Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns

 PC
  • Publisher: NCSOFT
  • Release Date: Oct 23, 2015
User Score
7.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 981 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 670 out of 981
  2. Mixed: 72 out of 981
  3. Negative: 239 out of 981
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  1. Miyammoto
    Aug 31, 2021
    0
    Guild Wars 2 could be the best game in the world, but there is no Russian localization. Arena net is the most greedy company in the world. They sell the game, they sell skins in the game, but they can't find 3 cents for Russian localization. This is discrimination against the ru-community.
  2. Tenarus
    Apr 22, 2021
    2
    The phrase "never play on patch.-day" never fitted any game better then guild wars 2. Well and from patch-day I went to patch-week to patch-month, because not only are patches released incredibly buggy - they stay bugged for SEVERAL months if not years.
    Overall the storytelling is ok-ish. I've seen better, I've seen worse.
    The quality of the patches got worse and worse with every    The phrase "never play on patch.-day" never fitted any game better then guild wars 2. Well and from patch-day I went to patch-week to patch-month, because not only are patches released incredibly buggy - they stay bugged for SEVERAL months if not years.
    Overall the storytelling is ok-ish. I've seen better, I've seen worse.
    The quality of the patches got worse and worse with every release. The content feels like the same thing over and over again. Most things you do ingame are not rewarding at all. For players that spend a longer time ingame there is simply not enough to do. What do I mean by that? Let me tell you what my playtime looks like: Mondays I jump in the game, just to do the weekly raid reclears in like 2 hours (raids, that have been in the game for years. The release of the last raidwing is more than a year ago...) Some evenings I do a quick fractal run which cant keep my group entertained for more than 30 minutes. Farming at this point is pointless - you cant progress gear and I dont want to build duplicate legendaries. But Arenanet stated - against what players want - that there will be no more dungeons and as far as I know no more raids. Content draught which gets me to stop playing.

    And lastly the cashshop: What started off as some nice cosmetic rewards got a dump of putting new stuff in every other week just to earn more and more money. This isnt bad in itself, but selling CHAIRS? The shop got quite ridicculous...

    TL;DR So all in all: A game that started off good a while ago, but cant deliver any content that keeps you playing. To top all of this off the content that is currently in the game is severely bugged. Content in the game keeps you doing stuff for max ~4h/week if you clear all of it.    … Expand
  3. nemoo
    Feb 13, 2020
    0
    Dont play this game if you want a support team that cares for you, got 20000 gold taken away and when i showed them how i got the gold they just stopped responding to my emails really lazy support
  4. brightwish
    May 8, 2019
    3
    The gliders were a nice addition, but the multi height levels made the maps too difficult to navigate.
  5. ShinGlacier
    Dec 1, 2017
    0
    The game has a lot of potential, but ANet doesn't care about the players, they are more interested in their money instead.

    The game evolved since launch, that's true, but at quite a slow pace. The expansion stories were a lot shorter than the main one and a lot more convoluted. The new classes that were added with the expansions are a bit of a fresh air, but ANet doesn't know how    The game has a lot of potential, but ANet doesn't care about the players, they are more interested in their money instead.

    The game evolved since launch, that's true, but at quite a slow pace.

    The expansion stories were a lot shorter than the main one and a lot more convoluted.

    The new classes that were added with the expansions are a bit of a fresh air, but ANet doesn't know how to make them fit in the different aspects of the game (PVP, PVE, Raids).

    Spellbreaker from the last expansion doens't have a place in Raids, as an example. Scourge was so nerfed that it lost it's place in any raid for more than 3 months.

    ANet doesn't seem to test what they do and then it takes 2+ months for them to fix it.

    Classes are absurdly unbalanced in PVP, you can take an overpowered one and simply cheese you way to the top tiers.

    End game content (I include making new Legendary items, high level Fractals and Raid Wings in this category) are slow, very slow to come out. We had to wait 6 months for a new raid wing (had 4 before that), and ONE YEAR for 01 new fractal level. That is RIDICULOUS.
    The new legendary items are lackluster. As an example the new rifle and shield are simply garbage when compared to the previous ones. The medium legendary armor look absurdly crap, when compared with it's heavy and light counterparts.

    Now they decided and go heavy with the lootbox system. It was ALREADY present in the game, with Black Lion Chests, but now they decided to introduce Random Mounts for a price. When they are not random, which are 2 atm, they are extremely overpriced.

    Oh, and I forgot to mention that they slyly changed most of their servers to Amazon ones, giving most of their player base worse pings, while a minority ended up getting better pings, and they don't even acknowledge that.

    So yeah, that's it I guess. A game with potential, but huddled together with a greedy, lazy management.    … Expand
  6. alceste007
    Jul 30, 2017
    3
    I used to love GW2 until HoT came out. The maps are horrible for casual players. The maps feel like they were designed for players in ascended / legendary gear. Bottle necks that artificially restrict movement through the maps based on mastery while giving daily objectives that you cannot even reach out. For casual players I just recommend moving to different game.
  7. furyunleashed
    Jun 22, 2017
    2
    Be aware. Depending on what you look for in a mmorpg, this game does not have a lot to offer. It is also arguable NOT an P2W-mmo, but I would beg to differ. EVERYTHING remotely advantegous for your character/account, you have to pay. More space? Pay. Rent armor. Rent weapons. Rent, rent, rent. There are even passes for areas in the cities which has all the necessary vendors combined, andBe aware. Depending on what you look for in a mmorpg, this game does not have a lot to offer. It is also arguable NOT an P2W-mmo, but I would beg to differ. EVERYTHING remotely advantegous for your character/account, you have to pay. More space? Pay. Rent armor. Rent weapons. Rent, rent, rent. There are even passes for areas in the cities which has all the necessary vendors combined, and guess what? You have to RENT that space too. And if you are looking for a PvP-experience, this is not the game for you. You have 6 attacks/skills to play with, rest are buffs/self-healing. For 10 attacks, you can swap with secondary weapon.

    The only thing which has some entertainment-value is the world-events. Bosses spawn, and many player gather around to kill it, though it's mostly just dpsing, dying, getting ressed, rince and repeat.

    Gw2 has few 'moments', and is much less than it gives itself out for.
    97 hours of playtime (with lvl 80).    … Expand
  8. Bulmarth
    Apr 24, 2017
    1
    First $50 for an "expansion", to me it's something that could be added on a patch but not in an EXPANSION. Elite specialization now beat core specs, and you need them in order to compete in PvP or WvW. They added viper gear wich is mandatory for condition build and you only get the mats in HoT zones, so if you are F2P or had the core game only you are on a huge disadvantage.

    The other    First $50 for an "expansion", to me it's something that could be added on a patch but not in an EXPANSION. Elite specialization now beat core specs, and you need them in order to compete in PvP or WvW. They added viper gear wich is mandatory for condition build and you only get the mats in HoT zones, so if you are F2P or had the core game only you are on a huge disadvantage.

    The other thing is that ANet promised a lot of things and didn't deliver nothing of it, like new legendaries or even more they told that elite spec would be a "side grade" or an alternative way to play each class, but it ended up been a "power creep" and being a upgrade of the classes, just look reaper and chronomancer.    … Expand
  9. zaftgun
    Jan 23, 2017
    0
    if this game is worth a 10 in some eyes, then it is definitely a 0 in some eyes too and all those with bs marketing like language that's not worth the paper its printed on.

    1. Everything including the main story locked behind exp grind with almost no new content to back it up. You play the old content to grind exp. The new maps are small, very very few events repeat themselves at very    if this game is worth a 10 in some eyes, then it is definitely a 0 in some eyes too and all those with bs marketing like language that's not worth the paper its printed on.

    1. Everything including the main story locked behind exp grind with almost no new content to back it up. You play the old content to grind exp. The new maps are small, very very few events repeat themselves at very short intervals over and over. Merchants in each area require tokens from that specific map available only through grinding those few events.

    2. Expansion skills adds a huge damage spike and are way more effective than almost all pre-expansion skills. If you dont have the expansion then you are no where near as effective as you can be. There are also almost no non-expansion players. Essentially, if you dont have the expansion you might as well not play.

    3. The story is terrible, and very poorly made. I dont think I can recall anything worse.

    4. There are so many garbage items that serves almost no purpose or require so much grind and additional resource to make use of its just not worth the trouble unless you've got absolutely nothing to do. To top it off they make them and so many other things account bound. There's so much garbage that a 5 20 slot bags arent enough.

    5. After 5 years of guild wars 2 build template still not done. For some reason they thought they can send me an email before heart of the thorns release saying build templates is coming. As it stands its still not there. There's no weapon and armor sets switch option, so many redundant clicks to open bags, click through confirmations and so many more that is just so much pain.

    No where near any of the quality of guild wars 1 expansions. Utter garbage that is infuriating to experience. I want a refund.    … Expand
  10. ltmiroku
    Nov 13, 2016
    4
    the add on does in fact plenty of nice features. but my biggest turn off to this add on has got to be how you are playing the Exact same style of boss monster. when you start the game the first was about a Dragon that rises the dead and controls an army, the next story is about a dragon that raises plant characters that he controls. the dead were once living but controlled, thethe add on does in fact plenty of nice features. but my biggest turn off to this add on has got to be how you are playing the Exact same style of boss monster. when you start the game the first was about a Dragon that rises the dead and controls an army, the next story is about a dragon that raises plant characters that he controls. the dead were once living but controlled, the plants can be of created or a controlled race. The creativity here is Terrible to say the least!!

    Lets not forget the new zones will kill you, i just don't mean you picked a paper class death. i mean dear god you can have high defense and feel as if you are a paper class character. the damage is just to high! and the monsters use plenty of pulls, knockdowns and anything to kill you as often as they can its not creative!

    the maps themselves are very hard and is very confusing at times that you might get lost or frustrated that these high damaging monsters are making it hard to figure out where your at!

    Cash Shops seem to been on the rise with the add on as well, seems if you want another character slot it is 10$ per slot! sound fair to you? i felt ripped off! personally!

    I'm uncertain what Anet was thinking with this add on, but they certainly have created a mess :(    … Expand
  11. MasterMangoose
    Oct 11, 2016
    0
    Used to be the game you could play how you wanted to get the gear you wanted. Now caters to the WoW exodus and has lost it's way by giving in to the elitist who have segregated a formerly good community in to the "leets" and the "git guds". Raids, eSports, and whiners who forgot they were playing an MMO wanting the content to be increasingly more challenging have ruined a good thing.Used to be the game you could play how you wanted to get the gear you wanted. Now caters to the WoW exodus and has lost it's way by giving in to the elitist who have segregated a formerly good community in to the "leets" and the "git guds". Raids, eSports, and whiners who forgot they were playing an MMO wanting the content to be increasingly more challenging have ruined a good thing. The expansion was a joke and instead of fixing the problem They move forward to the promise of the next expansion. The game itself is horribly optimized, only works well on certain CPUs and GPUs, and is constantly bugged. There are serious game breaking bugs that have been left to be suffered through since the games release four years ago.

    More so to the expansion in general is that we were completely lied to as to what we would receive after we paid for it. Much of the new content was hidden behind raids which we were promised wouldn't be required to play the game. However it is if you want the top tier armor which was to come with the expansion. (which hasn't been released even a year after the expansion came out)    … Expand
  12. Ellthan
    Aug 26, 2016
    0
    I just paid 40 **** bucks for this game.

    Upon installing and logging in for the first time I was immediately banned for gold selling before I even got to play the game.

    I don't even know what gold selling is.
  13. Basedshitposter
    Aug 12, 2016
    0
    Many things advertised in the expansion delayed for over a year or didnt come out/canceled completely. Long drought of content updates. Game was better Pre HoT.
  14. RedCombLP
    Jul 8, 2016
    0
    HoT expansion turned this once fine game into a p2w gear grind. WvW now is totally unbalanced (power creep of HoT classes against old classes is unforgivable). It's clear the devs want to funnel everybody into buying HoT, so if you are an old player who prefers to play older classes, you will be left out in the cold. Worse still, many of the HoT features like the guild hall took away a lotHoT expansion turned this once fine game into a p2w gear grind. WvW now is totally unbalanced (power creep of HoT classes against old classes is unforgivable). It's clear the devs want to funnel everybody into buying HoT, so if you are an old player who prefers to play older classes, you will be left out in the cold. Worse still, many of the HoT features like the guild hall took away a lot of hard work previously completed by guilds, and if you aren't a HoT player, you have no real access to any of the stuff in the guild hall (sure, you can go there and look around, but none of the NPCs will actually let you do anything unless you buy HoT). It's clear Anet doesn't care about older players who don't like pve content and don't appreciate how OP and unbalanced all of the new classes/elite specs are. We don't make them money so they gave us the bird. Hope all the p2w people who love pve gear treadmills enjoy, because I'm done.… Expand
  15. themangoose
    Jun 14, 2016
    0
    Not worth the money. They sold us a box of promises, but when we opened it there were only likes. Half of what was promised with the expansion has been cancelled in lieu of more gemstore updates. Raids ruined the game as the only way to get top armor gear now is behind only one game mode. The game has chanced and you're going to hate the community now. They sold out to make all ofNot worth the money. They sold us a box of promises, but when we opened it there were only likes. Half of what was promised with the expansion has been cancelled in lieu of more gemstore updates. Raids ruined the game as the only way to get top armor gear now is behind only one game mode. The game has chanced and you're going to hate the community now. They sold out to make all of the WoW transfers happy. WvW is a joke and they promote match fixing.… Expand
  16. johnyboy420
    May 31, 2016
    0
    this Xpac is a waste of money plain and simple!

    only real reason i got HOT waz for the claimed PVP matchmaker that waz released late and is 100X worse then Mechwarrior:online's matchmaker......LOL thats saying alot (-_-) then WvW new cliff fall simulator that is EZ'er then hell too get lost in and has tons of broken PVE in it only now too get thrown away and bring back the old    this Xpac is a waste of money plain and simple!

    only real reason i got HOT waz for the claimed PVP matchmaker that waz released late and is 100X worse then Mechwarrior:online's matchmaker......LOL thats saying alot (-_-)

    then WvW new cliff fall simulator that is EZ'er then hell too get lost in and has tons of broken PVE in it
    only now too get thrown away and bring back the old map's.....lawl too bad this Xpac killed my server RIP

    i give this Xpac a zero for giving me **** all but making me more toxic and not giving me a descent MatchMaker, for a PVP RPG lover this game is trash now not worth the 50 bucks even if they give you a Free 80 too start your game    … Expand
  17. DanteYoda
    May 8, 2016
    2
    Guildwars 2 is no longer for casual players, you enjoy solo play this expansion is not for you..The game has completely forgotten its values of when it was released, everything they stood for is gone.

