Should HoT maps be made less difficult?

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"castlemanic.3198" said:

> 1. Levelling a character to 80 provides a character with the ability to unlock every trait and every traitline without going into the world and acquiring a single hero point. This can be done with a completely solo experience without interacting with any other player. Chances are you have encountered other players, but other players are not, by the very design of the game, required to level a character to 80 or to acquire the ability to fully customize a character through traits or weapon selection. Thus the game, by every definition, says that you do not need to play in groups to gain character customization.

 

Every traitline can be completed solo. Not all HP's are needed. That said, needing others to progress your character is not inherently bad game design as earlier games required it. Developers started going away from that to broaden the appeal of their games to more casual players who had a preference towards more soloable content.

 

> 2. Hero points all throughout core tyria are soloable, despite the ability to take on challenges as a group. This design detail says that while other players may assist, they are not required for core character progression. Thus, we have a trend from core Tyria that entirely states that hero point challenges are meant to be soloable. (Side note: each hero point is worth 1 point.)

 

Games evolve and change. There were no mounts when the game was released so why should we have them now? You cannot use how things were when a game was first released as a basis of how it should be in the future. Core character progression is completely soloable as all skill lines can be completed without the aid of other players. There's absolutely nothing that states that needing others for character progression is bad design as well.

 

> 3. Heart of thorns releases, having each hero point be worth 10 points instead of one, signalling from a design perspective that they are more challenging. However, it is really only through press release information that says that hero point challenges will require larger groups, nothing in game signifies that hero point challenges would suddenly require groups, only that they will be more difficult.

 

Not every detail needs to be marketing prior to release. All hero points can be done with less than five players with the exception of course being any locked behind a meta that requires more than that (i.e. DS).

 

> 4. After initial backlash, several Heart of Thorns hero point challenges were altered significantly in order to become soloable, meaning that the developers realised it was a bad idea to place group restrictions on Heart of Thorns hero point challenges, as they realised not everyone is going to be able to acquire enough hero points to attain the new elite spec systems. It's also very important to note that elite specs are a core feature of the expansion, and are a form of core character progression, thus they should follow the established rule that persists throughout core Tyria that hero challenges should be soloable, but because they cost 10 hero points, they should be more difficult than core tyria hero challenges. Most of those changes hero point challenges also lie within Verdant Brink, though a couple were changed in Auric Basin if memory served, the first two maps in Heart of Thorns. Not every Hero point was changed in Verdant Brink, however.

 

None of the hero challenges were altered to be made soloable. The changes that they made were to make it so that some masteries were no longer needed (e.g. poison mastery) and some were moved to not require successful completion of the meta (e.g. the one below Tarir). There is no established rule that hero points should be soloable.

 

> 5. Upon Path of Fire's release, the Hero Points there were indeed more difficult than core tyria hero points, but they were also able to be completed solo, following a solid design philosophy that flows from core Tyria into Elona. The devs also made the decision to not require a purchase of Heart of Thorns to play in Path of Fire, meaning that a player wouldn't need to experience the difficult of Hero Point challenges in Elona and can go straight ahead into the more sensibly difficult Path of Fire Hero Point challenges.

 

The design philosophy was changed with PoF to match player preferences with HP's. It has nothing to do with HoT mastery points being bad game design. The purchase, or lack of purchase, of a previous expansion has nothing to do with this.

 

> 6. Thus, when a game's entire philosophy from the beginning of the game's development says that core progression should be soloable, and the developers actively make an effort to correct a mistake that made core progression impossible for people to complete solo and in the following expansion make Hero Points soloable, it then follows that the game design itself requires core character progression to be soloable.

 

How things were done at that release of game does not dictate that any changes that differ from that are bad game design. Character progression is still completely soloable nonetheless.

 

I seem to remember the living story being temporary content. If things at release dictate how things in the future should be then clearly permanent episodes must be bad design. /s

 

That premise of yours is flawed as it assumes that no game ever changes during its lifetime. If you’re cherry picking which change is good or bad then that is based on personal preferences (i.e. subjective).

 

> And that's only looking at GW2, isolated from the rest of the gaming world. Every MMO has core character progression tied to soloable content, even within a world that contains hundreds or thousands of other players within the same playing space. Now, gear progression has been a thing in MMOs too, but there is a separate tier of gear progression that is related to group content rather than solo content, but gear progression isn't core character progression because gear does not unlock core features of a class. Using this information, we can gather that it absolutely makes no sense to have a very temporary shift within the game that says groups are mandatory for core character progression. Indeed it is objectively poor design to go against something that has been established throughout the entire game itself and also throughout the entire gaming industry.

