Never go back to HoT style zones, stick to PoF

[Vladish.3940]

> @WARIORSCHARGEING.2637 said:

> @"Gaile Gray.6029" when are they going to be shutting down the hot maps ??????

 

On the same note you could be asking when they will be shutting down tyrian maps, or LS3 maps since we are done with them and on PoF content... all jokes aside... ALL the maps are relevant in the game and will not be shut down. Why would they, they have accessible story on them and they are exclusive expansion content. They won't shut down so don't listen to those dumb comments.

[Vladish.3940]

> @nehezbegar.1065 said:

> Casual players are the ones who fund the games, not the hardcores, keep that in mind. If it was different we would have 95% of hardcore games, but its otherwise :smile:

>

 

It is only true for GW2 on release, being a one time purchase and having "hot new item" feel in gem store, etc. On the same note, it's probably the hardcore gamers investing their money over the years in the gem store that really fund the development of the game, as sum of those purchases for each frequently rises the money invested several times over the cost of initial product. At least that's how it seems to me, but we won't know unless Anet one day releases actual numbers.

[nehezbegar.1065]

> @Vladish.3940 said:

> > @nehezbegar.1065 said:

> > Casual players are the ones who fund the games, not the hardcores, keep that in mind. If it was different we would have 95% of hardcore games, but its otherwise :smile:

> >

>

> It is only true for GW2 on release, being a one time purchase and having "hot new item" feel in gem store, etc. On the same note, it's probably the hardcore gamers investing their money over the years in the gem store that really fund the development of the game, as sum of those purchases for each frequently rises the money invested several times over the cost of initial product. At least that's how it seems to me, but we won't know unless Anet one day releases actual numbers.

 

I can almost bet that the raiders are the minority of those who spend money on gem store, and we obviously consider them hardcore. Same would apply to WoW and any other MMO out there, but as far as i am concerned, hardcores are the ones who buy game time, gems etc. using ingame currency, casuals are the one who pay real life money, because they don't spend excessive amounts of time ingame farming gold.

[SunTzu.4513]

Imo HoT was okay but not good or fun. My problem wasn't to navigate exspecaly TD but the anoing amount of mobs (chaks get all my hate) was the funkiller for me, also the inbound of the whole map for metaevents wasn't mine. PoF feels lot more like core maps and i love it. Only thing what could be add are bigger events in some parts of the new map. Also a few worldbosses would be nice. Get the best of two and it will be aweseome.

[John.8507]

Maps would be better with bigger group content, not really map wide meta or something but a mix of Silver wastes and original world bosses are needed

[Gaab.4257]

I agree, HoT maps were nice-ish but confusing, I don't like to go back there. They look good but difficult to navigate and play.

But with these maps in PoF I feel like Anet map-makers went back to what they did well with GW1 and the initial GW2 maps. PoF maps are nice, well designed and playable.

 

[Rain.7543]

> @Vladish.3940 said:

> > @Rain.7543 said:

> > If you open the old forums and browse through the HoT section you might change your view on that. Maybe 'casuals' was too broad of a term to use. I didnt want to offend people who feel they are casual players. Nothing wrong with being casual players. What was wrong was the countless topics created since HoT launch from people wanting the content nerfed, because it was too hard for them, they couldnt find any LFGs (for whatever reason), they didnt want to be 'forced' into groups, because again for whatever reason, since we are playing MMO, which in its base have a group content in mind and thats how it should be. They also found the HPs too hard and outcried to the heavens for those to get nerfed, since apparently it was too much of a hassle for them to open the lfg and find 1-2 players to complete them.

> >

> > Because of the -overwhelming- amount of such topics the initial difficulty of HoT was nerfed to the ground... literally. The only hard content, which remained for people who likes challenge to enjoy was now raids and high level fractals and we all now how many topics have been created for easy mode raids as well. Thank god Anet stood firm on their position there that the raids should remain in their current state.

> >

> > The reality is it was casual players (in their own words, not mine) who made Anet nerf the initial difficulty of HoT and took the current map design and content direction with the last LW season and now with PoF, because the topics about nerfs and how hard the content was had literally swarmed the forums. The more hardcore players (as you put it) were actually pretty happy with the difficulty and kept wondering why all the casual players are crying out for, since they had the entire Core Tyria, which was already pretty easy content. So backtracking to present day, now we have those lovely flat maps, which will be empty in a week (at most). You can clearly see where things are heading by the number of topics appearing from people dissapointed by the lack of content. I mean.. have you played the maps? Yes they have some new and shiny content now... hearts, vistas, poi's etc to discover and complete and some events popping here and there, but once completed several times, what there is to do in those maps? The rewards are severely lacking. The hearts doesnt even reward something worthwile, unlike the last LW season. They just give you EXP and KARMA. Yay! Something we have stacked up in the thousands, if not ten of thousands. Events are pretty random and most of them appear at the same time, so you have scaresely populated maps, because half of the people do one event, while the other half another etc. We have exactly what we have in Core Tyria and when the content stop being all new and shiny the maps will be empty in no time.

