Next expac: big or small?

[Fenom.9457]

What most people are saying, a mix.

[Pifil.5193]

I would say both expansions have been short and both were light on content but added a lot to the game.

 

I'd like it if the third one was longer and "meatier" but I'm expecting something of a mix between HoT and PoF. I'm most curious about what the new thing will be.

[Hot Boy.7138]

I hope it will be more like Heart of Thorns. I like the beauty of Path of Fire maps, but I prefer the complexity and difficulty of heart of thorn maps.

[Bealis.6023]

I really like how they made Draconis Mons and Siren's Landing. They are not huge zones but have a good variety and are fun for traversal. So maybe make more of those similar smaller zones next to each other, but more of them, like 7, each with its own theme. Nice would be if each would have their own HoT type big event, which would also connect nicely to the story. With lesser routes for meta though, like 2 for each map so its not messy all over. Just so it is compact and varied. :)

[kharmin.7683]

With mounts, I don't see Anet making any smaller zones going forward.

[ledernierrempart.6871]

HOT:

we got guild hall, raids, big meta event maps, new WvW map, new pvp gamemode, new set of stats (4 stats gear).

 

POF:

few mounts and one more map. a waaayyy better story and boss fight.

 

hot had the quantity and pof the quality. i want both.

hot delivered tons of unwanted content because lack of communication and knowledge about what players like and want in each gamemode.

pof had decent story, cool boss fights and very well made mounts. but nothing more. which made me stop playing the game for 2 years.

 

oh and i want GvG. no, not that failure bastion/stronghold pvp gamemode. a proper, well made GvG pvp. like capturing a zone and then pushing a payload? i know you see that in every competitive game... for a reason tho.

 

about WvW. i wouldbe happy if they just rework the old maps. like eternal battleground map completely reworked with each castle in the same place but with beatifull land and maybe new areas here and there. i know arena net mappers have the skill to makie beautifull maps.

[Bealis.6023]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> With mounts, I don't see Anet making any smaller zones going forward.

 

True, it depends what their concept will be. Still the zones could be a bit more layered for more space. PoF zones are big, but they have specific parts made for mounts, like ledges, water, gaps etc. So its in that design, not the size alone. Living world maps are all smaller, and they were made for mounts too ;)

[Raknar.4735]

Post PoF revenue was higher, so PoF.

[Zoid.2568]

I think expansion 3 will be the biggest.

[xDrac.5932]

Do we know at all when the new expansion is supposed to arrive or when we can learn more about it?

I personally prefer HoT maps over PoF, but I hate their vertical complexity, so maybe lower that a little bit. Would also love more Elite Specs!

[Poormany.4507]

> @"xDrac.5932" said:

> Do we know at all when the new expansion is supposed to arrive or when we can learn more about it?

 

This is the only thing Anet's said about the new expac, so I'm not expecting an official announcement until 1-2+ years later.

 

"Development is underway on a third Guild Wars 2 expansion. The team is hard at work, and it’s much too soon to talk about any details right now, including features, story, release date, or development timeline. We’ll have to stick to that until we’re ready to reveal more information to the world. When we are ready, you’ll definitely know!"

[LadyKitty.6120]

New elite specs, maps, few LWS ep's worth story and new masteries can be pretty much expected. Big maps with HoT-style metas would be nice as PoF maps are quite barren of them and they're pretty deserted compared to HoT ones.

And since it seems to be Kaineng, at least we'll finally probably be out of stereotypes. A jungle, a desert, a winter wonderland this far. LWS3 had nice variety.

Decent stuff to farm for would be nice, too. HoT brought bunch of good stat combos and LWS3 gave 6 maps to farm trinkets from while PoF brought 1 good stat combo and some niche ones and of LWS4 maps, only 2 have currencies worth farming for gear which means almost 0 reason to farm those maps. At least Bjora took a step back towards correct direction on that one.

[aspirine.6852]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> With mounts, I don't see Anet making any smaller zones going forward.