    What do you have to look forward to in Heart of Thorns Mind numbing difficult, what ever happened to fun enjoyable game play?, nope the hardcore cancer that is infecting a lot of games    Guildwars 2 is no longer for casual players, you enjoy solo play this expansion is not for you..The game has completely forgotten its values of when it was released, everything they stood for is gone.

    What do you have to look forward to in Heart of Thorns

    Mind numbing difficult, what ever happened to fun enjoyable game play?, nope the hardcore cancer that is infecting a lot of games these days has well and truly got its claws into HoT, to the point of unplayable solo, Arenanet claim they've made it easier but that is completely false.

    Grind - of multiple types, you name its its there, loot grind, exp grind, resources grind, consumables grind, as of writing this i cannot think of a part of HoT that doesn't have horrible grind attached to it.

    Rng - The randomness is mind boggling, everything you'd ever want is locked behind some ungodly rng so good luck ever seeing it.

    Half of what they promised has not even been added to this day, Legendaries nope that's all over now. sorry if you purchased this for them.

    Honestly if you value your money stay clear, the game is losing population badly.    … Expand
  18. Cosmicegg37
    Apr 7, 2016
    1
    I've been enjoying the Guild Wars franchise since the release of Guild Wars 1 and I had high hopes for Guild Wars 2 heart of thorns they advertise exciting content but failed to deliver parts of the game has been scrapped completely after failed promises after failed promises I cannot recommend this game
  19. StormageddonBK
    Apr 6, 2016
    0
    I've played since launch and love the game but HoT isn't fun, AT ALL! To play any part of the new content you NEED to grind masteries and only the new classes are competitive.

    HoT changes killed WvW. It has a new laggy PvE filled border lands and you now need to grind outside WvW in PvE to level guild halls for WvW. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in game design and    I've played since launch and love the game but HoT isn't fun, AT ALL! To play any part of the new content you NEED to grind masteries and only the new classes are competitive.

    HoT changes killed WvW. It has a new laggy PvE filled border lands and you now need to grind outside WvW in PvE to level guild halls for WvW. This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of in game design and totally ruins dedicated WvW play.

    Actually no, I stand corrected, there is something more stupid! They cancelled the new legendary weapons development 6 months after launch (which they advertised and took money for), plus the loooooong awaited WvW update has been delayed and isn't anywhere to be seen. How hard is it to deliver on these 2 sales points that you accepted money for? They now say the legendary team has been re-purposed... seriously!!! What else is going to drop in the future? Oh and they have been developing the next expansion with 70 devs while this expansion suffers!!! OMG. fool me once...never again Anet!    … Expand
  20. Exfan
    Mar 25, 2016
    1
    How to ruin decent game:
    1. New dailies less to choose from in pve content wise same areas repeating event side, usually daily fractals and certain level ones so its like 2/5 usually filled with these and always 1 world boss you could actually wait 1h to 30 mins to get daily boss done. Pve content and group pve content should be 2 separate things and for **** sake more choices.
    2. New    How to ruin decent game:
    1. New dailies less to choose from in pve content wise same areas repeating event side, usually daily fractals and certain level ones so its like 2/5 usually filled with these and always 1 world boss you could actually wait 1h to 30 mins to get daily boss done. Pve content and group pve content should be 2 separate things and for **** sake more choices.
    2. New mastery system forced content must do storyline, must own, buy and must get certain achievement while doing storyline if not your character progress just stops until you advance in storyline to get enough mastery points so you are forced play game certain way.
    3. New classes some are just lame some are just overpowered. New class revenant is just grind skill points to open each stance and open all skills in each stance. There ain't lot of customization because skills require certain stance to use perhaps most boring class to play. As for other classes game is just skillpoint grind fest need 30 open weapon for profession and of course you need to use almost empty skill three to use weapon.
    Perhaps they have started fix these things but haven't been bothered to play game is not for casuals anymore it is becoming just like wow boring and old no life grindfest. Sadly i am casual and proud of it.    … Expand
  21. Lechasseur
    Mar 8, 2016
    2
    This expansion has completely decimated the community. Entire guilds have been killed due to players no longer logging in because of how dead the content is. WvW is broken(more so tham usual) and has been broken since October. PVE is dead to those who like content other than brainlessly following a group. The new maps are pretty sure, but theu just hide the fact that all they have are theThis expansion has completely decimated the community. Entire guilds have been killed due to players no longer logging in because of how dead the content is. WvW is broken(more so tham usual) and has been broken since October. PVE is dead to those who like content other than brainlessly following a group. The new maps are pretty sure, but theu just hide the fact that all they have are the same events over and over. The tangled depths are a huge **** This expansion isnt worth $10 let alone $50.… Expand
  22. skilliard
    Mar 7, 2016
    1
    For $50 you get an expansion that has roughly 8 hours worth of content. Then it gets boring again. The game is pay2win. There are never any content updates anymore besides paid DLC. Combat is dull and uninspired.
  23. marc5477
    Feb 13, 2016
    3
    Grind GRing GRInd GRINd GRIND!!! Thats all this expansion is.

    I am a fan of GW2 despite its many flaws and was hoping for something new in this expansion but alas, it was a let down. Not only is the content just more of the same (zerg this, zerg that) but they made it grindy as hell... they created new currency for each of the new zones that forces the player to grind the same cycle of    Grind GRing GRInd GRINd GRIND!!! Thats all this expansion is.

    I am a fan of GW2 despite its many flaws and was hoping for something new in this expansion but alas, it was a let down. Not only is the content just more of the same (zerg this, zerg that) but they made it grindy as hell... they created new currency for each of the new zones that forces the player to grind the same cycle of quests more than a hundred times to get the items in each map. The quests are just like old world quests and just as boring when you have to repeat them.

    The one notable difference is the enemies are harder but not in a good way. They simply have more hit points and hit harder but they dont do anything interesting and for the most part, they do not require any strategy or anything like that to beat. Think Planes of Power in EQ (which is when that MMO fell apart as well). Its just the same enemies from the old game but hit harder and take longer to kill. The problem is that they are still trivially easy to beat so all this does is make the grind even worse. On top of all that, there is no reason to fight them... and that is the real killer. You dont get better loot for killing them because they didnt add any new loot to the game... just new skins for the same old same and thus, there is no point to any of it.

    The only cool new mechanic is the ability to glide from a fall... but its not as if you need this in the old world for anything. Other than that, no interest new items (just new looks/skins), no interest bosses (they are all just zerg fests like old bosses) and lastly, the story is clearly contrived and an afterthought and not nearly as good as the original game quest.

    I had to remember that this game is made by a Korean company and Koreans are known for their grindy MMO's like Lineage, which many western gamers (like myself) get bored of very quickly.

    There is no reason to own this expansion. Just play the original game and once you are bored move on. This brings nothing worthwhile to the table.    … Expand
  24. TMachine
    Feb 5, 2016
    4
    If you pay attention it becomes clear how A-net is running this business. I don't feel like writing another long wall of text, we've done plenty of those on official forums.
  25. Zlare
    Feb 3, 2016
    3
    The little content of this overpriced expansion cant bring the game back to life. Guild Wars 2 looks outdated and gameplay feels okay but the story is short and after that there is once again nothing. Guild Wars continues its story of having very litle to do after finishing the story. Of course you can always go into the world and spend hours collecting more hero points but they is veryThe little content of this overpriced expansion cant bring the game back to life. Guild Wars 2 looks outdated and gameplay feels okay but the story is short and after that there is once again nothing. Guild Wars continues its story of having very litle to do after finishing the story. Of course you can always go into the world and spend hours collecting more hero points but they is very little to do with those hero points. What is the point of upgrading your character if you could do all the content before those upgrades aswell?
    Sadly all new areas are made of meta events which require a lot of people to participate. That worked the first time after release but now the areas are rather empty. Also the interesting quest design from the normal GW2 is complety gone. The new areas consist only of meta events.
    Sadly this expansion doesn't change anything about the concept of GW2 of being a game where progress means very little and endgame is nonexistent.    … Expand
  26. Woahstrewth
    Jan 25, 2016
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Speaking as someone who has played nearly every game mode and has sunk over 4000 hours into the game I can say that I am pretty well versed in the game. After hearing about Heart of Thorns and the myriad of changes it would bring to the game I was understandably excited. When it launched it seemed to be everything I had hoped for and completely renewed my interest for about a month or so. But as time went on I noticed a strange and bitter taste developing every time I logged on to play, which I was doing less and less. Something was off about it, and the more I thought the more I realized just how much about this expansion I disliked.

    Art and Design: As usual it's top notch, probably the most beautiful MMO I've ever played. SOME (not all) of the new zones are really cool, my personal favorite being the golden city of Tarir and Auric Basin in general. Overall though the four new zones and two new guild halls and raid are just ok in my book. They're each about half the size of the vanilla maps or a bit more and some of them are just kind of dull (Verdant Brink and Dragon's Stand are fairly bland).

    Progression: Ah the Mastery System, where to start. It's essentially Anet's way of putting in end game progression, but I have numerous problems with their implementation. First off, and there's no way of sugar coating it, it is a total grind to get everything, and for very little reward. Everything you are grinding for has nothing to do with stats, or really anything, it just has to with being able to navigate the new zones more easily, or with getting small bonuses in already existing content such as fractals. The new "Legendary Journey" to craft a precursor is a joke, and it's still cheaper in most cases to just outright buy the thing. I was able to finish all central tyria masteries but gave up after I reached Mastery level 89 as I just couldn't be bothered, they gave me no incentive or reason to continue, I could care less about gliding marginally faster in these specific areas.

    The Story: Alot of people are giving the expansion tons of praise for how much better the story it tells is. I have to admit that through the living story Arenanet obviously learned some things about telling more interesting stories. But to be completely honest, though it is leaps and bounds better than the original story quests, I still found it completely laughable at best. The entire thing is over in about two hours barring the required mastery grinds in order to progress, and it does nothing new or interesting with the characters. Not to mention explaining how exactly Canach ended up with us? Also that Vinetooth Faolain thing is **** hilarious to look at and not menacing in the slightest. Compared to other MMOs such as WoW and FF14 the story is entirely mediocre.

    Elite Specs and PvP: Yes, PvP is a complete dumping ground atm, with elite spec metas totally dominating and imbalance rampant. WvW's new borderlands have been rethemed as Deserts, which is entirely fitting because they are almost completely and always empty. Most of the Elite Specs are cool to mess around with and take a bit to unlock but they don't really do much in redeeming the overall expansion.

    Dungeons and Raids: So if there is one thing I really can't complain that much about it's what Anet did to Fractals of the Mists, shortening and streamlining it, making it more accessable, albeit with reduced rewards, but that is symptematic of something even worse. Other than that and the new raid, there is no other new instanced content, not even a single new dungeon. The Raids are also awkward stilted affairs, far too difficult for any casual players to finish but also lacking any true sort of reward or stat upgrade. They get more of a resounding meh.

    My main problem with the game is what the expansion did to instance rewards and rewards in general since the f2p coversion. If you want any hope of keeping up with the "End Game" or really accomplishing anything, you need gold. Gold in the game has always been alot harder to come by than almost any other mmo but now since they neutered the rewards from every dungeon, it is almost mandatory to spend real money and transfer it to gold to get anything done this century in the game. It is incredibly disheartening and just makes you realize the completely shallow nature of the expansion and the game itself in the current state.

    tl;dr Don't waste your money on the game in it's current state, there are mmos out there far more deserving of your time and effort that do what this game tries to do better in almost everyway. Try Heavensward on FF14 or even Warlords of Draenor for WoW over this.    … Expand
  27. Patriarch
    Jan 16, 2016
    2
    Hated it. Four maps for full expansion price. Lots of mini-games. Content gated behind masteries. Anet is obviously moving towards "grinding". Each map has its own currency, which clutters up your inventory. Not casual-friendly like the core game. I went back to the core maps before reaching the fourth map.

    The new masteries seem cool, and Revenant is fun to play, but you have to buy a    Hated it. Four maps for full expansion price. Lots of mini-games. Content gated behind masteries. Anet is obviously moving towards "grinding". Each map has its own currency, which clutters up your inventory. Not casual-friendly like the core game. I went back to the core maps before reaching the fourth map.

    The new masteries seem cool, and Revenant is fun to play, but you have to buy a character slot for it separately unless you want to delete one of your characters. I have no idea why Anet thought it would be a good idea to charge $50 for an expansion with a new profession and not include a character slot.