> >

> > Again... nothing wrong with being a casual player and wanting to play on your own phase or alone if thats your fancy. But you all need to realise that above all this is an MMO game and, as such it needs to have content to keep people occupied for long. Very much like how HoT did it, although maybe tone it down a bit and dont have the metas overtake the entire maps. Look at Maguuma maps, still a ton of people run events, HP's and Meta events. I really dont see this happening in the PoF maps, which is a shame because they are simply beautiful and the addition of mounts could make for such unique and amazing chain and meta events, but all this has been sweped under the rug, because of the outcry, which went for two (!) years, since HoT was released. Unfortunately Anet decided to go for the extremes, and completely revert back from HoT. The best solution would've been if they tried to find the golden middle ground and try to appeal to both groups and have half of the maps be more casual-friendly with more relaxed hearts and events and the other heart more meta heavy, but alas decided otherwise.

>

> Than maybe instead of complaining about what people did in the past, we should focus on shutting them up now. There are posts popping out left and right about content being too hard, which I completely disagree with. I do solo story because I do it at my own pace, I also suffer from permanent injury in my wrist due to work-related accident that makes my hand-eye coordination atrocious, and I don't even find that content "too hard". It seems everyone wants things just handed too them though. "This is too hard," "this should be nerfed," "this mastery point annoys me because I am too kitten uncoordinated to be able to get it and I don't want to put work into it," "there aren't enough mastery points because I can't be bothered to explore and appreciate the maps you designed and I paid for"... the amount of kitten bitching about the silliest of things is astonishing at the time. If you think the changes from HoT were bad (and as I said before, I agree with you that some features should have been kept around, I miss them too), I am afraid to see what future will bring after this wave of bitching. And whatever they want to call themselves, it's rarely actual casual players that do this. I mean, until I started getting actually involved with this game (because I am starting to stream), I could never even be bothered with forums because my game time was in-game, and outside of it I wouldn't waste my time on such trivial matters. And browsing the old the content, seems like a lot of people were not happy with the content, regardless of what they call themselves (both implied casuals and vets), but they changed their minds over time as Anet was improving and adding the content, which is normal. Given I have been casual up to this point, and I am the one agreeing with you about lack of certain content being unsatisfactory for me as well, kinda seem to contradict your claim, is what I am saying. On the same note, I have been playing MMOs for almost 20 years now, and I remember and appreciate times when we HAD TO work for everything in game to earn it. Now the features and rewards are slowly being watered down and handed out to everyone, diminishing their value altogether (imho). But as I said before, we are now starting to troll each other in a pointless banter, while we should focus on trying to show people that (if implemented well) those features were amazing. So cheers to you buddy and gg :)

 

Completely agree with that. Its really astonishing how some people cant be bothered to do anything in this game, but whine in the forum how hard for them and demand things be handed to them, simply because they paid for the game in the first place. One would wonder why they even spend money on it in the first place.

 

I hope Anet decide to rework part of the maps and try to find this middle ground where both parties can be pleased. I mean the maps are huuuge. Surely a meta events can be designed without locking the entire maps, because of it, or even the maps to be evenly split, so everyone can do whatever they fancy. Be it more casual exploring and events, or more coordinated and meta heavy ones.

 

I think people who are actually passionate about the game (be they more hardcore or casual players), should be more active around such forums, because otherwise the outcries of the lazy kittens are seen, as majority of what people think, which rarely is the case and then we are forced to deal in such extremes like we do now. One can only hope in the ability of Anet to judge properly the feedback they are getting and for them to not give much of a ear to people who just mindlessly rant, about content being cut out for instance, because they dont like it (Like seriously? What is this suggestion even? I've seen people ask about raids being removed as well, cause they dont like and play them, even though their existance doesnt even affects their gameplay.) or nerfed to the ground, because they cant be bothered to learn how to press any other button then their autoattack.

 

 

[nehezbegar.1065]

I still see ppl fail to understand the first post. Its about the map layout, complexity of navigation and confusion, not the difficulty (tough having mobs every 1 meter that one hit You is not normal either :smile:) If anything i am all for group content, but the maps still need to give the room to breath and HoT maps did not give that at all, but its not the topic about the difficulty of the mobs, events etc on the maps, its purely bout the navigation around them.

