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. liefbread
    Oct 27, 2015
    8
    As promised I'm adjusting my review, although there are many things that feel like a departure from the Guild Wars 2 I'm familiar with, I no longer have an issue with their handling of Elite Specializations. Arenanet is a company that listens to it's players, if not being openly communicative about intended action. There's certainly a lot to love about the new expansion, and I hope afterAs promised I'm adjusting my review, although there are many things that feel like a departure from the Guild Wars 2 I'm familiar with, I no longer have an issue with their handling of Elite Specializations. Arenanet is a company that listens to it's players, if not being openly communicative about intended action. There's certainly a lot to love about the new expansion, and I hope after reading this you're willing to jump in yourself.… Expand
  2. Coryisthebomb
    Oct 25, 2015
    0
    This review is addressing the fact that Guild Wars2: Heart of Thorns is not and should never be referred to as an expansion...... this title was the marketing method which the game's creator, Arenanet, used to trick players into buying their way past a paywall.

    Purchasing this title enables you to play the core game at the level of everyone else who paid to play the game, while choosing    This review is addressing the fact that Guild Wars2: Heart of Thorns is not and should never be referred to as an expansion...... this title was the marketing method which the game's creator, Arenanet, used to trick players into buying their way past a paywall.

    Purchasing this title enables you to play the core game at the level of everyone else who paid to play the game, while choosing not to purchase severely cripples your abilities as a player, whether or not you bought the game at launch, or picked up the game completely for free.

    There is minimal content in this title that is not found in the core/free to play version of the game, and its most boasted features are a glorified list of chores that require hundreds of hours of grinding to complete, (complete with gating) in order to achieve an "expansion sized" number of gameplay hours.

    Players who purchased Heart of Thorns will find themselves laboriously grinding in order to complete chores in new as well as areas of the game that have been stale for over two years in order to achieve any sense of progression.

    This title is the definition of horrible business ethics.
    Arenanet blatantly lied about what players would be purchasing in order to suck as much money as possible from their loyal fans who supported Guild Wars 2 since launch before catering to their new free to play churn and burn playerbase.

    The entire thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I am honestly and truly insulted.
    I have been a loyal fan of Arenanet since Guild Wars 1, and I would not recommend picking up this title unless you have never played the core game, because you will not get much more than the core game if you are looking for an expansion.    … Expand
  3. 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!
  4. papryk
    Oct 26, 2015
    2
    Heart of Grind......also raids, squad system and new legendarys to be added "later".... like 2 years wasn't enough for that xD
    Anet is a joke. Greed all the way...
  5. CannibalShinobi
    Oct 25, 2015
    10
    Took me less than 3 days to unlock the new sub class fully for my Scrapper. Wasn't hard at all, didn't have to even complete all the challenges in the first 3 zones to do it. There is no grind, unlike most MMOs. Great casual fun.
  6. szspagna
    Oct 25, 2015
    2
    If you like dynamic events, the expansion is for you.

    If you hate this braindead open world pve activity, the expansion has nothing for you. They nerfed dungeon and fractal rewards to hell. They gated fractal rewards behind keys that you have to buy with gold to get RNG returns. You cannot level masteries with instanced PvE content, so you must farm "dynamic" (oh, the irony)    If you like dynamic events, the expansion is for you.

    If you hate this braindead open world pve activity, the expansion has nothing for you.

    They nerfed dungeon and fractal rewards to hell. They gated fractal rewards behind keys that you have to buy with gold to get RNG returns.

    You cannot level masteries with instanced PvE content, so you must farm "dynamic" (oh, the irony) events for countless hours to progress in masteries.

    The elite specs are locked behind 400 points, which means your world completion in the game meant nothing. You'll only unlock up to adept traits IF you did world completion. If you didn't, get ready to play a handicapped elite spec for a while.

    For those very 20-40 hero challenges you need to do in the jungle, many of them are gated behind mastery level requirements to access (so gotta grind those dynamic events for hours).

    On top of that, they had the retarded idea of placing champions that can one shot anything that isn't a necro/warrior.

    You will not be able to solo most hero challenges in heart of thorns. Some hero challenges don't involve a ridiculously broken champion, instead they involve a point surrounded by several veteran level HP sponge ranged mobs who attack from range for a third to half your health, stun you to death in melee, and if you try to range them to not get stunned to death in melee, they also randomly evade ranged attacks.

    Needless to say, this expansion is a complete departure from Guild Wars 1 philosophy of no grind.

    Massive goldsinks were also created. To salvage all those ascended rings you got from fractals, each salvage costs 1 gold. A salvage kit costs 20 gold in a game with no meaningful liquid gold gain since they nerfed dungeon rewards to hell (and even then a complete dungeon tour WAS 20 gold).