    Overall, it feels like the whole expansion is geared towards gold sinks and time sinks. Any future expansions will be a hard-sell after my intense dislike for this one.

    On a side-note, Anet is already tempering expectations for the new living story (LS3). They said there will be fewer updates, but they will be "richer". they also said they will be splitting their time between LS3 and the next expansion.    … Expand
  28. Pst
    Jan 10, 2016
    0
    If you take away the bells and whistles of the "mastery system", this "expansion" brings nothing new or innovating to the game. The new maps are terribly designed, expect to spend a lot of time taxiing into an active map. WvW is still neglected, dungeons are pretty much forgotten and the story is very short. I lost interest in HoT 2 weeks into it. The raids do not feel epic whatsoever, itIf you take away the bells and whistles of the "mastery system", this "expansion" brings nothing new or innovating to the game. The new maps are terribly designed, expect to spend a lot of time taxiing into an active map. WvW is still neglected, dungeons are pretty much forgotten and the story is very short. I lost interest in HoT 2 weeks into it. The raids do not feel epic whatsoever, it doesn't feel right without the trinity. I have more negative things to say about this game and company but am feeling too salty to write anymore. I regrettably purchased the ultimate edition. I won't be supporting Anet ever again.… Expand
  29. UPRC
    Jan 10, 2016
    1
    I'd give it something higher than a 1/10, maybe even a passing grade, if I could progress past the start. I simply can't. I've died over 20 times since stepping foot into the first new zone and trying to do the first story mission. I had no problems in this game before the expansion, and I'm leveling a revenant without any problems... so why is it so hard now? I literally can't progressI'd give it something higher than a 1/10, maybe even a passing grade, if I could progress past the start. I simply can't. I've died over 20 times since stepping foot into the first new zone and trying to do the first story mission. I had no problems in this game before the expansion, and I'm leveling a revenant without any problems... so why is it so hard now? I literally can't progress past the first story mission in Dry Tops or wherever I am. I wanted an MMO to play, so I came back to GW2 and I bought the expansion despite being fairly poor, but I figured I'd get hours of enjoyment out of it and that would offset the cost of the expansion. I feel like I just threw money away instead, money that could have gone towards groceries and such. This is just stupidly difficult, and I was never a bad player previously. Way to go ArenaNet, you've probably left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people.… Expand
  30. Adrenalin
    Jan 3, 2016
    0
    Cash Grab Wars 2: Heart for Gems - This expansion is nothing but an insult to its playerbase. Way too less new content, dumb destroying of old content (dungeons, wvw, class balancing) and above all, the complete destruction of ingame rewards (especially liquid gold drops) in order to force players to GEMS->GOLD. The whole game is completely pointless these days because everythingCash Grab Wars 2: Heart for Gems - This expansion is nothing but an insult to its playerbase. Way too less new content, dumb destroying of old content (dungeons, wvw, class balancing) and above all, the complete destruction of ingame rewards (especially liquid gold drops) in order to force players to GEMS->GOLD. The whole game is completely pointless these days because everything meaningful gets accomplished faster with a McDonald's job rather than actually playing the game.

    If you compare this with WoW:WoD, WoD introduced stupid browser game stuff with its mission table gameplay-wise; HoT made GW2 a browser game reward-wise. And I'm talking about **** p2w browser games, no quality stuff like CoC.

    This mindless greed of Anet will be the downfall of the company and the game. And that is well justified.    … Expand
  31. Linnavisa
    Jan 2, 2016
    0
    Heart of Thorns should be labeled with a warning that the game is not intended for players that are a little bit slow when it comes to move a character around or having a little bit slower reaction. This game is impossible to progress if not able to participate in all tasks related to the new leveling system with mastery points. The game lacks options for collecting the needed masteryHeart of Thorns should be labeled with a warning that the game is not intended for players that are a little bit slow when it comes to move a character around or having a little bit slower reaction. This game is impossible to progress if not able to participate in all tasks related to the new leveling system with mastery points. The game lacks options for collecting the needed mastery points as many points requires the ability to play arcade games or mini games with a very short timer and other hard achievements. If unable to complete some of the tasks related to mastery points there is no way to progress and level up a character. This game is sloppy and thoughtless, not a worthy expansion to core Guild Wars 2.

    Also be aware that what is referred to as adventures has nothing to do with the game genre adventure. The adventures in this game are a mix between arcade and mini games. Those arcade or mini games are tightly tied to the in game essential mastery points needed for leveling a characters abilities.    … Expand
  32. Etay
    Dec 26, 2015
    3
    wvw is dead now because of this expansion and lots of lags
    the expansion is not needed if you use your old class in pvp or wvw..
    and in my opinion the new maps suck!
  33. WiLdEcaRd
    Dec 18, 2015
    3
    It turned out that A.Net is one of the most unworthy of my attention group of developers and HoT's is nothing more than grind fest.All there manifesto is out of the window,and so it remains for me nothing else but to leave this sinking ship.
    3/10 for beautiful graphics and musical setting.
  34. truereviewforyo
    Dec 13, 2015
    2
    The game is amazing when you are running solo or in a small party. The UI is friendly for solo play, but when it comes down to figuring out how the guild actions work, you are left with asking questions that it come with no explanation. The functions for party/guild play are very confusing....and most of the time you will get a guild friend that will never answer your question, but giveThe game is amazing when you are running solo or in a small party. The UI is friendly for solo play, but when it comes down to figuring out how the guild actions work, you are left with asking questions that it come with no explanation. The functions for party/guild play are very confusing....and most of the time you will get a guild friend that will never answer your question, but give you a link to a portal that gives you no help. I mean, come on, don't link a portal, you can answer 1 question cant you? Instead, here's a portal that you haven't discovered (cant travel to), instead of answering if it were possible to craft weapons. WTF is that?
    I've had the "benefit" of joining llama and AARM and it was absolutely horrible. They post that they are noob friendly, but that is complete bullchit, I have been an mmo gamer for 12+ years and they couldn't answer the simplest of questions concerning the UI for guild use. For instance, invited to a guild/ party instance or set of quests, they would link a portal and when someone showed up, they would disappear and leave you wondering. Asking questions was a waste of time, just another link to a portal that no one is at.

    Most people brag that they have been a GW player for 8 years, but cant answer the simplest of questions. ~Hey, Im great at this game, what was the question and what do you mean by how I can help you?~ Full of morons! Play time doesn't make you a leader, knowledge does.

    If you want a great solo game that isn't as bad, as most, this is definitely the game. Tons of content with some quests that had me laughing. Keep in mind that most are slayer quests and you will be battling...or searching for the correct area to complete the quests. Annoying at times, but fun.

    Just be careful of which guild you join if you want to excel at the game and have fun with friends.    … Expand
  35. onegamer1
    Dec 12, 2015
    4
    tl:dr - HoT is the worst production of ANET's Guild Wars franchise so far. With HoT ANET embraced the repetitive; grindy; gold for cash free to play MMO model. Lack of creative design is evident in an otherwise aesthetically beautiful game.

    HoT is an expansion content of Guild Wars 2 that takes players inside Maguuma jungle. However, in reality, it is basically 4 sets of events on 4    tl:dr - HoT is the worst production of ANET's Guild Wars franchise so far. With HoT ANET embraced the repetitive; grindy; gold for cash free to play MMO model. Lack of creative design is evident in an otherwise aesthetically beautiful game.

    HoT is an expansion content of Guild Wars 2 that takes players inside Maguuma jungle. However, in reality, it is basically 4 sets of events on 4 maps.

    The good:

    10/10 - Art and Aethetics: ANET Artists truly add character to the environment. Tangled Depths is the most beautiful and ambitious map design that I have ever seen in any MMO. It's disorienting, confusing, challenging and beautiful all at the same time. It gives you the feel of entering a jungle, an unknown place where fearful enemies lurk in the shadows. You will lose your way; you will be frustrated, unhappy and probably close the game after a few deaths. Howeever, eventually as you explore and learn the ways of the jungle, you will find how beautifully it's layered. A lot of things are happening in each layer and as an inhabitant of the jungle you will know how to traverse it quickly, safely and without frustration.

    8/10 - Difficulty: ANET abandoned play as you like model of GW2 core game where you can run from a level 1 zone to level 80 final zones wearing basic gear. In this expansion, that is no more the case. Equipment matters. Knowing what skills you have on the skillbar helps and knowing how to use those skills effectively helps even more. Maguuma is a jungle and not a theme park; it's dangerous. You will feel that way when you play HoT. Would you like that feeling? I don't know. But, I think it's realistic.

    The bad:

    2/10 - Meta event system: The event chains, meta events, in Maguuma are quite long. ANET, for some inexplicable reason, wants the playerbase to stay logged in the game for a long time and on the very same map with the same IP address. Participation in the event is logged and tracked for each player. Players are rewarded for longer participation and awarded in small bits at certain stages of event progression with main /final award distributed at the end of the event chain based on player's particiaption in the meta chain. This design makes players vulnerable to inadvertent disconnects losing progression and eventually the final rewards. For example, if a player who was completing one event for last 90 minutes and suddenly gets disconnected, upon logging back that player will lose all contribution to the event if he/she is lucky to get back to the same map instance and start from scratch. In most cases, that player would not be able to get back to the map instance because it would be full if it was an instance where the event was organized.

    1/10 - Gearing for endgame: The endgame of HoT is raid. A minority group of total population play the content because it's hard and arguably pointless from the perspective of current game design of equipment upgrades. Not everyone's lifestyle or skill suits this content. To make things more absurd, you need to spend nearly 1000+ gold just to get the equipment to get ready for this content. It can be argued that one does not need to spend so much gold to do raid. And theoretically, it's true. One can join a group with less than desirable gear only to be replaced promptly with someone who already has the better gear. One can also try to join a guild to raid with less than desirable gear choices. However, finding such a guild in reality and then succeeding in raiding with that guild probably has a lesser chance than winning a decent prize in a state lottery.

    0/10 - Legendary Weapons/skins: There are no legends associated with them except the cost to make one. It was the result of an extremely poor content design that ANET promised to fix in the core game but, kept on dillydallying for 3+ years and never fixed them. With the launch of HoT, ANET made a huge deal about how they changed the existing system to a "journey" to give players content to enjoy while pursuing this "legendary" journey. What they actually did was nothing but taking a bad system and making it worse. In addition to spending 2000+ gold in getting a skin/weapon, the player will have to do chores, sabotage events (for example, if the map population wants to complete an event chain, player on the legendary journey will have to negotiate with all the players on the map to purposefully fail certain number of events to start an event that will reward an item this journeyman can use to progress on his legendary quest), wake up odd hours at night or log on odd hours during day to check if a particular event/NPC is available (in fact that's exactly what I am doing right now on Plains of Ashford while waiting for Siegemaster Lormar event to trigger.. and I am doing that for last 2 days for more than 5+ hours) and, among other nuisances, gather 150000+ material to craft the weapon.

    Please check reddit, google etc. to know what to expect from HoT before spending money and time.    … Expand
  36. Oxicleen
    Dec 11, 2015
    2
    Game has been redesigned to feed the cash cow NCSoft, PvE, PvP, WvW, Dungeons, Fractals, and Raids are all lacking rewards to fit the Cash->Gems->Gold conversion system since the game is starting to fail. Pay heed to the 200+ negative reviews as they are from the actual players who have been here since 2012, the positive reviews are usually from "first impression" reviewers who haveGame has been redesigned to feed the cash cow NCSoft, PvE, PvP, WvW, Dungeons, Fractals, and Raids are all lacking rewards to fit the Cash->Gems->Gold conversion system since the game is starting to fail. Pay heed to the 200+ negative reviews as they are from the actual players who have been here since 2012, the positive reviews are usually from "first impression" reviewers who have probably invested less than 10 hours into the gameplay and have not realized the game LOOKS good, but it's not good anymore. It's a painted horse, there to entice you to pay your money and then realize how little there is in the end.

    DO NOT buy the expansion. There is a reason why this game went free to play.    … Expand
  37. jellorageh
    Dec 9, 2015
    0
    They released a broken, unfinished expansion that didn't deliver half the things it promised. I got maybe two weeks out of it. Not only did they make an expansion that is riddled with progress blocking pugs, incredible grind and major oversights, missing items... they also broke the core game in the progress.
  38. MechVampyre
    Dec 9, 2015
    0
    while pre-HoT core speccs needed buffs, nerfs, fixes they ignored it and threw in all this elite speccs with HoT which are mostly overpowered.
    everything depends on passives and stupidly smashing buttons for aoe-rekt everything within range...
    on the other side you have thief with his cool evade animations and so on... most of the time theyre hopping around while stealthed and then    while pre-HoT core speccs needed buffs, nerfs, fixes they ignored it and threw in all this elite speccs with HoT which are mostly overpowered.
    everything depends on passives and stupidly smashing buttons for aoe-rekt everything within range...
    on the other side you have thief with his cool evade animations and so on... most of the time theyre hopping around while stealthed and then getting accidently rekt by random aoe spamming and appear from stealth downed a few seconds later...
    whole balance has become a bad joke...    … Expand
  39. inocciduous
    Dec 7, 2015
    4
    Very good
    - General area aesthetics and art design. Considering this is still running on DX9 - it's top notch.
    - Gliding, albeit not as functional as Archeage's, but still good. - Music is fantastic Good - New class specialisations. Average - The core story - Meta events and questing (I'm putting this here ONLY because you need to use your head a little when dealing with NPCs    Very good
    - General area aesthetics and art design. Considering this is still running on DX9 - it's top notch.
    - Gliding, albeit not as functional as Archeage's, but still good.
    - Music is fantastic

    Good
    - New class specialisations.

