Maybe tone down the PoF maps a bit?

[Einsof.1457]

Nahhhhhhhhh

[TwiceDead.1963]

Just come on over to HoT! We'd love to have you surfing on the vines with us~

 

I swear it's safe.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Dante.1763" said:

> > @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> > I say they need more Meta Events in PoF zones.

>

> Saddly no, the meta events that already exist need to be on set timers that dont interfere with other larger meta events, and the rewards need to be improved.

 

It gets more complicated then that when you look at all the complaints verses how people actually behave. Increasing the rewards isn't really solution, since players eventually gravitate to whatever has the highest reward for effort output. Istan's farm hinges largely on the UID gear and MF exploits; take that away, and the basis for its overdriven rewards collapses. But trying to boot strap other events to be as rewarding has a knock on effect on the economy; which regardless of how you feel, is what allows the game's reward system to function as a whole. Its also key to the collective cooperative behavior of the player base, since its not individually focused drops, but a distributed model that allows for exchange of similar value to get specific items. Notice how things get ridiculous with any item which is drop only, and not inside the "common" band of rarity...... and notice how thats a non-issue with anything where crafting can meet that requirement.

 

This all ties back into the meta events and farming, as players will go with the lowest effort solution they can manage. Before Istan, Silverwaste was the big boring farm that everyone did when they needed money. AB, TD and DS are done on the regular for their Daily bonus chest, but no VB despite it offering a similar chest. AB and TD are things that can be done in less then 20 minutes each; with most people showing up 10 minutes before the boss fight. DS, despite taking a long time, doesn't require a lot of individual effort so long as the Zerg is big enough, and offers a lot of raw loot and salvage. VB never gets done because it requires people to spread out, and actually do events..... too much work to have to travel in anything but a straight line from fight to fight.

 

Now look at world bosses.... everyone does Teq, because its highly rewarding for time spent, and is practiced enough that the mechanics aren't an issue. Now look at Serpents Ire, which requires people to be half way competent- yet is seen as impossible because the mechanics. I've gone into this in another thread... but by all logic, SI should be stupidly simple to accomplish, yet constantly fails at the Zealot/Bomb phase. And I can't for the life of me understand why, since a zerg in any other event will Melt a break bar regardless if they should or not. The whole fight is more or less spamming skills, and maybe spreading out in one phase, which never seemed to be a problem for a lot of other meta events when the targets are all in ear shot.

 

So while people complain about SI not having enough rewards, I would go out of my way to say that the reason the event isn't done is because it has low chance of "accidentally succeeding". Istan succeeds all the time, because lots of people constantly show up to it.... and thats essentially what a meta needs to be a candidate for repeat play. From that point it becomes a competition over which meta gives the most rewards in the least amount of time. Thats the problem we have now.... its not that the events aren't rewarding enough; but that a couple of events give too much rewards, and we've gotten spoiled by it. It even poisons the feedback loop for the Devs, since they're usually over compensating for this phenomena via one time sinks out of fear of backlash should they change the event (which has happened nearly every time they've done it). It also doesn't help that both the Devs and the player are equally incapable of properly monitoring the equilibrium, since both are prone to causing wild swings in demand driven by each other's actions.

 

More rewards just leads to exponentially more expensive sinks later on, leading to demand for more rewards to compensate. But culling rewards upsets the players. Putting in effort now upsets the players. Having to cooperate now upsets the players. Not having enough people to carry them upsets the players. Not having enough rewards to chase upsets the players. Making them harder upsets the players. Getting rewards too easily upsets the players. When its more or less in equilibrium, players lament not beating the curve. When its not, players lament not being in the curve. Yet through all of this conversation, we're ignoring the combat dynamics that also play a huge roll in the game's flow.... which then links to build craft, and then to "class balance", which is another version of Effort/Reward ranking.

 

The rabbit hole runs deep.... always had. But to break the loop, there needs to a shift in the player base's attitude toward certain things in the game, so at least everyone can get on the same page. I've seen way too much competition in player feed back advocating for extreme ends of design, when I'm willing to bet that most would still be satisfied with a moderate lean. But with too few games on the market successfully catering to a certain niche (some even being self destructive in the attempt), too many different types of players are pushing for a specific design, in a game that relies on a middle position to function properly, because its the only thing that managed to survive.

 

This isn't just a response to the quote, but a lot of often ignored things about the subject (and the overall thread) due to being less tangible then mechanics. The introduction of multiple game modes, without much change in the amount of griping about it, shows theres still something else beyond the game's design choices creating the complaints.