 

That is why anet should disable mounts in the cantha maps. Or at least let us get new ones at a later stage in the story. All content would be trivial when you gave flying mounts.

[lare.5129]

hope it will be not big, or small. IT will be "another".

no new elites. Only some current elites/core rework. (new elite bored repeat for my vison)

no new maps. (we have enough maps). One one map, without meta, just events, and some chill content.

Only some raids/group content inside each 5 (Asura, Charr, Human, Norn, Sylvari) Tyria big town.

also new dungeons inside each 5 Tyria town.

new/additional attribute "resistance" (water, shadow, fire, etc.) on that new big dungeons/raids

new mount for dungeons and one new map - magic cow/pony

 

 

 

 

[Atomos.7593]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> > @"Atomos.7593" said:

> > If I had to choose I would prefer quality over quantity. They should take the good stuff from HoT and PoF and implement them. Both of these expansions had good and bad features about them.

>

> Problem with this idea is that it is totally subjective. What you believe are the best parts of the previous expansions may not be what I believe. How would Anet appeal to both?

 

I would start with the things that are considered to be positive by the majority of players. Sure you can't please everyone, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to satisfy as many players as possible. I think things like the style of events in HoT, and the large maps and variety of mounts in PoF are widely accepted as good features from those expansions.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> I keep seeing people wanting re-playability for new maps. If each new map has re-playability, then everyone will move to the new map and leave older ones unpopulated where other players will then complain about the lack of re-playability on those maps. How can Anet win?

 

By rotating the maps like they do with season map dailies, same problem, same fix. Another solution is to place exclusive rewards to each map, if they all give the same reward then obviously the one that gives max gold/hour will always win.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Mortifera.6138" said:

> Do you want the next expansion to be long and full of depth like HoT, or a smaller and more affordable entry like PoF?

 

The real question is what kind of new gimmick/mechanic they are going to add to generate revenue. Mounts sold better than Gliders so PoF revenue was higher, even though HoT sold better than PoF and had more players playing, but now that Mount appeal start to decline (see the recent revenue drops) maybe they'd need to think of something new and special to carry the game forward.

[Sheader.6827]

You run one time through PoF and you never visit those maps again except if its daily bounty. Big but empty and devoid of repeatable and interesting content. HoT is more condensed and smaller, but has 10x better meta events and better rewards and is always more active.

[Sheader.6827]

> @"Raknar.4735" said:

> Post PoF revenue was higher, so PoF.

 

Revenue is only one indicator. Look at PoF maps now. Maps are more dead than the Shaemoor graveyard.

[Incar.7358]

Interesting.

 

Indeed, HoT certainly has the replayability, and PoF the quality however, not personally a fan of the difficult terrain in HoT - as part of the story it makes sense though, the jungle was working against you, likewise Palawa Joko in PoF basically murdered the actual land (as much as the people) through his greed, hence the emptiness (at least that was my take on it).

Fortunately, most of it was made slightly more trivial to traverse with mounts.

 

As for Cantha, of course Kaineng will pop up once more. Hopefully it will be split into several maps (districts) sort of as before, some quieter than others, but just as fully realised as each other. I don't fancy each one being as irritating as Tangled Depths to figure out, but a sprawling cityscape should be just that - sprawling. Perhaps have it as later-game material, having the Commander try to figure out a way in (friendly or not).

A thought on mounts for this one - perhaps don't have them 'blocked' from use, but one may need to acquire a story step or license of sorts to retrieve their use inside the city walls - or even a new mount approved by the government there, which becomes the only one usable inside the city (until the call to action at least).

 

Should also remember that the Jade Sea exists, and Echovald Forest, which would make for some interesting open space and thicket respectively. Plus, Shing Jea Island (if it's still there) as another open setting and some small relief from the city wouldn't go amiss.

Maps of Tyria show that Cantha isn't restricted to these areas either. They represent about a quarter or less of the Canthan landmass if I recall. Plenty of space to expand.