    Average
    - The core story
    - Meta events and questing (I'm putting this here ONLY because you need to use your head a little when dealing with NPCs instead of 1-1-1-1-1-1-1). Quite frankly, the repeating meta-events got tiresome after two weeks, are compulsory to progress in the mastery system and also are required for specific deeds (which can get very, very, very tedious).
    - The mastery system.

    No so good
    - Vanilla GW2 rewards have been nerfed into next year.
    - Revoked the 'play as you like’ philosophy for many aspects of gameplay.
    - Class imbalances (will be addressed 'next year'). Right now, vanilla characters are somewhat-to- extremely-weak compared to their ‘specialised’ counterparts.
    - Where is GW2's no grind philosophy? Excessive grinding for 'pseudo-progression', items, specific map currency and increased crafting values for items.
    - Still have not addressed the core mechanics and issues (mass population stacking, zerging etc) associated with WvW, nor rewards going on three years. This really does surprise me as the game mode has such promise due to the gameplay and combat mechanics, but it's still totally neglected.
    - Any previously upgraded guild has been completely guttered and set back to 'level one' (so to speak), even if you purchased upgrades with a gem conversion. This content is masked behind months of tedious grind. WvW (gamemode) upgrades are also locked behind excessive PvE content and resource grind (which to me seems rather silly given that it IS for WvW) and really doesn't favour guilds with less than 15 players at all. To be honest, it seems like the guild system was purely introduced in this state as a 'fix' for the GW2 economy with zero consideration given to the WvW demographic (who get minimum rewards as it is). In this way, the guild system itself is pretty poorly thought-out, moreover the inherent mechanics between players - guild.    … Expand
  40. karitata
    Dec 5, 2015
    0
    Core Guild Wars 2 had a rich content with many options to level and progress a character. In core Guild Wars 2 there was no requirement to complete sub content like map completion, achievements, jumping puzzles or mini games. HoT offers no options at all. To be able to level and progress a character in HoT all tasks related to mastery points needed to unlock mastery skills has to beCore Guild Wars 2 had a rich content with many options to level and progress a character. In core Guild Wars 2 there was no requirement to complete sub content like map completion, achievements, jumping puzzles or mini games. HoT offers no options at all. To be able to level and progress a character in HoT all tasks related to mastery points needed to unlock mastery skills has to be completed. If not able to complete all tasks there is no way to progress further in the game. Not only is it a flaw it is also simple-minded. It would be interesting to learn why the developing team decided to lock out players with an even so slight maneuvering trouble.… Expand
  41. cygnarite
    Dec 2, 2015
    1
    This review is from a PvP perspective.

    I'll begin with a summary: If you're a fan of PvP, avoid this steaming pile at all costs. Actual balance between classes is subjective, so we won't talk about that, but it is clear with HoT that some classes are winners (Revenant, tempest), and other classes are losers (Thief, warrior). The developer has broken their promise of releasing    This review is from a PvP perspective.

    I'll begin with a summary: If you're a fan of PvP, avoid this steaming pile at all costs.

    Actual balance between classes is subjective, so we won't talk about that, but it is clear with HoT that some classes are winners (Revenant, tempest), and other classes are losers (Thief, warrior).

    The developer has broken their promise of releasing balance patches multiple times since HoT was released with absolutely no explanation as to why.

    The developer constantly sneaks in unannounced ("stealth") changes to classes with no acknowledgement in the patch notes or reasoning to the playerbase.

    Balance patches happen once ever 6 months, if that, giving OP specs months to dominate the meta and make the game unfun. When they finally get around to "fixing" it, said spec is always nerfed into the ground and unplayable rather than fixed.

    There's STILL no PTS (public test server). Every single patch rolls out with a ridiculous amount of bugs that require 2-7 days to fix. Bugs that existed at launch still exist in the game now.

    Honestly, I could go on for another 5-10 points, but do i really need to? Spend your hard earned cash elsewhere.    … Expand
  42. razor1000
    Dec 1, 2015
    3
    I'll narrate how I went from loving this game to barely playing it nowadays. This review will mostly address the PVP content and "balance" in game. I have bought HoT (Heart of Thorns) by the way, in case in my review it might sound like I haven't.

    I play every game mode in GW2 (PVE, PVP), from release (2012). I've always considered this game to be excellent in many aspects, but if I had    I'll narrate how I went from loving this game to barely playing it nowadays. This review will mostly address the PVP content and "balance" in game. I have bought HoT (Heart of Thorns) by the way, in case in my review it might sound like I haven't.

    I play every game mode in GW2 (PVE, PVP), from release (2012). I've always considered this game to be excellent in many aspects, but if I had to what I liked the most it would hands down be the combat system. A game can look gorgeous, have amazing lore and community, but in my opinion if it has a dull combat system, I wouldn't see myself playing for long.

    To describe my playstyle in general, it would be versatilty, and complex mechanics. I like to challenge myself in various game genres to play the unused characters, or the ones with the highest risk and reward. Sadly, that kind of playstyle no longer exists in GW2.

    Why? Because ArenaNet (GW2 developer) don't have a clue when it comes to proper pvp balance. This is not overreacting, I'm not one of those idiots quick to cry OP to anything I can't beat. This is a reality in this game. There's so much wrong with ArenaNet's recent approach to pvp balance that I'll break it down in 4 different paragraphs:

    1. Unbelievable power creep: With HoT, elite specializations were introduced (think of them as enhanced base professions). Every single one of these is blatantly and disgustingly better than their base counterparts. I really can't tell if ArenaNet planned this in order to force people to buy HoT to remain competitive, or if they're that inept when it comes to proper pvp balance. It goes to show how bad the power creep is when the hands down BEST build pre HoT in pvp cannot even hold a candle to these new elite specializations. The funniest part is that ArenaNet as a company has pursued becoming an E-Sport with their pvp for a long time. They aim for their pvp to be competitive and widespread yet you CANNOT COMPETE if you don't own the expansion (due to not having the elite specs, thus being forced to use non-viable builds), where's the logic in this?

    2. Lies, and more lies: The pvp season just started. Yes, in December the 1st, over 1 month after HoT was released. An ArenaNet dev stated that 2 weeks before each pvp season, there would be a balance patch related to pvp. Needless to say that didn't happen. Back at the start of November, we learned that the actual pvp season wouldn't start until a month later. We were hopeful. The consensus was that ArenaNet was monitoring the status of pvp so they could properly rebalance stuff as needed before the actual pvp season started. None of this happened. They just went into it with the entirety of the non-elite spec builds unviable (sucks to be you, F2P users!) and no hope for a balance patch until the next season starts in a few months.

    3. Lack of vital pvp features 3 years in: They try to be recognized as an e-sport yet they can't add core pvp features such as solo queue (all you have is 1 queue that combines premades and solo players), spectating (currently only possible in custom hotjoin matches), proper matchmaking, etc.

    And lastly

    4. The balance itself (or lack thereof): GW2 used to have a clean pvp system. The skills with crowd control were few, your survivability was tied to how well you performed, your profession actually required timing, and skillful placement of abilities to come out on top. This has all been but destroyed. Even before HoT ArenaNet shifted the PVP balance to passive procs that automatically helped you at certain hp thresholds. Fast forward to HoT, every new elite spec has a massive arsenal of crowd control, damage, gimmicks, low counterplay, low risk high reward gameplay, fire n forget abilities and extremely low cooldowns. I play one of the most execution demanding classes / builds in the game (scepter elementalist). I know my stuff, but I stand no chance against a player using a elite specs granted they're at least slightly good. It is increasingly aggravating when ArenaNet promises buffs for scepter elementalist and then come patch notes and you find that your useless ability that was impossible to land reliably now does 10% more damage. Or that a class that has only received nerfs for 3 years straight (thief) continues to get random nerfs despite being bottom tier for very long. At this point it just becomes comical.

    In conclusion:

    The PVE part of HoT is good to kill time. It's grindy and I like that. The pvp is at its worse its ever been IMO, I used to like pvp but now I have retired for good. You might enjoy it if you like being carried by overtuned, easy and forgiving mechanics. But if you enjoyed a challenge like me, or happened to be a pre-HoT spec user, you'll have a very hard time.

    In short, ArenaNet's complete disregard of balance to prioritize HoT sales, while pretending to hilariously care about "e-sports" can only be compared to being spit in the face multiple times.

    If you like to PVP, do not buy this game.    … Expand
  43. ichigohatake
    Dec 1, 2015
    3
    I enjoyed the game, but I'm giving it 3 because the developers does not know how to balance their game. This game rarely gets balance patches, and when it does some of the changes are just terrible. The expansion has made alot of its classes op while leaving some classes in the dust, instead of fixing these problems, the developers ignore it and nerf the weak classes even more. I'mI enjoyed the game, but I'm giving it 3 because the developers does not know how to balance their game. This game rarely gets balance patches, and when it does some of the changes are just terrible. The expansion has made alot of its classes op while leaving some classes in the dust, instead of fixing these problems, the developers ignore it and nerf the weak classes even more. I'm guessing they are not going to fix any balancing issues until the expansion sales decreases, they want to give players an incentive for buying to expansion pack. The expansion pack deals are great for new players because you also get the core game, but for veterans it is a terrible deal.… Expand
  44. Vahden
    Dec 1, 2015
    4
    Broken promises and more focus on maintaining the gemstore then fixing the base game. It seems like more then half of what does get added to the game then gets pulled due to being either bad design or horrendously unpopular. Most of which could have been avoided if they actually listened to the player base in the first place.
  45. Asguard
    Dec 1, 2015
    2
    Only game mode I play was drastically taken a dump on world vs world, new maps that were added were made too big with choke points at every corner.
    Fighting in these maps are no fun and being in T1 the highest population servers people stay away from the new maps like the plague, making the map feel like it looks a barren dry dead land.
  46. Winterice
    Nov 29, 2015
    0
    HoT offers nothing more that grinding group events and it is a long term task. There is no alternative than grinding group events to gain progress and advance a character. Take also into consideration that there is a time schedule attached to the game. What would have been an exciting new game turned into a game with stiff, forced and controlled way to play. Core Guild Wars 2 was a grandHoT offers nothing more that grinding group events and it is a long term task. There is no alternative than grinding group events to gain progress and advance a character. Take also into consideration that there is a time schedule attached to the game. What would have been an exciting new game turned into a game with stiff, forced and controlled way to play. Core Guild Wars 2 was a grand game. HoT is nothing and feels only petty.… Expand
  47. Vankeios
    Nov 28, 2015
    4
    In other games you pay for quality content. I want to be brief. THIS GAMES PUNISH YOU FOR PLAYING.

    -Worst HUD/UI possible. -Unbalanced Classes(P2W Specializations) -- (nonsense like Heavy Armor Stealth). -Unrewarding and unchallenging PvE(3 years and no endgame) -Unworthy PvP, Unbalanced, Boring.(fans says this is endgame, well it is not). -Outdated Graphic and worse than that NOT    In other games you pay for quality content. I want to be brief. THIS GAMES PUNISH YOU FOR PLAYING.

    -Worst HUD/UI possible.
    -Unbalanced Classes(P2W Specializations) -- (nonsense like Heavy Armor Stealth).
    -Unrewarding and unchallenging PvE(3 years and no endgame)
    -Unworthy PvP, Unbalanced, Boring.(fans says this is endgame, well it is not).
    -Outdated Graphic and worse than that NOT OPTIMIZED.    … Expand
  48. Badspazz
    Nov 22, 2015
    0
    This game has went hardcore. IF you want a fun mmo play wow. this game is **** full of failed events and failed everything. If you are a loser perfect gamer you should play this. If you are not a 15 hour a day gamer pick another game.
  49. Erikkaa
    Nov 22, 2015
    0
    For being a new game HoT is surprisingly unimaginative as it offers only event farming for character progress. HoT could have been a great game. The new maps are wonderful, lots of claustrophobic tunnels, dead ends, narrow places and all zones cluttered with hard hitting mobs. Most things needed for progress is locked behind a neat system of mastery and hero points. It could have been goodFor being a new game HoT is surprisingly unimaginative as it offers only event farming for character progress. HoT could have been a great game. The new maps are wonderful, lots of claustrophobic tunnels, dead ends, narrow places and all zones cluttered with hard hitting mobs. Most things needed for progress is locked behind a neat system of mastery and hero points. It could have been good but turned out to be farming event only. To progress you have to unlock masteries and collect hero points. Team up, join others and spam your skills all the way through it over and over. HoT is time consuming and farming event is all there is if you want to progress your character. There are no heroines or heroes in HoT, only event farmers.… Expand
  50. Evalina
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    HoT is a farming game, one way to play the game only. Four fantastic new maps with nothing more than farming events in order to unlock needed masteries. To fully explore the new maps masteries is needed. The lack of options to gain progress and experience makes the game uninteresting and linear. Playing the game consists of running after event and spamming buttons. The adventures are inHoT is a farming game, one way to play the game only. Four fantastic new maps with nothing more than farming events in order to unlock needed masteries. To fully explore the new maps masteries is needed. The lack of options to gain progress and experience makes the game uninteresting and linear. Playing the game consists of running after event and spamming buttons. The adventures are in fact small mini-games not even close to be an adventure. If you as a player want to challenge yourself and prove yourself as a player HoT is not the game for it. The core Guild Wars 2 was a fantastic game. HoT is nothing but time consuming event farming.… Expand
  51. krlitos
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    Lack of support, constant nerfing and changes to classes (Druid) making them completely useless and unplayable after you spend hundreds of gold gearing them just to wake up and find out your build is total trash is not cool. The game had potential, sadly the devs are clueless. The music is good tho still is not enough to justify a buy, if it was possible to ask for a refund i would take it. 0/10
  52. FireFruit
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    First why did I decide to create account and actually give my feedback?