 

Every MMO does not have core character progression tied to soloable content. Before WoW, players had to group up with others and kill things over and over to progress. As I've stated multiple times in this post, there is **nothing** that states that requiring other players for character progression is bad game design. Just because a game started out doing one thing, doesn't mean that it doing something else is bad game design. It simply just means that any change has the possibility to go against the personal preferences of some of the playerbase.

 

[squallaus.8321]

All hero challenges in gw2 are soloable let alone HoT. People only have problems because they are new, dont know how to play their class and because of bad build and dont want to spend the time to think and adapt.

 

I was just talking to a friend about DPS just yesterday. He was telling me how in a squad for Tangled Depth meta he'd often come top 5 in terms of DPS just from auto attacking on scepter on his dragon hunter. Its pretty telling really, alot of the players aren't using proper builds. And then they wonder, like the OP, why the mobs got so much HP.

 

Like seriously did some of you guys complaining about the difficulty even watch AliamRationem.5172 's video on him soloing balthasar HP? which is suppose to the hardest out of all the HoT maps? It died in less than 2 mintutes to a single player.

[castlemanic.3198]

> @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> Every traitline can be completed solo. Not all HP's are needed. That said, needing others to progress your character is not inherently bad game design as earlier games required it. Developers started going away from that to broaden the appeal of their games to more casual players who had a preference towards more soloable content.

>

 

That's where context comes in. The context of MMO franchises NOW is that soloable content is there to appeal to more casual players. You can even complete the Heart of Thorns storyline solo, but somehow Hero Points, a core character progression feature, is supposed to require groups?

 

> Games evolve and change. There were no mounts when the game was released so why should we have them now? You cannot use how things were when a game was first released as a basis of how it should be in the future. Core character progression is completely soloable as all skill lines can be completed without the aid of other players. There's absolutely nothing that states that needing others for character progression is bad design as well.

>

 

By default, it actually states that, because Core Character progression is soloable, thus in order to remain good game design it must continue to remain soloable even in the future.

 

> Not every detail needs to be marketing prior to release. All hero points can be done with less than five players with the exception of course being any locked behind a meta that requires more than that (i.e. DS).

 

Sure, not every detail needs to be marketed, but huge game-changing features such as hero points requiring groups WAS advertised. However, that press release information is useless now because of all the news release information relating to Path of Fire (which, to my knowledge, did NOT advertise its hero challenges being soloable in contrast). And the point was _there is no in game information stating that Hero Point challenges would require groups_. By DEFAULT that is objectively bad design because the game should signal that hero points are group challenges rather than difficult solo challenges. It only signals it when it is too late, which again is poor design. Design needs to be intuitive and intuition says a larger number means more difficult, but intuition doesn't say a larger number means where it was once solo content it now requires a group.

 

> None of the hero challenges were altered to be made soloable. The changes that they made were to make it so that some masteries were no longer needed (e.g. poison mastery) and some were moved to not require successful completion of the meta (e.g. the one below Tarir). There is no established rule that hero points should be soloable.

 

I was literally there. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pact_Airship_Wreckage this hero point challenge was altered from having an enemy to fight into a channel in order to be soloable. I remember that one specifically because it was the most drastic change that I remember. You ARE right in that some alterations were made by simply not requiring mastery points such as this one: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toxin-Cured_Hog which made sure to remove the toxic haze that required Itzel tier 4, but those were definitely not the only changes.

 

Not only that, I JUST remembered that obtaining full elite specs used to require 400 hero points, but that was altered because of player backlash as well. Add that as another objective fact pointing to the alteration of elite specs to make them more soloable.

>

> > 5. Upon Path of Fire's release, the Hero Points there were indeed more difficult than core tyria hero points, but they were also able to be completed solo, following a solid design philosophy that flows from core Tyria into Elona. The devs also made the decision to not require a purchase of Heart of Thorns to play in Path of Fire, meaning that a player wouldn't need to experience the difficult of Hero Point challenges in Elona and can go straight ahead into the more sensibly difficult Path of Fire Hero Point challenges.

>

> The design philosophy was changed with PoF to match player preferences with HP's. It has nothing to do with HoT mastery points being bad game design. The purchase, or lack of purchase, of a previous expansion has nothing to do with this.

