Wow HoT had a lot of Interesting details/features only held back by being one giant Jumping Puzzle

[Knighthonor.4061]

Wow HoT had a lot of Interesting details/features only held back by being one giant Jumping Puzzle .

 

I played HoT from the start, but most of the content I didnt really do. I only recently started to grind for my HoT Legendary and finished that. But PoF Mounts really made that doable for me. I can only imagine what people had to go through before Mounts were added. That would have been a nightmare.

 

I personally hate jumping puzzles. Not what I would call fun. But I do like how the exploration is in HoT, just not the early mastery gated stuff and jumping puzzles to get everywhere.

 

hopefully going forward we get nice expansions that explorable and big metas like that but more balanced with less mandatory jumping puzzles like PoF maps.

 

-peace-

[Rotchi.1630]

The HoT zones were more fun without mounts imho.

[Pifil.5193]

> @"Rotchi.1630" said:

> The HoT zones were more fun without mounts imho.

 

Pretty much this, they were great zones without mounts. They're still fun with mounts though.

[Danikat.8537]

> @"Pifil.5193" said:

> > @"Rotchi.1630" said:

> > The HoT zones were more fun without mounts imho.

>

> Pretty much this, they were great zones without mounts. They're still fun with mounts though.

 

I was going to say I'm not sure which I prefer, but then I started writing out what I liked and didn't like about each and realised I definitely prefer doing them without mounts. I feel like there's more of a sense of achievement in finding your way to something without using mounts, and because it's so indirect there's a much higher probability of finding other stuff along the way. There was one hero point in Tangled Depths which took me 3 evenings (probably about 3 or 4 hours total) to reach, but along the way I found and completed a couple of vistas and POIs, the start of an adventure I hadn't found, several things for achievements and some events I had no idea existed, and learned some alternative ways to get between locations which have come in useful since then. I do enjoy having the option to use mounts, but remembering things like that makes me wonder what I might miss if I rely on them too much.

 

But I also really enjoy the freedom of movement they add, even when it has no practical benefit. Like being able to climb straight up from the caverns below Tarir to the canopy above it and then fly out across the jungle (there's some invisible walls to navigate around, but gaps between them as well).

 

I can see why other people don't like it though. I really enjoy exploration in games, especially that unpredictable kind where I don't know where I'm going to end up or what I'll find along the way, I can understand that if you don't like that and just want to get to your destination it would be very frustrating. But to me that's what RPGs are all about, not so much achieving specific goals as doing things as and when you come across them and seeing what happens as a result.

[LucianDK.8615]

Get your mounts and hot becomes trivial. It was challenging in the beginning with only the glider. Now the exploration is a total breeze. I love using the skyscale in verdant brink, so easy to get just about everywhere now.

[Ashantara.8731]

> @"Knighthonor.4061" said:

> I can only imagine what people had to go through before Mounts were added. That would have been a nightmare.

 

There is a reason some people I know quit GW2 around that time, many hated the HoT maps. Personally, I was shocked when I first entered Verdant Brink: no gliding skills, no mounts - it was really tough to come around. I returned half a year (!) later to give it another try and basically forced myself through the content until I finally had all the Masteries unlocked. Pretty bad game design in my opinion, as you can only enjoy the verticality with all the Masteries required.

[Naxos.2503]

Tangled Depths remains the only map I legitimately Abhor. Map is unreadable. Mounts only slightly mitigate the pain that is non-waypoint naviguation in that particular map. I do frequently find myself using glider more often than mounts in certain maps, like Verdant Brink and Dragon Stand, maps with a lot of air space and upward winds, maps with a lot of cliffs like Auric basin is definitely where I use my mounts the most.

[Redavv.2643]

Hot maps are amazing i know they seem terrible at first but if you spend some time to learn all the shortcuts and roots you can see the genius behind the design.