    Because of careless developers that threat ranger class like the last class in the game, with zero respect and feedback to players that care and work hard to have communication about the issues that this game has. After 3,5 years I was hoping this game to get balanced, specially ranger class, I won't even start    First why did I decide to create account and actually give my feedback?

    Because of careless developers that threat ranger class like the last class in the game, with zero respect and feedback to players that care and work hard to have communication about the issues that this game has.

    After 3,5 years I was hoping this game to get balanced, specially ranger class, I won't even start how clunky this class is, because 5000 characters is way to less to do that. Anet did rush in development of one of the most simple core classes named Ranger. In expansion they did successfully release rushed Specialization for Ranger named Druid. This class would be fun, but simply due to some conflict inside of arena net, some one in developer team is on purpose ruining the class.

    Because of that I'm rating this game unbalanced, Core tyria has no challenge what so ever and no matter what you do it has no meaning, WvW after 3,5 years still has skill lag when there is fight 40+ and game mode becomes unplayable for last 3 years, I simply don't know why is ArenaNet so proudly representing WvW when they give zero effort into fixing existing problems for over 3 years, they don't fix bugs, they don't add rewards, the only thing they have done in 3,5 years was removing and crippling the ranking system. They say you can play your game how you want, but that truly means weather you want pvp or PvE, you can't play WvW because they enforce you to do PvE to have steady income.

    One would think game is amazing without subscription, but yet they give you 90% of the content on GEM store exclusively for limited amount of time so that players spend extra money on that. They say game is different from every other, but to be honest, this game is all about grind, and there is absolutely less fun and worst gaming experience i've had in my MMORPG games.

    One would ask me, but why do you still play it? Because GW1 devs did know how to hand things, they got us addicted, and part of us still believes to support them for greather good. But here is where we draw the line. You had 3.5 years, now i'll rate this game with fair score.

    Hearth Of Thorns expansion was released 23.oct, today not even 1 month later, 90% of people cannot finish simple quests due to poor content balance. ( don't take me wrong, HoT maps were amazing) Yet your concept and to keep people playing is wrong on so many levels, your rewards makes you feel unrewarded and grindy!

    Where are GW1 developers that had frequent, pleasant and warm communication with us?
    Where are GW1 developers that did balance the game even with 600 more skills?
    Where are those days when game did not feel grindy?
    Who employed you GW2 developers that only care for money garbing for very little content?    … Expand
  53. Utopia12
    Nov 20, 2015
    3
    The core game is great, if you've never played it before, they got a F2P system set up so you can play for yourself. Definitely something every gamer should experience.

    However, most of the original developers left the company, and everything went downhill, the new story is bland, the new maps are confusing and poorly delivered, pvp balance is a complete disaster (VERY punishing to new    The core game is great, if you've never played it before, they got a F2P system set up so you can play for yourself. Definitely something every gamer should experience.

    However, most of the original developers left the company, and everything went downhill, the new story is bland, the new maps are confusing and poorly delivered, pvp balance is a complete disaster (VERY punishing to new players, very CC centric), they're ruining the most beautiful skill animations in the sake of poorly thought-out clarity (they're actually making them harder to recognize) completely ruining the works of the talented developers that worked on this game.

    On top of it, they completely ignore their community, I've been through some rough stuff, Nexon and NCSoft to name a few, but they're even worse than them, not only do they NOT listen or respond to their community, they do the COMPLETE opposite of what's requested, in bad taste. AVOID AT ALL COSTS unless you want to get stressed and angry.

    Is the core game good? YES, and it's free. Is the EXPANSION worth buying? a resounding NO.    … Expand
  54. eval
    Nov 20, 2015
    3
    Heart of Thorns summed up in a sentence : "A torn in my side".

    Really a majority of content that was available prior to the expansion was either gutted, taken away or put behind a grind wall. You will spend countless hours in HoT grinding masteries to get the loot that should just be given out for your time anyways. Oh and the majority of the advertised content for the expansion that    Heart of Thorns summed up in a sentence : "A torn in my side".

    Really a majority of content that was available prior to the expansion was either gutted, taken away or put behind a grind wall. You will spend countless hours in HoT grinding masteries to get the loot that should just be given out for your time anyways. Oh and the majority of the advertised content for the expansion that we were lead on to believe it would be there release is still being added into the game and a lot of it we don't even know when, it will just be "soon".

    With that said I'll got over each mode briefly:

    PVP: Has an absolute imbalence right now. The new class reverant is just straight up overpowered and outright does every thing better than 2-3 classes. We all seen it coming with 400-500% buffs before launch. A few other classes got the same treatment. While others got straight up nerfs balancing them to the old bar. Also, without a doubt almost every single elite spec is straight up power creep compared to the base classes. There is almost no reason with exception of druid to not take your elite spec as it will bring more damage and utility. I honestly feel sorry for people that did not buy HoT and are playing base classes. On top of that we still don't have leagues. Ranked que is disabled and match making is still an absolute mess. Current balance is just kneejerk nerf into the ground what ever were complaining about today. I mean seriously, there could be nothing wrong with thief, someone will post thief is op on the fourms give no valid reasons and you could log in tomorrow to see nerfs no one asked for. PvP is really hard to enjoy right now.

    WvW: got a new borderlands map. Which is great except it was built as if you were supposed to be gliding everywhere and then they went oh that would be P2W so we wont include those. Generally on the new maps you'll spend countless hours walking around from place to place seeing no one as the maps are so vast. They also did nothing to sort out many of the issues of wvw. It's still a gold sink despite taking out upgrade costs, it still has night/workday time capping issues, it still has no meaningful rewards. If you play WvW it is solely for the enjoyment.

    PvE: HoT brough intresting new maps. The main issue with them is finding one that actually has people in it. A large majority of the time you will be waiting on these timed events and looking in the LFG tool to find other people. Most of the events go on for a long time! minimal 40mins-2 hours depending on the map. Classes are suffering here in being allowed into groups because of pvp kneejerk balance and a large majority of players refuse to play with certain classes. Lastly, anet have started to make changes that reward unskillful play and punish playing well. An example of this is the new adjustment to druid; which made building healing power to heal your allies less effective at healing than not taking any healing power.    … Expand
  55. DruidIsNerfed
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    Do not bother buying this crap. Constantly nerfing other classes to highlight the one their Devs play. And they are not even in charge of the nerfed class. Extremely unbalanced and biased. If you don't believe me, just read ranger section on their forum and see it yourself. Great game, horrible development.
  56. voodoo683
    Nov 20, 2015
    0
    I'm very frustrated that Guild Wars 2 lose it's core philosophy with this expansion. It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards, said once Colin Johanson. Now it's gone. You're forced to do many things (such as event grinding, achievements, do raids,I'm very frustrated that Guild Wars 2 lose it's core philosophy with this expansion. It’s extremely important that we stay true to our philosophy that you should be able to play Guild Wars 2 the way you want to play the game in order to reach the most powerful rewards, said once Colin Johanson. Now it's gone. You're forced to do many things (such as event grinding, achievements, do raids, even play right character class) even if you don't like it. Uniqueness that distinguishes this MMO from others is gone. Now this game more like WoW "killer" with grinding like in Korean MMO's. Also this game has no balance between classes, there are OP classes (called Meta) and other with colossal difference of power and benefits for groups (different set of classes in different aspects of game).… Expand
  57. Flimsa
    Nov 19, 2015
    0
    HoT is not worth the money. The expansion is focused around events that you as player have to repeat over and over in order to gain progress for your character. All events in all maps follow the same pattern, pre event leads to final boss event. HoT does not offer any options to gain character progress besides events. This make HoT linear with directed way to play the game. AdventuresHoT is not worth the money. The expansion is focused around events that you as player have to repeat over and over in order to gain progress for your character. All events in all maps follow the same pattern, pre event leads to final boss event. HoT does not offer any options to gain character progress besides events. This make HoT linear with directed way to play the game. Adventures turned out to be mini games that are unavailable most of the time. I guess that with challenging content developers are referring to players performance for pre event and final boss event to success.… Expand
  58. eridanired123
    Nov 17, 2015
    2
    Arena Net introduced the "gliding" concept, their approach to flying in the open world; have to say that it has been implemented in a magnificent way, way superior to WoWs flying mounts if I'm allowed to say. They also introduced the "Elite specializations" which are a new talent line for every class, just the fresh air that actual classes needed. Not to mention the new class "TheArena Net introduced the "gliding" concept, their approach to flying in the open world; have to say that it has been implemented in a magnificent way, way superior to WoWs flying mounts if I'm allowed to say. They also introduced the "Elite specializations" which are a new talent line for every class, just the fresh air that actual classes needed. Not to mention the new class "The Revenant" which aside from the generic story line is a fun to play class.

    But sadly all this awesome work becomes irrelevant when you have an EXTREMELY UNSTABLE software, random crashes here and there, a bug that has been around since launch 3 years ago and now is way more evident. Even worse behaviour on Mac client. Depending on your graphic settings and your hardware your client may crash as often as every some minutes or every some hours, but it will certainly happen. There are only a few documented cases that argue that they have never had any crash.

    Another huge annoyance is the high percentage of content that is now gated behind gold sinks, or heavy grinding of every posible kind you can imagine. Even content that was freely available before expansion has been moved behind grind walls.

    And lets not touch the epic fail with WvW. Where they didn't addressed a single flaw that the community has been complaining about for so long. Sure they delivered a new map which is good to have, but to be true, nobody asked for it and less with all those new problems it came with.

    The amount of new "skins" for gear and weapons that this expansion brought is very reduced compared to expansions of other MMO's with a similar budget. Worst thing is you have, of course, to GRIND your way to get many of these new skins. Sadly seems that items that should have been released as content for the expansion has been instead released trough the Gem Store, which is a real money shop for in-game items.

    The grind problem is now accentuated by a malfunctioning mechanic called "Diminishing Returns" which penalices the players with reduced or null loot for looting "too much" from a single loot table (generally a zone), this system was implemented to deincentivize farming but now it fires too often even when the player is not doing any action that can be considered farming at all.

    This new version also brought great disappointment to the instanced content lovers, because Dungeons loot has been heavily nerfed. And Worst is that known bugs and exploits hasn't been fixed. They also nerfed loot from Fractasl of the Mist (a different type of instanced content based on a couple of random maps that players can access repeatedly, difficulty escalates as its lv increases) even when they promised to buff it. Not being this enough, high lv Fractals bosses where buffed with tons of "armor" to make them more "challenging" instead of implemented interesting mechanics they have promised before. Now these bosses just take a lot of time to beat.

    The new raid content and squadron interface (a UI for groups as big as 50 players) came out late, has been released just today. And in the same way as most of the other parts of this expansion, they came out with easily to spot bugs. Seems this content hasn't been tested enough before launch. To be expected, the other parts of the expansion made you feel the same.    … Expand
  59. Hepaista
    Nov 11, 2015
    0
    so much hype all year long for this? cant even finish the storyline without grinding for hours I loved gw2, but they lied to us. they said no grind we have never had to grind more...
  60. CalScott
    Nov 11, 2015
    0
    Visually this expansion is amazing but practically it is one of the worst things I have ever had the displeasure of playing. The enemies are powered to the point that if you walk ANYWHERE alone you will die. Skill points often takes team of 4+ people to do now. Missions are just constantly the same "go here and speak to him" or "defend this". The meta events have NO explanation and theVisually this expansion is amazing but practically it is one of the worst things I have ever had the displeasure of playing. The enemies are powered to the point that if you walk ANYWHERE alone you will die. Skill points often takes team of 4+ people to do now. Missions are just constantly the same "go here and speak to him" or "defend this". The meta events have NO explanation and the game gives you no grasp on what you should be doing. World bosses are no longer proper world bosses and are just regular events. I was hoping for an epic Tequatl like boss and I am very disappointed

    The ONLY good addition to the game is the Revenant which is the most fun class I have played in any MMO. Period. WoWs classes pale in comparison. However the Revenant class isn't good enough to warrant the £39 price tag as I have found myself resenting Guild Wars and Anet for providing me with such **** I have played HoT for around 15 hours and I hate it. Everything about it, is without a doubt, the worst part of Guild Wars 2.

    Also, with the addition of HoT they changed the WvW maps to be overly complicated, janky and buggy. HoT has ruined Guild Wars single handed. Thanks ANet for absolutely **** nothing!    … Expand
  61. olia_bn
    Nov 11, 2015
    4
    What may seem like new content is just content stretched out by more grind in-between, which actually seems to be ANets new methodology: artificial content by grind. Sad and quite frankly, not really worth the money.
  62. RanmaKei
    Nov 6, 2015
    1
    Great game, lots of fun. Expansion seems to push for more micro transactions in game. Not really a big deal since technically you don't need to purchase any of that stuff. Guild improvements were made, but progress from before the expansion is lost and some of the guild stuff isn't working or disabled. You can no longer progress your guilds on guild members individual participation. YouGreat game, lots of fun. Expansion seems to push for more micro transactions in game. Not really a big deal since technically you don't need to purchase any of that stuff. Guild improvements were made, but progress from before the expansion is lost and some of the guild stuff isn't working or disabled. You can no longer progress your guilds on guild members individual participation. You must have decent sized guild parties to complete guilds missions in order to level up guilds. Requiring everyone in the guild to be online and working at the same time. Discourages small guilds that don't have lots of members. I lost some progress after the expansion and influence since the expansion rolled out. Not sure what happened there.