 

Again, context is important. I did not say (nor did I mean to imply) that the HP issue was the sole reason for making HoT not required to play PoF, but there IS a context that is important to understand, which is that players can simply bypass the difficult content of HoT and the HP's that aren't soloable.

 

> How things were done at that release of game does not dictate that any changes that differ from that are bad game design. Character progression is still completely soloable nonetheless.

>

 

Again, context is important and the context of the game states that HPs are soloable.

 

> Every MMO does not have core character progression tied to soloable content. Before WoW, players had to group up with others and kill things over and over to progress. As I've stated multiple times in this post, there is **nothing** that states that requiring other players for character progression is bad game design. Just because a game started out doing one thing, doesn't mean that it doing something else is bad game design. It simply just means that any change has the possibility to go against the personal preferences of some of the playerbase.

>

 

You're conflating game experience (and storyline) with core character progression (which is gaining levels and unlocking abilities related to the class). Core character progression is, and always has been, soloable. A huge part of design is context, and removing the context in order to make a point removes the whole idea of design to begin with. All the design contexts within the game point to HP's (and core character progression) being soloable. Within the game, there is nothing that states HP's aren't meant to be soloed until it's far too late when you activate some of those HP's and the event that spawns says [group]. Which, again, is poor game design, ESPECIALLY within the context of channel HP's being soloable (like the pact airship wreckage I mentioned above, which was indeed altered into it's current channel state from it's previous combat encounter state). I havent heard of a single game, past or present, that said "you cannot gain experience/core character progression solo". You cannot complete certain **challenges** solo, which is absolutely fine design wise, we have dungeons, fractals and raids released in that order, but HP's are a core part of character progression, and everything in game design wise points to HPs being soloable. Especially for new players who have no interaction with the press releases of Heart of Thorns.

 

So **_the design itself says that HP's and core character progression are meant to be soloable_**. Also the devs reactions in altering some HP's to be soloable AND reducing the number of HP required to max out an elite spec means that there were flaws with the system when it launched (or at least, things that the devs decided needing altering, rather than the system itself being flawed. With player experience being a huge factor however, it can be determined that fan outcry resulted in the devs acknowledging the poor design choices that were made).

 

EDIT: Not going to respond because I honestly shouldn't have gotten into this discussion at such a late hour as I did and probably won't come back due to other things taking up my attention. But core concepts of design stand against you.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"castlemanic.3198" said:

> HoT absolutely needs to have its difficulty toned down. Especially with a new expansion out, all of it needs retweaking to make sure smaller groups can handle the content.

> HPs 10000000000% need to be made veterans and soloable. No exceptions. It's objectively bad game design to require groups for core character progression.

 

I'll just reply to this rather than the back and forth that followed.

 

I wouldn't say it's objectively bad design. They had a coherent concept: Here is an elite spec. It will require more effort to unlock and we intend for that effort to occur in expansion maps intentionally designed to provide more challenging content. In that context, I think the design was a success.

 

Having said that, it was also a mistake. Group HP challenges were a sticking point for many players. PoF's design got it right: The champions-on-demand were moved over to the new bounty system and HP challenges are veterans. I think this part of PoF has been well-received (At least I don't hear anyone calling for a return to HP champions?).

 

Finally, I think it would be a mistake to assume that either side is 100% "right" on this one. As I said, HP challenges were both a good design, and a mistake for this game. Let's not make the mistake of going back and destroying HoT after the fact. I like those champion HP challenges and I think they should stay. Moving forward, however, I would prefer PoF's way of handling this.

 

Now, if we could have a bounty system added to HoT, then I wouldn't mind seeing the HPs downgraded. Compromise!

[Healix.5819]

Group hero challenges in HoT don't actually matter, since there's enough solo ones to unlock the elite. The other problem is blocking map completion, but there were far more complaints about the maps themselves, so I doubt most people even bother. Now if HoT only included group challenges, or they left elites at the price of 400 points, you can bet they would have been nerfed.

 

Some people get confused by GW2's original selling points and think the game is meant to be catered to _casual_ players and thus easy, but it was only ever intended to be casual in the sense that it didn't waste your time with needless grinding. ArenaNet's mistake was brutally nerfing the core game during the first beta, where enemies could kill you within seconds. The problem was, MMO veterans were trying to tank and deaths were common, so they nerfed it with the intention of teaching them how to play by slowly increasing the difficulty over time, as seen with every major release since launch. In the end however, the core game poorly advertises the expansions, while the expansions are too challenging for those wanting more of the core game. They either need to revert the core game and cut them loose, or offer some form of vertical progression to truly trivialize the older content down to the Queensdale level. GW2's current alternative is grouping, hence people zerging everything, but the problem with that is not only is it guaranteed to eventually fail, most people simply don't want to bother, which is why queuing is so successful.