[dagrdagaz.4913]

Well, i despise / hate the map wide meta's in HoT and Silverwastes.

 

To each their own then.

[LSD.4673]

HoT's maps are interesting. It's a shame they made the daft decision of gating the only means of traversing them behind "Masteries". Once you've got the stuff you need, they're a lot of fun...it's just they're a pain to get your head around to begin with...that and the fact they have horrendous performance issues. Verdant Brink is the worst offender.

[Vladish.3940]

> @nehezbegar.1065 said:

> > @Vladish.3940 said:

> > > @nehezbegar.1065 said:

> > > Casual players are the ones who fund the games, not the hardcores, keep that in mind. If it was different we would have 95% of hardcore games, but its otherwise :smile:

> > >

> >

> > It is only true for GW2 on release, being a one time purchase and having "hot new item" feel in gem store, etc. On the same note, it's probably the hardcore gamers investing their money over the years in the gem store that really fund the development of the game, as sum of those purchases for each frequently rises the money invested several times over the cost of initial product. At least that's how it seems to me, but we won't know unless Anet one day releases actual numbers.

>

> I can almost bet that the raiders are the minority of those who spend money on gem store, and we obviously consider them hardcore. Same would apply to WoW and any other MMO out there, but as far as i am concerned, hardcores are the ones who buy game time, gems etc. using ingame currency, casuals are the one who pay real life money, because they don't spend excessive amounts of time ingame farming gold.

 

I actually forgot about gem conversion because I don't use TP at all. That is a good point you make sir.

[alceste.8712]

> @LSD.4673 said:

> HoT's maps are interesting. It's a shame they made the daft decision of gating the only means of traversing them behind "Masteries". Once you've got the stuff you need, they're a lot of fun...it's just they're a pain to get your head around to begin with...that and the fact they have horrendous performance issues. Verdant Brink is the worst offender.

 

Yeah, I have a lot issues in VB but not anywhere else for some reason. I had so many friends quite due to the HoT maps being so unfriendly that I am pretty happy with the PoF maps.

[jheryn.8390]

I enjoy both places. If you think one or the other is bad, that amounts to opinion and personal preference. Nothing more. We all like what we like.

 

For me it if PoF was a repeat of HoT, I would have hated it. I want my expansions to be vastly different.

 

HoT gave us verticality, meta events, more group cooperation content, and many different mechanics unique to the area. It furthered the Lore of GW2.

 

PoF gives us huge maps with mounts, tons of lore from GW1, and places I recognize from GW1 that I loved. It also is content driven and if you are a lore person, there is a lot to learn and a lot to see what happened after 250 years.

 

Each expansion has it's own charm. I know neither of them will appeal to every single person, but again that is personal preference. Anet (or anyone) can never please everyone. Especially here on the official forums.

[Kaltyn of Torbins Deep.294]

I'm just going to put this here without reading all the replies (mostly because I'm short on time right now). I CANNOT see myself abandoning HoT. If for no other reason than I really need a stack of keys so I can keep opening those chests in my home instance every day. Similarly, I CANNOT see myself abandoning PoF. That's like saying you're going to abandon Plains of Ashford or Metrica Provence or Harathi Hinterlands. Sure, there are going to be times when I am not on those maps, and there are going to be parts of each map that I loathe. But never, ever, ever, ever go back? Sorry, I learned those maps, I will go there.

 

Core Tyria is low danger solo content

PoF is higher danger solo and group content

HoT & LWS3 are high danger solo roaming and high danger group content

With dungeons, fractals, and raids added, what you have is a smorgasbord of content to pick from each and every time you login. Go have fun.

[Mea.5491]

I prefer HoT, it's more fun because of the meta events and exciting map designs. PoF maps are boring, once you finish the masteries there's no reason to go back.

[CptAurellian.9537]

I would have liked some metas on the new maps, but at least they are better than bloody TD. It was right to abandon than extreme degree of verticality.

[caveman.5840]

so glad to be out of that jungle , every thing felt so clustered and junk behind me would often get in the way of the camera ,, feels like a breath of fresh air to be moving quick in a open area ... and that's coming from someone who never wanted the mounts lol

[voltaicbore.8012]

More than reconsidering map styles, I think the important thing is to keep HoT maps active and alive. Thankfully legendaries and other currency issues should keep popular metas populated, and Anet may have done us HoT fans a favor by giving us PoF maps that lack the same replayability. Some watered down version of HoT maps mixed with PoF style maps would probably _not_ work. It would just make everyone unhappy - the moaners and criers who think everything is too hard would hate a step up in complexity, and those who loved HoT's stepped-up difficulty would see a mixed map as a sad (and failed) attempt to be complex.