    From what I hear there is still a few other things not finished yet in the game. Release was premature.

    Expansion needs to be finished. I would wait until they get things worked out.    … Expand
  63. wyrmbud
    Nov 4, 2015
    1
    I am giving Heart of Thorns an unfavorable review for quite a few reasons. The first is that the game is miscalculating your progress in the expansion. Players are documented as randomly losing all progress in the expansion. This makes the game unplayable. The second is that I was promised raid content when I paid for the expansion. There are no raids now, the beta is an utterI am giving Heart of Thorns an unfavorable review for quite a few reasons. The first is that the game is miscalculating your progress in the expansion. Players are documented as randomly losing all progress in the expansion. This makes the game unplayable. The second is that I was promised raid content when I paid for the expansion. There are no raids now, the beta is an utter disaster and there will not be raids any time soon. This sort of outright stupidity on the part of Anet deserves legal action. I paid for a service I was promised and it was absolutely not delivered. WvW is broken and has been forever. Pvp is broken. (I used to very much enjoy both). Anet very clearly pushed way too hard to get this product out by deadline. Total garbage.… Expand
  64. Krombopulos
    Nov 3, 2015
    0
    All these new features that you have UNLOCK in order to play with, even though you already bought the game and some (even a minimum) of them have to be farmed for, in order to be able to use. But let's not be negative Nellies and try to farm instead. Oh wait! All events now take a ridiculous amount of time in order to be completed, requiring you to have no life whatsoever, in order toAll these new features that you have UNLOCK in order to play with, even though you already bought the game and some (even a minimum) of them have to be farmed for, in order to be able to use. But let's not be negative Nellies and try to farm instead. Oh wait! All events now take a ridiculous amount of time in order to be completed, requiring you to have no life whatsoever, in order to complete them. Oh, also 9 out of 10 events require you to have a party and a certain mastery (for which you have to farm in order to get - with a party lets not forget, which makes the whole thing a ridiculous paradox). You can now, no longer enjoy the game casually at your own pace and pleasure, but have to unavoidably rely on at least 2-3 other people in order to enjoy something that you paid 50$ for. I sincerely hope Anet dispatches these horrible gamewrecking additions to a once great game ! Till then I'm finding something else to play !… Expand
  65. brokendust
    Nov 3, 2015
    0
    I created an account just to give this expansion a score of 0. I was a staunch supporter of this game and this expansion for a long time, but it's become abundantly clear that this expansion (and the update to the base game that came with it) is poorly coded, and the developers have no clue how to fix it. The game is incredibly unstable and crashes often enough to make getting anythingI created an account just to give this expansion a score of 0. I was a staunch supporter of this game and this expansion for a long time, but it's become abundantly clear that this expansion (and the update to the base game that came with it) is poorly coded, and the developers have no clue how to fix it. The game is incredibly unstable and crashes often enough to make getting anything meaningful done impossible. The entire mid-to-end game revolves around competing map-wide events and long instances, both of which you will lose all progress within when you inevitably crash. This. Game. Will. Not. Stop. Crashing. It is widespread and is not a hardware issue; I'm running with an i7 4790k, 16GB RAM and GTX 970 SLI. It is a client issue and the client is broken. It's been almost a month now, and no progress has been made or hinted towards with this massive flaw. This game cannot be played. It deserves a zero.… Expand
  66. SoulstitchMMO
    Oct 31, 2015
    1
    Grind. Absolute grind. Very limited story given the illusion of meat, by having to grind between story. Because they didn't give you levels you had to go through, they invented Mastery systems which they use to gate content until you develop certain masteries. Then they added Elite Specializations to every class, that force you to do 10 times the work for .01 times the reward. Each traitGrind. Absolute grind. Very limited story given the illusion of meat, by having to grind between story. Because they didn't give you levels you had to go through, they invented Mastery systems which they use to gate content until you develop certain masteries. Then they added Elite Specializations to every class, that force you to do 10 times the work for .01 times the reward. Each trait cost 10 hero points (and it's been lowered to that, used to cost significantly more).

    Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns is the biggest waste of money I've ever spent on an expansion. The only reason I didn't give it a 0, is because I love the Revenant Elite, and if I ever unlock it I'm sure I'll enjoy the game more, but do not buy this expansion until they reverse their ridiculous Elite System.    … Expand
  67. kyochievo
    Oct 30, 2015
    0
    I'd played 3500 hours of gameplay and here is my short review.
    This expansion killed off gw2 core pve endgame game-play like dungeons,fractals ect , dot believe me ? check lfg system.
    No new dungeons and fractal maps. Want to play the new exp story mode? than you have to level up yours mastery to progress oh wait there diminishing returns. Want to get Hero points ? good luck soloing    I'd played 3500 hours of gameplay and here is my short review.
    This expansion killed off gw2 core pve endgame game-play like dungeons,fractals ect , dot believe me ? check lfg system.
    No new dungeons and fractal maps.
    Want to play the new exp story mode? than you have to level up yours mastery to progress oh wait there
    diminishing returns.
    Want to get Hero points ? good luck soloing champs to earn it after 3 months when less player doing maps.
    Unnecessarily nerfs class like rev , ranger , nercro ect .
    So much more to say about this expansion so just read others reviews.    … Expand
  68. Leppi
    Oct 30, 2015
    0
    I really can't imagine where all these positive reviews come from.

    First off this isn't even an "expansion". If you hear Guild Wars Expansion you think Factions or Nightfall or even Eye of the North with new continents, big areas to explore and new foes to beat. They used to be around 25-35 bucks depending on your currency and featured nice and thoughtout storys with interesting    I really can't imagine where all these positive reviews come from.

    First off this isn't even an "expansion". If you hear Guild Wars Expansion you think Factions or Nightfall or even Eye of the North with new continents, big areas to explore and new foes to beat.
    They used to be around 25-35 bucks depending on your currency and featured nice and thoughtout storys with interesting charakters and gorgeous places to explore.

    This is not that at all. All this is is the next chapter of the living story, continued just like they ended. A truckload of boring and annoying farmheavy Metaevents and alltogether rather uninspired Content.
    Tons of reused foes and assets and really nothing refreshing.
    This is sadly anything but that. You can basically beat the "Story" in about ~4 hours and you keep getting interrupted by annoying grinds just so you can level up some gimicky skill so you can progress.

    Anything ANet said about this "expansion" was a lie. The verticallity is more of an annoyance and it doesn't really have the depth they claimed it would have.
    They said you don't need to grind new levels before you can experience the content?
    Well you don't level further than lvl80 but you need to level up your mastery in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY just to get to use some gimmicky feature so you can advance.

    The story is hella predictable and feels incredibly rushed. They were even too lazy to make a final fight vs an actual dragon so they just pulled some reasons for it out of their ass, rushed half the story while they just stomped any potential they build up in the first few missions into the ground and provide you with one of the most bugged final missions I have come accross in any Guild Wars game so far.

    If you are new and are only playing GW2 because it is now free to play, enjoy the base game, there is nothing incredibly interesting or important to find here. I really can't recommend this thing to anyone.

    If you are a diehard Guild Wars fan and you desperately want this I would still suggest to you that you do wait as long as possible for the price to drop, the state this is in it's really not worth a nearly full priced release. Maybe if they continue the living story properly in this or if they add some actual content other than annoying metaevents it might get better but so far nothing in this justifys the pricetag it has.    … Expand
  69. Shootsey
    Oct 29, 2015
    1
    Disregard the good ratings on the website. It's just fans who want to increase the population of their game for the sake of making it Slightly when it comes to doing events. Save your money and don't waste your time on this grindy and hellish expansion. Play it free.
  70. TacticalLamp
    Oct 29, 2015
    2
    GW2 used to be a really fantastic game with an incredible variety of options and things to do.With the release of HoT that variety has shrunk to mindless killing of mobs and farming of events to gather experience to complete masteries. Other than exploring new zones, elite specialization, and other ridiculous amounts of farming ( because the expansion really botched the economy as aGW2 used to be a really fantastic game with an incredible variety of options and things to do.With the release of HoT that variety has shrunk to mindless killing of mobs and farming of events to gather experience to complete masteries. Other than exploring new zones, elite specialization, and other ridiculous amounts of farming ( because the expansion really botched the economy as a whole), the only thing to do at the moment is bash your face against your keyboard as you tag mobs to participate in events because often it is too difficult to farm mobs on your own as the new mechanics of random mobs disable your character into oblivion. When raids release there will be one more option for things to do fortunately, but with the way arenanet changed crafting and the economy, crafting the needed gear is MUCH more difficult than it was previously. Somewhere in the past several years developers have confused "difficult" for "time consuming" and it is a crime. Difficult content is wonderful. Time consuming content breeds resentment. Many things need to change as this game went from a really fantastic well rounded game to a grind gated, treadmill-like, tread up a giant mountain of broken dreams.… Expand
  71. Sebba
    Oct 28, 2015
    2
    I wrote a negative review, it got deleted and I dont know why. soo I'm forced to write a negative review again. lets start with the good stuff. the new areas really do look marvelous, giant frogs, dragon pets, story, music, all that is really nice to have a short and nice experience.

    but since I have a loooot of characters on lvl80 I see many points in the game that range from    I wrote a negative review, it got deleted and I dont know why. soo I'm forced to write a negative review again. lets start with the good stuff. the new areas really do look marvelous, giant frogs, dragon pets, story, music, all that is really nice to have a short and nice experience.

    but since I have a loooot of characters on lvl80 I see many points in the game that range from frustrating to outrageous. after the update you need 250 instead of 400 hero points to unlock a new weapon, a traitline and 4 new skills. if you only have 2 or 3 characters that might be no problem at all, but if you want to experience all the new weapons and skills on each class you have to get your 250 hero points at least 9 times, which might take a while. in order to get those points you have to earn level ups on the disguised new level cap called mastery system, because most of the hero points are gated behind mastery points and affiliated skills. that doesn't make the game more rewarding, challenging or "harder", it just makes it take much longer to get where you want. I also think it is important to add that in some feature patch a few months before the addon all former scrolls of knowledge, which would give you one skill point (which are now called hero points) where turned in spiritshards, a different new currency which now cant be used to level up your hero points anymore, with the only reason behind it being to prevent you from leveling up your chars new specialization. I find that really frustrating.

    another thing that really bothers me is that except pvp every other ingame aspect is nerfed and much less rewarding. xp gain is nerfed, dungeon rewards are nerfed, fractal rewards are nerfed. all just being meant to slow you down and keep you playing much longer in a very unfun, unrewarding, work-like type of gameplay. I know that this is the "magic recipe" of mmos but still I play a game because I want to have fun playing it. like most people I already have a rather boring repetitive job in real life.

    there are so many little small things... the new guild halls are sure looking nice too. but on the other hand I cant earn "influence" anymore by just playing the game like before, I can earn the new currency "favor" only by doing guild missions. there is practically no reason to represent a guild anymore since nothing except guild missions actually matters to help my guild progress. in wvw there is no more claiming, so dedicated guilds cant show off by putting their guild emblem on castles and such. even if a guild has earned fancy decorations etc for the guild, the circle of people to actually see that a guild has progressed and did great on something is pretty much the guild itself and they know anyway because they are the ones who did it.

    my list could go on and on and sure it's all about personal taste. for example why are the new borderlands desert maps? because the devs are good at designing deserts? after dry top desert and silverwastes desert pve maps we need another desert map for wvw? what is the idea behind that? maybe for economic reasons because deserts are pretty much sand only with some rocks. or why do we need a moba style pvp map? because there aren't enough real mobas on the market already?

    well, as you can see I'm not really happy with the expansion and I do regret to even have bought the pre-order version. I'm convinced there are many more who feel like anet is trying to take the fun out of the game and make it feel much more like work. and in fact just as many people seem to like it that way. I don't.    … Expand
  72. gw2fanatic
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    New Class elites are too powerful and ROFL stomps anyone playing non-elites in pvp and guess what there's no way to unlock elites for your class unless you spend $50+. GW2 pvp now becomes pay2win. Ranger class elite is an exception that doesn't synchronize with the base ranger at all. Many made their ranger to dps not to be a freaking cleric.

    The new WvW maps are empty on Blackgate, a    New Class elites are too powerful and ROFL stomps anyone playing non-elites in pvp and guess what there's no way to unlock elites for your class unless you spend $50+. GW2 pvp now becomes pay2win. Ranger class elite is an exception that doesn't synchronize with the base ranger at all. Many made their ranger to dps not to be a freaking cleric.

    The new WvW maps are empty on Blackgate, a T1 server and one of the most populated, even Eternal battleground is empty. Seems like most of the players lost faith in Anet and stopped wvwing, are in pve, or doing Halloween activities. Can't blame players losing faith in Anet's ability to fix problems as they arise when things like spawn trebs and catapults were never fixed on the old maps despite years of complaints, thieves gaining stealth from walls was fixed after 2 years then quickly reverted, and projectile attacks getting obstructed on flat ground continues to this day.

    People with small guilds lost all their influence and weren't compensated for the lost even if they spent real life money on gems then convert to gold to earn them. Personal guilds are now useless; to earn influence you need 3+ members and all the things you struggled to earn and built are gone.