[Ayrilana.1396]

> @"castlemanic.3198" said:

> > @"Ayrilana.1396" said:

> > Every traitline can be completed solo. Not all HP's are needed. That said, needing others to progress your character is not inherently bad game design as earlier games required it. Developers started going away from that to broaden the appeal of their games to more casual players who had a preference towards more soloable content.

> >

>

> That's where context comes in. The context of MMO franchises NOW is that soloable content is there to appeal to more casual players. You can even complete the Heart of Thorns storyline solo, but somehow Hero Points, a core character progression feature, is supposed to require groups?

 

As I said multiple times, **character progression in GW2 does not require groups**. Once more, **character progression in GW2 does not require groups**. Now with that said, there is nothing that indicates that requiring some, or all, character progression to need grouping to be bad game design. Appealing to preferences of players does not mean what they don't prefer is bad game design.

 

> > Games evolve and change. There were no mounts when the game was released so why should we have them now? You cannot use how things were when a game was first released as a basis of how it should be in the future. Core character progression is completely soloable as all skill lines can be completed without the aid of other players. There's absolutely nothing that states that needing others for character progression is bad design as well.

> >

>

> By default, it actually states that, because Core Character progression is soloable, thus in order to remain good game design it must continue to remain soloable even in the future.

 

No. That's you injecting your preference for soloable character progression, which is very much present still in the game, and making everything that doesn't meet that as being bad game design.

 

> > Not every detail needs to be marketing prior to release. All hero points can be done with less than five players with the exception of course being any locked behind a meta that requires more than that (i.e. DS).

>

> Sure, not every detail needs to be marketed, but huge game-changing features such as hero points requiring groups WAS advertised. However, that press release information is useless now because of all the news release information relating to Path of Fire (which, to my knowledge, did NOT advertise its hero challenges being soloable in contrast). And the point was _there is no in game information stating that Hero Point challenges would require groups_. By DEFAULT that is objectively bad design because the game should signal that hero points are group challenges rather than difficult solo challenges. It only signals it when it is too late, which again is poor design. Design needs to be intuitive and intuition says a larger number means more difficult, but intuition doesn't say a larger number means where it was once solo content it now requires a group.

 

Once again, you're fixated that because something was done this way then it must continue to be done that way. That's flawed as games change over time.

 

> > None of the hero challenges were altered to be made soloable. The changes that they made were to make it so that some masteries were no longer needed (e.g. poison mastery) and some were moved to not require successful completion of the meta (e.g. the one below Tarir). There is no established rule that hero points should be soloable.

>

> I was literally there. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pact_Airship_Wreckage this hero point challenge was altered from having an enemy to fight into a channel in order to be soloable. I remember that one specifically because it was the most drastic change that I remember. You ARE right in that some alterations were made by simply not requiring mastery points such as this one: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Toxin-Cured_Hog which made sure to remove the toxic haze that required Itzel tier 4, but those were definitely not the only changes.

 

No, it wasn't. It was swapped with another the one by the SW zone portal. It's called treacherous something.

 

> Not only that, I JUST remembered that obtaining full elite specs used to require 400 hero points, but that was altered because of player backlash as well. Add that as another objective fact pointing to the alteration of elite specs to make them more soloable.

> >

 

It was reduced because of the backlash over the number required, not because of the soloability of obtaining them.

 

> > > 5. Upon Path of Fire's release, the Hero Points there were indeed more difficult than core tyria hero points, but they were also able to be completed solo, following a solid design philosophy that flows from core Tyria into Elona. The devs also made the decision to not require a purchase of Heart of Thorns to play in Path of Fire, meaning that a player wouldn't need to experience the difficult of Hero Point challenges in Elona and can go straight ahead into the more sensibly difficult Path of Fire Hero Point challenges.

> >

> > The design philosophy was changed with PoF to match player preferences with HP's. It has nothing to do with HoT mastery points being bad game design. The purchase, or lack of purchase, of a previous expansion has nothing to do with this.