    They also made ascended armor even more expensive to make, by not only making it require bolts of damask, but elonian leather too.

    Basically, they increased all goldsinks to ridiculous levels, nerfed gold gain in the game, so you are pressured to buy gems with real money to convert to gold, or face farming unholy hours.

    The only good thing about this expansion is the story missions and maybe the raids.    … Expand
  7. phrost
    Oct 25, 2015
    3
    One of the greatest things about the original GW2 was the freedom to play the way you want to play.
    Want to level all of your characters to max potential doing nothing but playing sPvP or WvW?
    Totally works. That was until HoT and the infinite series of time / experience / gold gates stepped in. The biggest selling point of HoT was unlocking elite specs ("class-within-a-class") for    One of the greatest things about the original GW2 was the freedom to play the way you want to play.
    Want to level all of your characters to max potential doing nothing but playing sPvP or WvW?
    Totally works.
    That was until HoT and the infinite series of time / experience / gold gates stepped in.

    The biggest selling point of HoT was unlocking elite specs ("class-within-a-class") for all characters.
    If you leveled up via WvW/sPvP before and don't have 100% map completion- you're in for a world of hurt.
    ~36 hours of EoTM grinding in (with 100% wxp birthday booster + 50% wxp converted boosters) I've only managed to unlock 40% of the tempest elite spec for a single max level character.
    That's just less than an hour of WvW per percentage point unlock.
    ~100 hours per level 80 to fully unlock an elite spec line via EoTM thanks to a massive EoTM nerf that was released as part of HoT.

    Of course you could try PvE and grind masteries/hero points there- all of the PvE sympathizers will tell you that this content is challenging and challenging content good for the game overall.
    I ask how is a time gate challenging? Just because it takes a significant amount of time that makes it a worthy reward?

    Doing PvE you'll simply run around, find hero points, and spend 15-20 minutes clearing veteran mobs to a hero point.
    Only then will the hero challenge mob yell "You are not worthy, I will not fight you" for you have not yet spent time grinding up masteries to unlock the required language / culture level.
    Challenging content for sure- it just requires randomly facerolling enough events to grind a metric ton of XP.
    Rewarding? Not really.
    I guess the time sink spent cleaning my apartment must be epic content by the same definition.

    Then PvP- there are a ton of new runes / sigils / mist champion reward tracks added- but they all cost 15g a pop.
    Sure PvP can be open, instantly unlocked, and competitive, if you convert enough gems in to gold first.
    Since when did everything become gold locked in PvP? New strategy?
    Maybe if we're lucky in a few weeks we can buy hero points with gems.

    All in all the expansion isn't horrible except for the points above- the graphics are amazing, the level design would be awesome if it wasn't for the broken mechanics and the fact it's almost impossible to navigate successfully.
    The events / open world boss fights are epic and actually challenging (note for PvE guys: really challenging as in actual mechanics here- not just time gate challenging that you all seem to idolize).

    For me the expansion just lacks... something.. what's it called... fun.
    Pretty bad when you'd rather do almost anything else than login on launch weekend for a new title.    … Expand
  8. Hadee
    Oct 27, 2015
    10
    Everything is great! Anet listened to community feedback and made huge improvements to the expansion less than a week after it went live.

    They are still continuing to improve and expand on what's already a solid and well made expansion.

    10/10
  9. Taynore
    Oct 26, 2015
    0
    Heart of Thorns? More like Heart of Grind. Everything is gated by either xp or hero point grind. Don't feel like I've got my money's worth in the expansion. And all of this was followed up by cripling economical nerf to my favorite core game content - dungeons.
  10. 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.
  11. DiscoJacen
    Oct 26, 2015
    4
    Some really cool features, but way too many shortcuts taken...
    The mastery system is just a simple xp grind and just serves has a way to hinder your progression in the main story.
    Special masteries that were presented like "unique" (I'm looking at you Pact Mentor) are nothing more than just "get xp in the regular game". The story is cheap and would pass if it didn"'t try to shove in as    Some really cool features, but way too many shortcuts taken...
    The mastery system is just a simple xp grind and just serves has a way to hinder your progression in the main story.
    Special masteries that were presented like "unique" (I'm looking at you Pact Mentor) are nothing more than just "get xp in the regular game".
    The story is cheap and would pass if it didn"'t try to shove in as much social acceptance as possible.

    The elite specializations are cool but once again hidden behind a grindwall if you want to unlock them with hero points (unlike spvp who has them unlocked because #esportz...).
    Which is funny because WvW players STILL have to do the pve grind to get the elite specs....

    Some redeemable features like guild halls.
    Fighting in the jungle is satisfying and can be a real challenge.
    Once you unlock the glider it's a real pleasure to glide around.