    The story is heavily gated behind the mastery system and hero points which is slow and painful to earn. If you want to speed through the story to see how it goes what happens you can't because Anet took away the ability to choose how you want to play even if you paid them over $50. Now you have to progress how they want you to....slow, painful and step by step to artificially stretch out the expansion content.

    Overall this was one of the worst MMO expansion I've played. I pre-ordered GW2 based on their manifestos. I didn't know they were going to abandon it after GW2 launched. I'm done giving my money to NCSoft/Anet. No more GW2 expansion for me.    … Expand
  73. AlexandreDR
    Oct 28, 2015
    3
    Not recommended anymore for casual gamers -- i am a casual gamer and play GW2 since more than 3 years with some breaks. The expansion HoT is a disaster. Is a massive grindfest that requires you to play within guilds. Everything is gated. You need grind to glide, grind to jump on mushrooms, ... The specializations require 100+ hours of game play eaxh to unloxk. Doing boring hero pointsNot recommended anymore for casual gamers -- i am a casual gamer and play GW2 since more than 3 years with some breaks. The expansion HoT is a disaster. Is a massive grindfest that requires you to play within guilds. Everything is gated. You need grind to glide, grind to jump on mushrooms, ... The specializations require 100+ hours of game play eaxh to unloxk. Doing boring hero points gathering 5-20 per map. The devs want to change the meta to make us invest heavily in survivability gear = more grind. No more sense to do 10-20 mns dungeons. Rewards super nerfed. Now time for hour long fractals. So yeah grind is what GW2 became.

    Spending extra money i n the game makes no sense. I had issues. Bugs. Reported with print screens. Had spent more than 300 usd on the gane. Not even an acknowledgement of receiving my bug reports.

    Graphically the game is good. The story is not immersive but muxh better than previous seasons. There is a lot for people who.have tons of time. For casual gamers this became too grindy.    … Expand
  74. itscalledalance
    Oct 28, 2015
    3
    PROS: Beautiful, Well done, very few noticeable issues at launch.

    CONS: Most of the expansion is locked behind walls only meant to slow progression. If you see something you want to do, or a place you want to get to, chances are you can not without grinding out a mastery track for hours. - See an item you can activate? "lolz nope! you dont have the right mastery to use this!" - See a    PROS: Beautiful, Well done, very few noticeable issues at launch.

    CONS: Most of the expansion is locked behind walls only meant to slow progression. If you see something you want to do, or a place you want to get to, chances are you can not without grinding out a mastery track for hours.
    - See an item you can activate? "lolz nope! you dont have the right mastery to use this!"
    - See a skill shrine you wish to use? "lolz nope! you insta-die from poison because you haven't grinded out the right mastery!"
    - Need an item for your legendary? "LOL nope! NPC is bugged and wont sell it to you! (or anyone)"
    - want to go to a way point? "lol nope! its contest...99% of the time, you'll have to run the length of a zone the size of Loio, (the barrens for you wow sluts) to get there, WHILE dodging enemies that can one shot you.
    - Want to play with your friends? "LOL nope you haven't grinded the same masteries they have!"
    - Want the cool looking new gear? "LOL nope! you haven't the right masteries, and RNGesus hans't blessed you with those drops!"
    - Want to buy an item? "LOL NOPE! you can't speak this clowns language till you grind another mastery!"

    Every step of the journey you are slapped in the face with things you CAN NOT do, places you CAN NOT GET TO, without grinding out, sometimes millions upon millions of xp doing the same half dozen events or so. Very VERY little variation in that regard. VERY poor design choices.

    The people giving it a 10/10 are hardcore gamers who dont know what a casual really is.
    or people sucking up.
    people who are not playing the game.

    Do yourself a favor, go get yourself a bot to do all the pointless daunting wall of an XP grind so you can play the game.    … Expand
  75. digSerenity
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    Not even a week before the nerf hammer hits and they cater to the people complaining about hard content after asking for it. Excellent job. Definitely better this way than to allow things to settle and for people to get used to playing with and against everything new.
  76. bravoart
    Oct 28, 2015
    4
    As a player from the launch, this expansion is highly disappointing because as from the start, ArenaNet has decided to sell one thing, and deliver another.

    Any premise that the game has had of 'casual friendly' and 'no grinding' and so on, has been thrown out the window completely with the new expansion (if not a bit beforehand, honestly). There are multiple reviews here stating that    As a player from the launch, this expansion is highly disappointing because as from the start, ArenaNet has decided to sell one thing, and deliver another.

    Any premise that the game has had of 'casual friendly' and 'no grinding' and so on, has been thrown out the window completely with the new expansion (if not a bit beforehand, honestly).

    There are multiple reviews here stating that people are just lazy and want everything handed to them, but the reality is that if you were told that the game you paid $50 for, the majority of the content was locked behind doing the same events and waiting for the same events to respawn indefinitely with no ability to advance past it until you have done an arbitrary amount of grind, wouldn't you consider that unnecessary? This game has a rabid fanbase that believe that the developers can do no wrong and everyone should be aware of that.

    Gated content, forced group content that can not be soloed, bad rng, separation of reward effort, the list goes on and on of what is wrong with this expansion.

    As we've seen with ArenaNet multiple times before, they don't fix things without changing something else or knee-jerk nerfing whatever the playerbase moves to for counteracting the nerfs. The developers literally go out of their way to hobble progression again and again, yet people still defend it. Unbelievable.

    EDIT: Arenanet has made a concession with the amount of Hero Points needed for Elite specs and the gating of accessible hero points on the first new map. This is great and a solid step in the right direction, but that being said there is still a lot of issues pertaining to bait and switch and effort/reward that still need to be reviewed.

    Also be warned that community sites are actively guilting and insulting people with low review scores to change them to 10/10s. The game is not that great, but the communities about it are even worse.    … Expand
  77. awesomebydlo
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    Grind Wars 2's mastery system and hero points are impossible to solo. Ascended gear is necessary for raids and Arenanet has made it a larger grind. The elite specializations are lackluster and the developers did not pay attention to community response during the betas. On the day of release, the game was horribly broken and it was practically impossible to continue the game's story becauseGrind Wars 2's mastery system and hero points are impossible to solo. Ascended gear is necessary for raids and Arenanet has made it a larger grind. The elite specializations are lackluster and the developers did not pay attention to community response during the betas. On the day of release, the game was horribly broken and it was practically impossible to continue the game's story because of broken NPCs and this was not fixed until a week after. The developers have also gutted core-professions such as Thief's Acrobatic line and require you to pay $50 to buy the expansion to have what they took back. The story is shorter than the Personal Story. There are only 4 maps in this expansion. It's honestly not worth the price tag.… Expand
  78. wowroxursox
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    Expansion without any meat on the bones. Gating measly content behind grindy masteries. Expansion without any meat on the bones. Gating measly content behind grindy masteries.
  79. wowrox
    Oct 28, 2015
    0
    This is an example of an expansion done wrong. A business model that is displeasing to the customers and provides the players with the type of content that we want. It would have been nice if it included build templates but they said that will come soon.
  80. morroIan
    Oct 27, 2015
    4
    Grindy content designed to hide the fact that here is not enough content in the expansion to justify the high price tag (equal highest for any mmo expansion). The story is good, the map looks fantastic but is painful to get around and as I said the mechanics of the content are grindy to stretch out the time. The elite specs are also quite cool on the whole but are bug ridden, the expensionGrindy content designed to hide the fact that here is not enough content in the expansion to justify the high price tag (equal highest for any mmo expansion). The story is good, the map looks fantastic but is painful to get around and as I said the mechanics of the content are grindy to stretch out the time. The elite specs are also quite cool on the whole but are bug ridden, the expension was released far too early in this regard.… Expand
  81. pessimist93
    Oct 27, 2015
    0
    positive things:
    - new professions
    - several new and beautiful made areas - for the most part a well made story atmosphere (at least the parts I have seen until now since I simply dont have the power anymore to restart a mission for the 14. time because its still bugging after several patches) - precursor hunt, finally I dont need to farm for hundred of hours now to get my legendary    positive things:
    - new professions
    - several new and beautiful made areas
    - for the most part a well made story atmosphere (at least the parts I have seen until now since I simply dont have the power anymore to restart a mission for the 14. time because its still bugging after several patches)
    - precursor hunt, finally I dont need to farm for hundred of hours now to get my legendary

    negative things:
    - bugs, and I dont mean the enemy NPCs.
    Bugs are not that much of a problem if its just minor things like some unimportant events are stucked, animation are not working properly. But Anet has managed again to bug some of the most vital parts of the expansion. "You are organizing a map and try to kill the last bosses? Too bad cause the last bosses are **** bugged and as a result nobody gets **** and some worthless trash for the 2h he spent actually trying to play in a team and be productive. If 1 of the bosses would be bugged, fine its been only several days after release. But all 5 of them????? Oh and dont even get me started about the bugs in the story quests. Little example: in 1 of the quests you have to follow a trail and pick up rocks. But to make things harder this quest tends to bug out at every possible spot. You got into combat? Retry! You clicked the rock 1 time too much? Retry! You found the rock too fast? Retry! You moved while you character was talking to himself? Retry!
    Hell it feels like I bought some kind of half finished product and the only things thats actually working properly is the gemshop.

    - grind, the thing most player hates most.
    Grind was always present in GW2 but this has become worse than everyone has feared. You want to continue to the 2. story mission? You have to grind for hours to unlock the 1. mastery! and when you finished the 3. mission you have to grind again to get another mastery. and this continues until the end of the story. Anet is trying to artificially extend your playtime with this by forcing you to grind your ass off just to make any progress.
    And the same applies for the new professions. you actually have to clear the entire worldmap and all of the 4 new zones to get all the points to unlock all skills. Too bad that many of the heropoints in the new zones are mastery gated which means hours of grind again just to get 1 **** point. If you want to unlock the new vendors for the new armor skins you have to grind for hours too just too unlock the mastery to talk to them.

    - lack of choice in the story
    There were alot of moments where you wanted to decide differently than your goody good character with a generic personality and the perception of a potato (which would be a insult for potatos since they know that fire burns). Your character is forced into a role you dont want and the only choice you can make is the one between the plague and cholera. You cant think up a option C, you only have A and B which are both stupid. Especially when one of your enemies in a cutscene you are not able to shoot her in the back and you are not able to finish enemies off with a load of lead when they are on the ground.

    - play like you want is gone
    You want to get to this point for your mapcompletion? Well then group up with randoms that are also unwilling like you and do the same events over and over again for hours just to expand the meta event so you cant get up to this point. In 1 of the severe cases you have to form up and organizse hours before just to get a slight chance of winning the event so you can get to one **** point. Also you cant do most **** anymore since you need at least 1 unfortunate soul as a meatshield to complete heropoints or get to vista points. Oh and did I tell you already that many points needs masteries which mean more grind?

    - ugly new armors
    I was hoping for some new fresh armor that didnt look generec and like the janitor did this in his coffee break. Instead we got just that. All 3 new armors look almost completely the same and you are able to unlock it with, guess what, tons of grind. They must have fired all artists that made good lokking armor and not even necessarily the skimpy ones.

    - the price of HoT
    50 bucks for a complete game? Sounds alright, especially if its well made. But 50 bucks for only 4 new zones, bugs, grind, content thats not even out yet and even more grind sounds like you like pain or you were just gullible/stupid to buy that. The whole thing wasnt even worth 30 bucks, 25 top.

    These were just a few of the negative points of the game and since I slowly run out of characters to write (5000), I will try to warn those who are thinking about to get HoT.

    If you loved GW2 with its open world and play like you want philosophy:
    Stay away!!!
    The wohle thing is a dead end grinding torture which makes many Asia Grinder look like a walk in the park. Save your money and wait for another good game to come out. GW2 doesnt have much hope left and this ****ty expansion just proved it    … Expand
  82. rezaiga
    Oct 27, 2015
    3
    This expansion isn't casual friendly so if you consider yourself to be one, better wait till they change things.

    The new world is so huge and amazingly beautiful but it stops there. 4th day after expansion and maps feels empty, it's a big problem because the difficulty in the new map is sooo much higher than old content and without other ppl around to help with events, it's almost    This expansion isn't casual friendly so if you consider yourself to be one, better wait till they change things.

    The new world is so huge and amazingly beautiful but it stops there. 4th day after expansion and maps feels empty, it's a big problem because the difficulty in the new map is sooo much higher than old content and without other ppl around to help with events, it's almost likely that you're gonna fail the event.

    Anet decision to upped difficulty with no downscale on events is like a middle finger to casual players.    … Expand
  83. madmax21st
    Oct 27, 2015
    3
    Not worth $50 at all. Just a collection of Living Story contents that supposed to be free and got released all at the same time, became not free just so ANet can say it's an expansion.
  84. Big
    Oct 27, 2015
    4
    Wanted to play story mode first like I did with vanilla campaign. Sadly I'm forced to grind for tens of hours to unlock some **** mastery I want even use later on. I'm done 50 hours plus in it and I'm bored as hell. Do not spend 50 $ on it it is not worth it !
  85. percyhg
    Oct 27, 2015
    1
    Don't bother. If you're into grindy Korean MMOs this is for you, otherwise steer clear. To make up for lack of content severe grind is now in place to slow you down from completing what little there is. The hardest content in the game Fractals Level 100 were finished day 1. To stop this happening to the whole expansion time gates are everywhere. Even the main story is behind a grind!Don't bother. If you're into grindy Korean MMOs this is for you, otherwise steer clear. To make up for lack of content severe grind is now in place to slow you down from completing what little there is. The hardest content in the game Fractals Level 100 were finished day 1. To stop this happening to the whole expansion time gates are everywhere. Even the main story is behind a grind!