>

> Again, context is important. I did not say (nor did I mean to imply) that the HP issue was the sole reason for making HoT not required to play PoF, but there IS a context that is important to understand, which is that players can simply bypass the difficult content of HoT and the HP's that aren't soloable.

 

PoF simply gives more options for hero points to unlock towards the specializations. That is all.

 

> > How things were done at that release of game does not dictate that any changes that differ from that are bad game design. Character progression is still completely soloable nonetheless.

> >

>

> Again, context is important and the context of the game states that HPs are soloable.

 

Only certain ones that Anet has designated as such. Any "context" that they all are should be that way, or otherwise be considered bad game design, is solely based on your own subjective opinion/preference.

 

> > Every MMO does not have core character progression tied to soloable content. Before WoW, players had to group up with others and kill things over and over to progress. As I've stated multiple times in this post, there is **nothing** that states that requiring other players for character progression is bad game design. Just because a game started out doing one thing, doesn't mean that it doing something else is bad game design. It simply just means that any change has the possibility to go against the personal preferences of some of the playerbase.

> >

>

> You're conflating game experience (and storyline) with core character progression (which is gaining levels and unlocking abilities related to the class). Core character progression is, and always has been, soloable. A huge part of design is context, and removing the context in order to make a point removes the whole idea of design to begin with. All the design contexts within the game point to HP's (and core character progression) being soloable. Within the game, there is nothing that states HP's aren't meant to be soloed until it's far too late when you activate some of those HP's and the event that spawns says [group]. Which, again, is poor game design, ESPECIALLY within the context of channel HP's being soloable (like the pact airship wreckage I mentioned above, which was indeed altered into it's current channel state from it's previous combat encounter state). I havent heard of a single game, past or present, that said "you cannot gain experience/core character progression solo". You cannot complete certain **challenges** solo, which is absolutely fine design wise, we have dungeons, fractals and raids released in that order, but HP's are a core part of character progression, and everything in game design wise points to HPs being soloable. Especially for new players who have no interaction with the press releases of Heart of Thorns.

>

> So **_the design itself says that HP's and core character progression are meant to be soloable_**. Also the devs reactions in altering some HP's to be soloable AND reducing the number of HP required to max out an elite spec means that there were flaws with the system when it launched (or at least, things that the devs decided needing altering, rather than the system itself being flawed. With player experience being a huge factor however, it can be determined that fan outcry resulted in the devs acknowledging the poor design choices that were made).

>

> EDIT: Not going to respond because I honestly shouldn't have gotten into this discussion at such a late hour as I did and probably won't come back due to other things taking up my attention. But core concepts of design stand against you.

 

No, I am not. Did you not read the part where I had said that players used to have to group up with others to kill things over and over to progress. That's not storyline...

 

GW2 was designed to be largely soloable. Having some aspects require other players is not bad game design. It's just your own personal preference that you're trying to pass off as fact. There is nothing that states that character progression must be completely soloable. I will point out again, that character progression is soloable in HoT.

 

The changes to the HP's had nothing to do with soloability.

[Westenev.5289]

Personally, I enjoyed HoT at launch for its sheer difficulty. It gave it a sense of danger that PoF maps never came close to. When I died in a HoT map, I wondered where I went wrong and how I could take revenge - in a PoF map, I simply kick myself for my negligence and move on.

 

This is probably why I don't like spending time in PoF maps - there's nothing to get frustrated about.

[squallaus.8321]

> @"Westenev.5289" said:

> Personally, I enjoyed HoT at launch for its sheer difficulty. It gave it a sense of danger that PoF maps never came close to. When I died in a HoT map, I wondered where I went wrong and how I could take revenge - in a PoF map, I simply kick myself for my negligence and move on.

>

> This is probably why I don't like spending time in PoF maps - there's nothing to get frustrated about.

 

It would definitely be interesting to test current builds in the old and more difficult HoT maps. I bet those HPs that 'required a group of players' will probably go down in 2 minutes to solo performance using close to the meta build, similar to the balthazar HP. Builds weren't tested as thoroughly back then and there was no need to back then cos we didn't have raids like we do now. That probably added to the perception that the content appeared more difficult then they probably were back then.

[Westenev.5289]

> @"squallaus.8321" said:

> > @"Westenev.5289" said:

> > Personally, I enjoyed HoT at launch for its sheer difficulty. It gave it a sense of danger that PoF maps never came close to. When I died in a HoT map, I wondered where I went wrong and how I could take revenge - in a PoF map, I simply kick myself for my negligence and move on.