 

I personally prefer HoT-style maps, it felt like my toon was part of a force pushing deep into hostile territory. While the timers on meta events limited how often I could be part of a successful meta, I was never one of the people always getting locked out of DS.

 

It makes sense to me, from a lore standpoint, that HoT and PoF maps are different in the way that they are. No large, extensive civilization has lived in the HoT areas for some time, that's all Mordremoth territory now. Conversely, Elona's one of the oldest established societies in Tyria, and Joko's been a force to deal with as well. Given that large numbers of people have been living/working/fighting there for some time, it makes sense that there are many more vestiges of civilization (like roads and relatively even terrain between towns) still intact there compared to the jungle.

[meeflak.9714]

They are both different flavors of maps is all. When you enter a jungle you expect to see twisted mazes of trees and vines, when you enter a desert you expect to see slow rolling landscape and vast areas.

 

I personally feel both HoT and PoF maps do an amazing job at getting the feel for the area across. You really feel like your in a tangled jungle in heart of thorns and I loved that about it.

 

Exploring heart of thorns maps and path of fire maps are equally amazing but completely different experiences for me, and I think that's a pretty amazing accomplishment. I wouldn't say"never go back to HoT maps" if you are entering the jungle it should feel like it, and I think they did a good job at delivering that feeling to us.

 

Just as the jungle feel like the jungle, the desert feels like the desert, both were different products aimed at a different type of environment and a different type of exploration. Because of that I feel it's hard to draw criticism over heart of thorns based on what path of fire brings in terms of exploration, because they weren't designed to give the same experience.

 

Both the expansions maps were amazing to me, and really did an amazing job at demonstrating the feeling you should get when visiting the jungle or the desert.

 

So please, if the biom calls for it, bring back the twisted mazes of landscapes or the vast open areas, so long as they are as emersive and real as both heart of thorns and path of fire are

[John.8507]

Yes POF is good, just need more to do.

[wetwillyhip.7254]

Only played PoF for a few hours, only got to exploring a little of the 2nd map above the Crystal Oasis... and I have to say, I enjoy HoT's maps and I enjoy the PoF maps; they're different, they are a variety in design and navigation. The jungle should be complicated and multi layered with vines, biomes, etc and the desert should be a flat simpler-planed environment.

 

The only thing I do miss in Pof are the amazing meta events HoT had. That's it. They brought players together and rewarded them very well!

 

I want the PoF maps to feel alive again with a few Meta events here and there or a giant one that takes over the whole map. That's all for me.

Hey @"Gaile Gray.6029" , a lot of people here are wanting large HoT-like rewarding meta events in the beautiful PoF maps for added replay value and population retention.

[alceste.8712]

> @caveman.5840 said:

> so glad to be out of that jungle , every thing felt so clustered and junk behind me would often get in the way of the camera ,, feels like a breath of fresh air to be moving quick in a open area ... and that's coming from someone who never wanted the mounts lol

 

This is my opinion as well. I am so tired of just simply moving around on a map being a painful experience. I so enjoy the PoF maps a lot more.

[ibThuggin.1758]

> @nehezbegar.1065 said:

> As title says. You don't even realize how much fun is to not get confused on the map. The first impressions of the expac is 100000000000000000000 better than HoT.

>

> Please ArenaNet, never go back to the confusing disaster the HoT maps were, while beautiful they were, the navigation and enjoyment of exploring was atrocious. Please bring more open world like, expanded and vast landscapes we got in PoF:)

 

Agreed these maps are way better. At least ANet learned from the past when it comes to PvE in this game. PvP on the other hand...

[Ahlen.7591]

I feel like I play a different game than others. The HoT maps were hard to navigate? Really? I just don't get that. I'm not some top tier godlike player and I still feel they were really easy to move around in and figure out.

 

I already see more people in HoT maps than I do in PoF maps and it's only day 4.

[otto.5684]

> @Oglaf.1074 said:

> > @"Zin Dau.1749" said:

> > HOT maps are much more exciting, no matter how times one visits. POF maps look bored already.

>

> I agree. The PoF maps seem dead and lifeless in comparison.

 

Sadly, that is my impression as well. I surely don't want TD map and I am not huge fan of DS, though new maps are... empty. They are heavy spectacle and little substance.

 

As other said, why can't we have big metas, hearts and events at the same time?