    Masteries are a mixed bag between extremely overpowered and extremely underwhelming verging on awful thanks to nerfs from the devs to classes they don't play. All you need to know is that they love their Ele's and Mesmers. If you must play this pick that class and you'll be forever happy!

    Level design isn't enough to save this game and I don't look set to log in again any time soon, unless something happens to stop the tediousness of this expansion. So little to offer for it's price, big misstep here.    … Expand
  86. Harveen
    Oct 27, 2015
    0
    Lacks content. Boring Grinds. Few skins, but they make time to put day 1 skins in their gem store!

    Only thing I like about this game is the map design, other than that I'd avoid.

    Fallout 4 is out soon, going to refund this and grab that instead. Do no buy!
  87. Zakooon
    Oct 27, 2015
    1
    I'm done. What a waste, avoid at all costs or at least until it's at least half price. Little content, max grind.

    My guild is already dead less than a week into this game, refunds are available though which is my only positive.
  88. ethanDS
    Oct 27, 2015
    1
    The community asked for an expansion when Anet were content with pushing living story.

    This is the result of living story becoming an expansion. It's lackluster, has little meaty content in it and is just paid fluff. I could easily see the majority of this content being living story given to us over the next year, instead due to the demand of an actual expansion, we have it now in a    The community asked for an expansion when Anet were content with pushing living story.

    This is the result of living story becoming an expansion. It's lackluster, has little meaty content in it and is just paid fluff. I could easily see the majority of this content being living story given to us over the next year, instead due to the demand of an actual expansion, we have it now in a chunk.

    I would ask anyone looking to purchase be wary, this is not your typical "massive scale expansion", very little to get excited about. I feel I've wasted money.    … Expand
  89. Jason_Field
    Oct 27, 2015
    2
    No one is going to be more disappointed than myself. After having supported this developer for such a long time I think I'm finally at the point where I have to part ways. The maps are great, enemies look cool but locking the masteries behind such grindy time gates has really been a sour taste in my mouth.

    Had they not locked this content as well as the story behind this, I feel this    No one is going to be more disappointed than myself. After having supported this developer for such a long time I think I'm finally at the point where I have to part ways. The maps are great, enemies look cool but locking the masteries behind such grindy time gates has really been a sour taste in my mouth.

    Had they not locked this content as well as the story behind this, I feel this expansion wouldn't last long at all due to the lack of anything really meaningful.

    On the surface you'll find an intriguing game but you'll soon come to realise there is little substance.    … Expand
  90. DavidDean
    Oct 27, 2015
    1
    This expansion does one thing right, great looking environments. Unfortunately it doesn't take long to see the weaknesses and the lack of content locked behind heavy time gates.

    This expansion seems rushed and incomplete and I'd go as far as to say not worth the initial price at all.
  91. terryhu700
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    I rate games on "Will I play or not?".

    One of the core selling points of the HoT expansion is elite specs, just look at the amount of news/threads/releases involving them. It provides a different play style of existing professions/classes. HoT Expansion is a definite "not going to play" due to the fact that elite specs are heavily gated from a currency called Hero Points which are    I rate games on "Will I play or not?".

    One of the core selling points of the HoT expansion is elite specs, just look at the amount of news/threads/releases involving them. It provides a different play style of existing professions/classes.

    HoT Expansion is a definite "not going to play" due to the fact that elite specs are heavily gated from a currency called Hero Points which are ALSO gated behind Masteries which are specific to certain maps. It's like a grind inside a grind.

    I agree that a certain amount of work is supposed to be done before unlocking elite specs but the amount Anet is testing and using players a guinea pigs (as usual) is absurd. I do not appreciate being a guinea pig, I do not appreciate forced grinding just to extend the life of the game.

    With this, it;s a definite "Will not play" for me and rate it a score of 1. Regardless of what else they put in, the core draw of games is the gameplay itself and gw2 is a majorly a combat based game. Not a puzzle, not a mystery, not a dialogue based game; it is a combat based game.    … Expand
  92. Xit
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    Let's start out by saying I've loved GW2 for a very long time. That being said, as other users have mentioned, GW2 has taken an extreme 180 to what it once was. Before it felt rewarding for doing dungeons, fractals, and most PvE content. Whether it was fun or not is up for you to decide. You also used to get to play at your own pace, level and gain income how you want. Now after the mostLet's start out by saying I've loved GW2 for a very long time. That being said, as other users have mentioned, GW2 has taken an extreme 180 to what it once was. Before it felt rewarding for doing dungeons, fractals, and most PvE content. Whether it was fun or not is up for you to decide. You also used to get to play at your own pace, level and gain income how you want. Now after the most recent patch, they made it as grindy as possible and pretty much stripped that freedom away. No reason to do dungeons or fractals anymore. Users are now forced to run PvE events just to be able to unlock specs that we paid good $ for. I don't want to be spoon fed by any means but sticking the specs behind a huge grindwall is just disgusting to me. Not to mention the fact that they removed almost all effective ways to earn gold by nerfing dungeon rewards by 66%. They also promised a "new and improved" fractal system. There is nothing "new or improved" about these fractals. They added exactly 0 new fractals, removed all the rewards from them AND added a huge gold sink for players who want to receive any worthwhile loot. Also, they screwed over F2P players but that a whole different topic entirely. Overall I was disappointed by the lack of new content and the direction the game is going. Don't believe people who say this is not a grind fest. They are most likely people who played GW2 before the expansion and ran world events all day every day. Can that be fun? Yes, to some people. Are they fun when you are forced to do them to progress in the game that you paid money for? I don't think so but some might like it.… Expand
  93. dreiji
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    as someone who mainly runned dungeons and fractals, the changes they made killed what i do in this game. and i bought the 100$ edition to support them, now i regret wasting my money.
  94. DeathsPeak
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    Waste of money, even the free content like the changes to wvw were terrible.Thumbs up on killing wvw Arenanet, theres barely anyone even on and the map is just too big and dumb.. Its wvw not pve -.-
  95. AusJock
    Oct 26, 2015
    2
    Massive, massive disappointment with the HoT exapnsion... WvW is going to be gutted, the grind is outrageously bad and like nothing seen in any Guild Wars game previously.
    Casual players can expect to spend the next few months at-least just to get the elite specialization on a single character.
    There is an amazing amount of new content but every portion of it requires grinding in order    Massive, massive disappointment with the HoT exapnsion... WvW is going to be gutted, the grind is outrageously bad and like nothing seen in any Guild Wars game previously.
    Casual players can expect to spend the next few months at-least just to get the elite specialization on a single character.
    There is an amazing amount of new content but every portion of it requires grinding in order to learn masteries or gain Hero Points.

    If I could get a refund for my pre-purchase, I 100% would.    … Expand
  96. Vexia
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    As someone who Pre-purchased the first game, played the beta, pre-purchased the second game and played that beta as well, I am so severely disappointed in Arenanet, the now "old" content is laggy as hell. While the new content is buggy as hell, I assume the pressure was on them to release it quickly but there are so many bugs in it, that players are getting 2-3 patches a day minimum, andAs someone who Pre-purchased the first game, played the beta, pre-purchased the second game and played that beta as well, I am so severely disappointed in Arenanet, the now "old" content is laggy as hell. While the new content is buggy as hell, I assume the pressure was on them to release it quickly but there are so many bugs in it, that players are getting 2-3 patches a day minimum, and those barely address the amount of bugs in the game, the lag, the same old issues they had before which never got fixed, and a complete disregard for real juicy content, the expansion is a pretty piece of fluff.

    My experience with the expansion, was to login, attempt to do the story, die in it, being unable to revive I had to exit because the pop up button for revival didn't show up, and upon re-entering the game, the story had vanished out of the game but remains in the log, being permanently unable to complete it. It's bugs like these that make you wonder why did I buy the expensive pre-purchase pack with all the gems, when after 5 days I still cannot complete any story, any new content, i'm still stuck in arena net limbo. waiting for the next patch and hoping that my fix will be in this one.

    Guild Halls were a major let down, a very weak monster fight in order to take control of the room, only 2 guild halls to choose from, mapped instances where your guild members are constantly shuffed from instance to instance as the game makes the rooms bigger or smaller, getting pop ups every 2-5 minutes telling you to switch maps. And we all know that Guild Halls are Arenanets way of fixing their very poorly designed market system which has a overflow of too many useless materials, and now all of a sudden these materials (examples carrots) are now needed by the thousands to use as a material to build your guild hall. Guild window looks messy, it's hard to find the things your looking for. THE LAG. IS NO JOKE.
    If you dare to open your guild window to look through your roster there is a huge amount of lag.

    GAME CRASHES CONSTANTLY, my files aren't broken, the game just decides to close it's self at random times. Which beats the black screen of doom that was happening a week ago.

    Fractals are fast, but are still just as boring as ever, but more appealing now, because you only need to be stuck with the same fools for 1 map rather than 4.

    The Elite specializations look cool, but that's about it, most feel slow and clunky and difficult to chain into a real attack.

    THERE WAS SO MUCH HYPE, and I was hyped for it, I even got my friends to play, and so far I've been nothing but disappointed, I knew I needed to keep my expectations low, so I wouldn't be disappointed if something wasn't as great as I'd expect it to be, but this is just ridiculous.    … Expand
  97. dwms1188
    Oct 26, 2015
    3
    I had to make an account to express my disappointment for this game. There was so much hype for an expansion after 3 long years of little content or fixes and honestly I was very much looking forward to it.

    What we got however was typical Arena Net response. I can't find a single part of this expansion where they listened to any Living Story, WvW or Fractal feedback they received. Want    I had to make an account to express my disappointment for this game. There was so much hype for an expansion after 3 long years of little content or fixes and honestly I was very much looking forward to it.

    What we got however was typical Arena Net response. I can't find a single part of this expansion where they listened to any Living Story, WvW or Fractal feedback they received. Want to play with a small group? Better hope people come around for the champs your elite specialization (see: Their primary selling point) are gated behind. Want to get the Hero Points that can be solo'd? You guessed it, a Mastery gate. Some Hero Points requiring max masteries (16 million exp).

    There are 4 maps. The events on the maps are not fun. You run in a circle for 16 mil experience then do it another 4 times. I'm sure raids will require high level masteries because its their only content they brought into this game. You're paying $50 for 1/3 game play and the other 2/3 time gating.

    But its an expansion you say, go back to the regular game if you don't like it? Too bad they castrated that in the process. It wasn't enough to make their fruits of their labor annoying, they ruined their quite stable and still maintaining base game by making the only money attainable in the new zones. Upped Fractal rewards? Only if you get the mastery.

    New WvW maps do nothing but highlight the disconnect between whatever bastardized team if handling that now and what actual players want.

    Skip this heaping pile of **** for a month. If Anet pulls its head from their asses and makes some fixes maybe it will be worth it. I'm getting a refund.    … Expand
  98. Intox
    Oct 26, 2015
    1
    My experience with HoT can be summed up as frustrating.
    The story is gated behind various masteries to artificially extend it.
    As for the story it was average, ending feels underwhelming and leaves me thinking "is that it?" It gave the impression of do these things you may not enjoy to access the stuff you might enjoy. That is exactly how I felt about finally completing the story,    My experience with HoT can be summed up as frustrating.
    The story is gated behind various masteries to artificially extend it.

    As for the story it was average, ending feels underwhelming and leaves me thinking "is that it?"

    It gave the impression of do these things you may not enjoy to access the stuff you might enjoy.
    That is exactly how I felt about finally completing the story, I had to do a lot of not fun things to level a mastery required at each step of the story.

    Did not finish the unlock on my elite spec as it takes an extreme amount of hero points to unlock.
    Lost a lot of replay value for me since I have no desire to grind hero points for elite specs for every character, any alts I would like to play will face the same wall that my first character did.

    When I first bought GW2 I loved the play your way design they did and that has now changed.
    Definitely a big downgrade to me from the original game, I had more fun before this expansion released.    … Expand
  99. steve13
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    Arena Net pulled a complete switch. So much for the play your way with no grind. The game is now nothing but a grind with gated content. They are even adding raids. This was clearly done as a time sink as there is not enough content to merit fifty dollars. Count me out. I am done with this game.
  100. Valkysas
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    They took a awesome do what ever you want when you want to game and turned it into a Group only game
    with gating like you never seen be for 100% wast of money this expansion will be dead and soon the game if this is the direction they are going .. do you like to log in a game once or twice a week since that's the time all the other ppl log in and never be able to do any thing until then !    They took a awesome do what ever you want when you want to game and turned it into a Group only game
    with gating like you never seen be for 100% wast of money this expansion will be dead and soon the game if this is the direction they are going .. do you like to log in a game once or twice a week since that's the time all the other ppl log in and never be able to do any thing until then !
    ppl can't even find groups for the new HOT zone and it HAS to be done with one LOL    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

51
#51 Best PC Game of 2015
10
#10 Most Discussed PC Game of 2015
15
#15 Most Shared PC Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
81

Generally favorable reviews - based on 22 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 22
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 22
  3. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. CD-Action
    Jan 12, 2016
    85
    Heart of Thorns is so good I forgot the flaws that made me lose interest in the original game after my initial delight with it. [13/2015, p.64]
  2. Games Master UK
    Jan 3, 2016
    85
    Not the biggest expansion, but it enhances the best parts of an already magnificent MMO. [Christmas 2015, p.75]
  3. Edge Magazine
    Jan 3, 2016
    80
    In spite of the odd stumble, it's a wonderful journey. [Jan 2016, p.120]
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