> >

> > This is probably why I don't like spending time in PoF maps - there's nothing to get frustrated about.

>

> It would definitely be interesting to test current builds in the old and more difficult HoT maps. I bet those HPs that 'required a group of players' will probably go down in 2 minutes to solo performance using close to the meta build, similar to the balthazar HP. Builds weren't tested as thoroughly back then and there was no need to back then cos we didn't have raids like we do now. That probably added to the perception that the content appeared more difficult then they probably were back then.

 

I was under the impression they heavily nerfed HoT at some point - I mean, Itzel frogs can't passively evade projectiles anymore and touching Mordrem Sniper beams aren't an instant death sentance. I also think Chak Gerrent got a few touchups too, since CC'ing him doesn't cause the event to fail now.

[blambidy.3216]

Hot is fine where it’s at. Lot of hot hps are soloable. Check out guides and there’s are many hps you can do by yourself. And masteries you can get by yourself. The problem is running straight into hot thinking it’s a piece of cake. There’s a reason why they made gliding.

 

If players are new. They should make one character 1-80 To get mechanics. After there’s hp trains everyone can go to, to get gliding and your elites full. The trains also lead you to new maps without complications. Which I recommend. Or finding a guild to do it with. First time into ab without a mount or gliding,rip.

 

Hot is fine once you get the correct exotic armor. If your doing random specs on all armor, jumping into hot is a no no.

 

First thing new players and returning players to hot should do, find a hp train. Or hopefully you have a guild and bring your guild members. First time hot is a nightmare. After that, hot is amazing

[ErikTheTyrant.4527]

There is only one thin I would want reworked in the HoT maps. That would be the bow mordrem, in my opinion that fire trail they leave on the ground does a little too much damage.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"ErikTheTyrant.4527" said:

> There is only one thin I would want reworked in the HoT maps. That would be the bow mordrem, in my opinion that fire trail they leave on the ground does a little too much damage.

 

I kinda like the way that attack is so easy to avoid 1v1 (long, obvious telegraph where the mordrem sniper continually turns in your direction while aiming), yet starts to become a real hazard when you're fighting off groups of mordrem and especially with multiple snipers present as they begin to carve up the battlefield with the lines they lay down!

[Joeym.9187]

I could kind of agree with what your saying. I did HoT by myself and it sucked. I died so many times it was crazy, jump forward to PoF and it was a whole different world. I could understand where this is coming from because I use to be night shift.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Westenev.5289" said:

> > @"squallaus.8321" said:

> > > @"Westenev.5289" said:

> > > Personally, I enjoyed HoT at launch for its sheer difficulty. It gave it a sense of danger that PoF maps never came close to. When I died in a HoT map, I wondered where I went wrong and how I could take revenge - in a PoF map, I simply kick myself for my negligence and move on.

> > >

> > > This is probably why I don't like spending time in PoF maps - there's nothing to get frustrated about.

> >

> > It would definitely be interesting to test current builds in the old and more difficult HoT maps. I bet those HPs that 'required a group of players' will probably go down in 2 minutes to solo performance using close to the meta build, similar to the balthazar HP. Builds weren't tested as thoroughly back then and there was no need to back then cos we didn't have raids like we do now. That probably added to the perception that the content appeared more difficult then they probably were back then.

>

> I was under the impression they heavily nerfed HoT at some point - I mean, Itzel frogs can't passively evade projectiles anymore and touching Mordrem Sniper beams aren't an instant death sentance. I also think Chak Gerrent got a few touchups too, since CC'ing him doesn't cause the event to fail now.

 

There was a patch that addressed issues with HoT back in April 2016. They opened up waypoints, took down some of the event-related physical barriers, increased rewards and experience, adjusted group event scaling, and reduced the difficulty of the post-cycle random event bosses from champion to veteran. They never mentioned making the bosses any easier (although scaling adjustments could factor in to that). And as far as I know those shadowleapers still say under their health bar that they evade ranged attacks, but as they have extremely low health and you're very familiar with the danger by now, they probably seem a lot less threatening than when you first met them!

 

[Westenev.5289]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > @"Westenev.5289" said:

> > > @"squallaus.8321" said:

> > > > @"Westenev.5289" said:

> > > > Personally, I enjoyed HoT at launch for its sheer difficulty. It gave it a sense of danger that PoF maps never came close to. When I died in a HoT map, I wondered where I went wrong and how I could take revenge - in a PoF map, I simply kick myself for my negligence and move on.