 

Not interested in anything to do with the water unless they massively overhaul the whole system as we know it, and perhaps add an underwater mount. Just not feasible to ask people to tolerate the gameplay they currently have for that. That's just my opinion though.

 

Honestly, then: hit the middle. Have the HoT small, tight quarter maps in and around the city, and the wide open PoF areas further out than that. Can't forget that succeeding Living Seasons will also likely take place in these areas and beyond, increasing it's scope regardless.

[Hannelore.8153]

I feel like Heart of Thorns packed alot more content into a small amount of space, and this made it better. With Path of Fire they tried to get too ambitious, expanding the same amount of content over large maps and a longer story, and as a result it all felt emptier overall. People say that HoT was small but, that was the point, that's what made it good because it gave it a very quality feel to it.

 

You didn't feel like you were just running around in empty wastelands of filler.

[LisaJ.4582]

Is there an estimated release date for it? It was announced in march and the previous two times it only took a month to be released after the announcement. Now it's already been 3

[kharmin.7683]

Here's the latest (scroll down to the "Distant Future" part): [https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-to-spring-summer-and-the-future/](https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/looking-ahead-to-spring-summer-and-the-future/)

"Development is underway on a third Guild Wars 2 expansion. The team is hard at work, and it’s much too soon to talk about any details right now, including features, story, release date, or development timeline. We’ll have to stick to that until we’re ready to reveal more information to the world. When we are ready, you’ll definitely know!"

[Konig Des Todes.2086]

> @"Mortifera.6138" said:

> Do you want the next expansion to be long and full of depth like HoT, or a smaller and more affordable entry like PoF?

 

I'm pretty sure HoT is the shorter expansion. Also has fewer maps, but more condensed content due to the existence of mounts in PoF - they wanted PoF to feel larger, thus not being so crammed together, to make the mounts more reasonable to exist; meanwhile the theme for HoT was dense jungle so packing things on top of each other made sense.

 

Cantha - or at least Shing Jea - has a middle-ground feel of those two. Though like S4 and S5 maps are compared to S2 and S3 maps, I do expect Cantha's maps to be overall larger than HoT's, I would also expect them to be less open than PoF's maps (especially if we visit Kaineng City). In terms of story length, I expect it'll be the longest, as they'll have more development time for it, assuming S5 really does get 8 full episodes with more VotP intermission releases.

[Sajuuk Khar.1509]

> @"Konig Des Todes.2086" said:

> I'm pretty sure HoT is the shorter expansion.

Yeah. HoT has a shorter narrative, has less maps, and the maps are smaller. The only thing HoT has more of is grind for masteries, and collection achievements. People may play the HoT maps more then the PoF ones due to more "rewarding" metas, but PoF easily has more actual content then HoT.

 

>Cantha - or at least Shing Jea - has a middle-ground feel of those two. Though like S4 and S5 maps are compared to S2 and S3 maps, I do expect Cantha's maps to be overall larger than HoT's, I would also expect them to be less open than PoF's maps (especially if we visit Kaineng City)

I recall That_Shaman made a fan version of that the world map could possibly look like once Cantha is added, and, based on the scaling from the world map we got in the Priory all the way back in S2. Two PoF sized maps would cover most of Shing Jea. So we will almost certainly get two or three map in Kaineng. I am going to, totally baslelesssly, assume that The Cantha expansion will have us start off in Shing Jea, then go into the city, to solve whatever problem they are facing, with maybe dipping our toes a bit, but just a little, into the Echovald, and Jade Sea outskirts. Then the next LW season will expand more into Echovald and the Jade Sea areas, and probably into the ocean for a fight with Bubbles.

 

> I expect it'll be the longest, as they'll have more development time for it, assuming S5 really does get 8 full episodes with more VotP intermission releases.

9 is you count the prologue, with maybe two or three more mini updates like VotP.