[Clyan.1593]

Only reason why people still play HoTs maps is because of the legendaries. I personally got everything from HoTs except some minor achievements, I even got all three backpieces, every bladed armor piece, every chak weapon, every exalted weapon, every leyline armor piece and so on.

 

I would love to play PoF maps more, but there is not much to gain. (I have all weapons and all armor pieces from it too)

[LucianDK.8615]

Git gud, OP. The pof maps have nothing on HoT in obnoxious mobs or difficulty.

[Etterwyn.5263]

> @"Klipso.8653" said:

> Trash mobs not dropping loot is the main reason I don't play the LS4 maps that often.

>

> They just aren't that good for farming except for the istan main events, and even they don't happen often enough to justify staying on the map

>

> Bitterfrost is really the best map for farming since events pop up often and everything drops loot

>

>

 

Bloodstone Fen is my personal favorite. Even though you don't get karma, the White Mantle drop a ton of bags. I do love Bitterfrost too though

[Draco.9480]

they should be harder. you're doing something wrong if you want to tone 'em down.

[BlueJin.4127]

I completely agree that PoF aggro range should be reduced. It’s ridiculous and very disruptive. I’m constantly being aggroed by enemies that are outside my screen, or on another platform, etc.

 

Difficulty wise, I disagree PoF should be reduced. With exotic gears (which are pretty cheap to get), they can be melted pretty fast. The first time I fought a veteran Hydra, it was pretty epic. Now, with full exotics, it’s just another quick fight. If they're reduced more than now, it can become too trivial for players in exotic gears.

[starlinvf.1358]

> @"Clyan.1593" said:

> Only reason why people still play HoTs maps is because of the legendaries. I personally got everything from HoTs except some minor achievements, I even got all three backpieces, every bladed armor piece, every chak weapon, every exalted weapon, every leyline armor piece and so on.

>

> I would love to play PoF maps more, but there is not much to gain. (I have all weapons and all armor pieces from it too)

 

Legendary Gen 2.5 weapons are obtainable via POF... that only leaves 3 weapons off the table, and of them only Astralaria seems abnormally popular. Armor might be the kicker.... but any player whose focused on raiding would have both expansions just to have access to all the Raid wings.

 

So casual POF players aren't missing out on anything. The only arguable difference is whats normally effort gated in HOT (the Crystalline Ingots) are just a simple time/cost gate in POF (Funerary incense). Even the argument of Amalgamated Gemstones falls flat due to there being much greater numbers of Oric/Ancient nodes in all POF maps, specifically there to increase the yield of Orbs. If anything, HOT is disrupting that process by having direct sources of amalgamated gems undercutting Orb prices.

[Clyan.1593]

> @"starlinvf.1358" said:

> > @"Clyan.1593" said:

> > Only reason why people still play HoTs maps is because of the legendaries. I personally got everything from HoTs except some minor achievements, I even got all three backpieces, every bladed armor piece, every chak weapon, every exalted weapon, every leyline armor piece and so on.

> >

> > I would love to play PoF maps more, but there is not much to gain. (I have all weapons and all armor pieces from it too)

>

> Legendary Gen 2.5 weapons are obtainable via POF... that only leaves 3 weapons off the table, and of them only Astralaria seems abnormally popular. Armor might be the kicker.... but any player whose focused on raiding would have both expansions just to have access to all the Raid wings.

>

> So casual POF players aren't missing out on anything. The only arguable difference is whats normally effort gated in HOT (the Crystalline Ingots) are just a simple time/cost gate in POF (Funerary incense). Even the argument of Amalgamated Gemstones falls flat due to there being much greater numbers of Oric/Ancient nodes in all POF maps, specifically there to increase the yield of Orbs. If anything, HOT is disrupting that process by having direct sources of amalgamated gems undercutting Orb prices.

 

I know you can get the legendary mats in PoF mats, but honestly HoTs seems waaaay faster to me.

[phs.6089]

One thing I would agree is aggro range. I haven't seen any mob to run on me from across of map in HoT. In PoF it's like 'where did you guys come from' , 'wait there is more coming?' , 'b-but i juts killed this guys, how they are re spawn so quick? HOW?'

 

You know[ this HP](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/The_Ruptured_Heart " this HP") in the Desolation? Sometimes it seems the whole zone mobs get aggroed if you try to get that.