> > > >

> > > > This is probably why I don't like spending time in PoF maps - there's nothing to get frustrated about.

> > >

> > > It would definitely be interesting to test current builds in the old and more difficult HoT maps. I bet those HPs that 'required a group of players' will probably go down in 2 minutes to solo performance using close to the meta build, similar to the balthazar HP. Builds weren't tested as thoroughly back then and there was no need to back then cos we didn't have raids like we do now. That probably added to the perception that the content appeared more difficult then they probably were back then.

> >

> > I was under the impression they heavily nerfed HoT at some point - I mean, Itzel frogs can't passively evade projectiles anymore and touching Mordrem Sniper beams aren't an instant death sentance. I also think Chak Gerrent got a few touchups too, since CC'ing him doesn't cause the event to fail now.

>

> There was a patch that addressed issues with HoT back in April 2016. They opened up waypoints, took down some of the event-related physical barriers, increased rewards and experience, adjusted group event scaling, and reduced the difficulty of the post-cycle random event bosses from champion to veteran. They never mentioned making the bosses any easier (although scaling adjustments could factor in to that). And as far as I know those shadowleapers still say under their health bar that they evade ranged attacks, but as they have extremely low health and you're very familiar with the danger by now, they probably seem a lot less threatening than when you first met them!

>

 

Idk, I was running around the Ordinance Outpost and Noble Crash Site events the other day with my (very stationary) Rifle Deadeye, and found none of them had "Evades Projectiles" under their name. I was 90% sure they had Shadowleapers in that lineup, and I did the event solo. I mean, it's great that I can pick a perch and blast the scaley bastards from a distance (like I always wanted), but it sure took the challenge out of killing them!

 

I also did a hastily assembled PuG Chak Gerrent the other day - and boy, was that a pisstake. The thing was dead in all four lanes by the first round, so everyone had to sit idle for a good 10 minutes with their thumbs planted firmly up their asses waiting for the door to open. Perhaps it's the scaling, perhaps it's the fact that people know how to do the boss after 2-3 years... but It's just small things like this that make me wonder how people still find HoT difficult.

 

Throw in a creative use of mounts (particularly the Springer), and I'd say HoT is easier than ever.

 

Best of all, if you have trouble, some know it all schmuck like me is drawn to Apples or pleas for help over map chat - and can arrive via Griffon within 2-3 minutes. No need to wait for "Hp trains" or "I've already done that Hp" or "Nobody wants to do Vampire Hp. EVER."

 

Call it a hunch, or whatever you like, but the modern HoT is much easier than what it was at launch.

[chrisjfinlay.5614]

I've died a few times in Verdant Brink and honestly, most of the time I've been ok with it.

 

My only real complaints would be:

 

a) that jumping puzzle mastery point above the pact camp can eat my ass

b) exploration to some of the POIs, MPs and HPs sometimes feels like I'm cheesing it a bit, like I'm taking a route I'm not supposed to - if you get what I mean? I only have my basic glider mastery and getting to the vampire HP during the day for example felt like I was exploiting something, the way I went about it.

 

I get, and am all for, reworking how epxloration works - it's definitely a damn ton more interesting than the flat lands of central Tyria. I just feel like it's maybe gone too obscure. Especially when it's not clear what level some POIs are on.

 

A good example of that is the Wyvern meta-event boss. You get that POI when you take the chopper up to it - but if you look on the map the POI is brightest on the mid-level (same as the encampment etc) and if you choose the upper, canopy level on the map it gets greyed out.

 

(though yeah, there are a couple enemies that seem to hit stupidly hard. also those threshers can sod off)

[Weindrasi.3805]

I've gotten used to the HoT maps. I can solo, say, 85% of the hero points--some of the champions are easier than others. The 15% that need groups--HP trains are frequent and half the time there just happens to be one active. If an HP train isn't active, it's easy enough to find players in party search. I'd be annoyed if HoT maps were made easier--I've gotten map completion for them on 10+ characters, largely going solo, and I neither need or want the maps to be "babyfied" to easy mode.

[chrisjfinlay.5614]

> @"Weindrasi.3805" said:

> I've gotten used to the HoT maps. I can solo, say, 85% of the hero points--some of the champions are easier than others. The 15% that need groups--HP trains are frequent and half the time there just happens to be one active. If an HP train isn't active, it's easy enough to find players in party search. I'd be annoyed if HoT maps were made easier--I've gotten map completion for them on 10+ characters, largely going solo, and I neither need or want the maps to be "babyfied" to easy mode.

