felt mounts were needed in the game, not because it would make it like WoW or other generic games, but oddly enough the running animation for my sylvari ranger (female) with 25% move speed felt perfect, no other race in GW2 has that same feel. Haven't found any other game with as good a running as animation yet either.

I do like that they at least added something useful with the mounts in the upcoming xpac, they will be more than just a visual running speed buff.

Tried to log into my account again after a couple years away, didn't recall the password, so tried to reset it. The reset form asked for my serial code, which I had, and a name of any character. Nothing was working, thought maybe I had forgotten my characters names, so made a ticket. Their support team is still super cool, so I got into the game and noticed that every character name I tried with the form was correct. Baffled.

Anyway, not sure I have any reason to play. HoT doesn't sound appealing at all, but I might like it... maybe? The main Story was always fairly interesting, but I give 0 fucks about the Living Story characters. Started looking through all the crap in my bank, most of it I don't recall what I was saving it for, lol. It does look like I was in the process of gathering/ crafting stuff to make the legendary long bow (only had Twilight as a legendary weapon), and also making a set of ascended armor for my necro (alt). Are condi rangers a thing now? Seems I was all about that when I was playing, don't know why.
 

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,385
277
Yea I don't feel like this game *needed* mounts, there's a waypoint around every corner.

However I think it's great that they are finally adding them. Should've done it a long time ago, if only for a cosmetic effect. I do hope that they add a wide selection of skins and more mount types with different skills, since tbh these aren't doing it for me, besides maybe the raptor. I'm also worried about the inevitable tide of sci-fi mounts.