 

I went to an HP last night and lo-and-behold a champion jumped out. There was nobody around me for miles when I hit it, but within 20 seconds of my pansy-ass running away a few people descended on the spot and helped me. Didn't even have to ask. And the map was on the "low population" warning, too.

[Weindrasi.3805]

> @"chrisjfinlay.5614" said:

> > @"Weindrasi.3805" said:

> > I've gotten used to the HoT maps. I can solo, say, 85% of the hero points--some of the champions are easier than others. The 15% that need groups--HP trains are frequent and half the time there just happens to be one active. If an HP train isn't active, it's easy enough to find players in party search. I'd be annoyed if HoT maps were made easier--I've gotten map completion for them on 10+ characters, largely going solo, and I neither need or want the maps to be "babyfied" to easy mode.

>

> I went to an HP last night and lo-and-behold a champion jumped out. There was nobody around me for miles when I hit it, but within 20 seconds of my kitten-kitten running away a few people descended on the spot and helped me. Didn't even have to ask. And the map was on the "low population" warning, too.

 

Yeah I've had this experience myself. Lack of people around definitely is not an issue.

[Dreamy Lu.3865]

Fine for me, keep it as is.

Those maps are meant to be more difficult. My experience is that there is always enough population for trains and groups to do nearly everything around. Beside, the level of difficulty has already decreased somewhat with the use of mounts.

 

Generally, I believe that to find it more or less hard than PoF areas is a matter of personal criteria. For example, me, I find The Desolation in PoF by far harder than any of the HoT areas. I rarely return to The Desolation (lack of fun due to the difficulty that is too much for me) and if I do, never solo.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

I'd like to see Tangled Depths changed but I'm not sure what could be done with it besides breaking it up into two maps; one jungle and one caverns. Dragon's Stand I feel is a missed opportunity. The meta should have been a open world HoT boss story end story. Have instanced before and after it but the main fight could have been an open world fight then after it give each player working on finishing the story an instance story maker to show the Trahern death sequence. IMHOP the current HoT story final boss fight is not up to expansion standards. A reoccurring open end story boss fight would have been really different.

 

Verdant Brink is fine as is and I still think the problem with Auric Basin's meta wasn't the ABML stuff before they killed it but rather it was too close together. Every two hours is too soon. They should inject at least an hour for random events and exploring between the end of the meta and before the pre-meta events start.

[Biff.5312]

I've had to skip some of the content for this reason but I still vote no to change. If I really want to cover that material, I'll ask for guild assistance. That's what guilds are for.

[Haishao.6851]

Friendly reminder that HoT was sold as a challenging expansion.

It was made clear long before its alpha, beta, and release that it was going to be more challenging than anything in the game at the time.

 

[Echoherb.6528]

> @"Haishao.6851" said:

> Friendly reminder that HoT was sold as a challenging expansion.

> It was made clear long before its alpha, beta, and release that it was going to be more challenging than anything in the game at the time.

>

 

This really means nothing to new or returning players, especially those leveling from scratch. They mostly likely haven't done the living season stuff, and haven't had two years of practice with their character and the new maps, so it's a huge unnecessary jump from core tyria and HoT. People posting gameplay videos of people soloing champions are obviously not representing the overwhelming majority of players. I feel like the PoF maps are the perfect learning curve for new and returning players and just in general.. not too easy, not too hard. HoT for a brand new player is like hitting a brick wall,.

[Ashen.2907]

> @"Echoherb.6528" said:

> > @"Haishao.6851" said:

> > Friendly reminder that HoT was sold as a challenging expansion.

> > It was made clear long before its alpha, beta, and release that it was going to be more challenging than anything in the game at the time.

> >

>

> This really means nothing to new or returning players, especially those leveling from scratch. They mostly likely haven't done the living season stuff, and haven't had two years of practice with their character and the new maps, so it's a huge unnecessary jump from core tyria and HoT. People posting gameplay videos of people soloing champions are obviously not representing the overwhelming majority of players. I feel like the PoF maps are the perfect learning curve for new and returning players and just in general.. not too easy, not too hard. HoT for a brand new player is like hitting a brick wall,.

 

HoT isnt meant for brand new players.

 

GW2 endgame maps should not be modeled after, for example, the racial tutorials because someone might struggle with more during their first hour of play.