    In the end had it been a 20 dollar expansion I'd have said "no problem". But for the price of a full game (even more for ppl who paid for the bigger packs) you just CAN'T release something with so many lazy shortcuts to avoid having to make intermediary missions or quests.    … Expand
  12. lippy77
    Oct 25, 2015
    3
    Too much grind elite spec need too much points points loked on masterys is just a bad design exp arena net promise o no grind game but they give you a grind fest much of the new content is not soloable also what is just salt to the injury.
  13. 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
  14. kennyljs
    Oct 26, 2015
    4
    Mediocre. I wonder if the reviewers that gave it 10/10 even played the game at all. They gated off the expansion pack so that you need to grind for mastery so that you can progress through the map. In the core game, you could get to whatever area you want to go without any restrictions. The only problem is that the level 80 mobs will one hit KO your level 2 character in a level 80 area.Mediocre. I wonder if the reviewers that gave it 10/10 even played the game at all. They gated off the expansion pack so that you need to grind for mastery so that you can progress through the map. In the core game, you could get to whatever area you want to go without any restrictions. The only problem is that the level 80 mobs will one hit KO your level 2 character in a level 80 area. But that is how open the core game is. This expansion build huge walls around the map that you need to break down before you can progress. Yes, the graphics are stunning. The game play is smooth. Some bugs here and there, but not game breaking. The only thing standing in your way if you want to open the maps is that huge wall. A wall too huge for many players. The elites can go kitten off!… Expand
  15. 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 -.-
  16. Mortum1
    Oct 25, 2015
    2
    Why so low? Welli played this game for about 1,000 hours, i got my money worth back many many times, but the HoTs expansion is a very grindy type of content, tehre is some fun here and there with fantastic visuals and music, but its core design is around grinding XP for masteries, something that sounded good in theory but the way it is implemented ended feeling nothing more than justWhy so low? Welli played this game for about 1,000 hours, i got my money worth back many many times, but the HoTs expansion is a very grindy type of content, tehre is some fun here and there with fantastic visuals and music, but its core design is around grinding XP for masteries, something that sounded good in theory but the way it is implemented ended feeling nothing more than just another MMO expac that you have to grind endless levels to get to the good stuff. Its not fun and its not , as always with Anet, rewarding!… Expand
  17. 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.
  18. season2003
    Oct 27, 2015
    8
    Great job on reviewing the Hero Points and the story gating. 250 points and level 1 mastery is much much much better than the crap you bring to us at the very beginning. Now I can set back and enjoy my elite spec while going through the new content. Cheers
  19. 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
  20. Pangolins
    Oct 28, 2015
    9
    After the fix to Elite specialization gaining, the grind is essentially eliminated, it doesn't take ages to get the new trait lines, the maps are beautiful, the classes are great fun in PVP, and the story mode is intriguing, for someone who doesn't do much PVE I am impressed with the story and how massive the maps are.
  21. 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.
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. buranya
    Mar 24, 2017
    7
    HoT is in some ways a rebuild of Guild Wars 2. It adds a lot of content to the main game, new areas, new bosses and dungeons. It contains all that we expect from an expansion. But, and there's always one but, it is too expensive for what it gives. If you had already bought Guild Wars 2, HoT will cost you exactly the same as a completely new player, as it gives you the main game with theHoT is in some ways a rebuild of Guild Wars 2. It adds a lot of content to the main game, new areas, new bosses and dungeons. It contains all that we expect from an expansion. But, and there's always one but, it is too expensive for what it gives. If you had already bought Guild Wars 2, HoT will cost you exactly the same as a completely new player, as it gives you the main game with the buy.

    But, trying to focus on the expansion itself, it adds a lot of hours of fun. Also improves the living world, and the new dungeons can be a big deal to treat with. Graphically it keeps the same aspect as the original game. The new areas are full of quests, every area contains it's own coin, that lets you buy some materials, armors and weapons. The new dungeons gives you the chance to face probably some of the hardest bosses in the game.

    And, ANet kept the expansion going further on the storyline. It doesn't finish with the fight against Mordremoth, but there are new living world quests. There are also new Legendary weapons coming out.

    One of the bad aspects of it is that it doesn't keep the community playing commonly. GW2 had that issue: you can play it during 4 months but, given the time, you stop playing it, because you lost the intention to obtain things, you already got all you wished, etc. And HoT has exactly the same problem.

    Given those aspects this is why i decide to score it with a 7. HoT adds content, new story, dungeons, weapons and maps. It also adds some classes making the game more open to customization of characters. But, it isn't worth 50€ if you aren't a new player or you intent to give it a lot of hours (old player). If you know that you will, don't doubt buying it; it is made for you. But, if you're closer to a casual gamer, forget about this buy.    … Expand
  26. 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
  27. 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
  28. Manwithtwohands
    Dec 30, 2015
    5
    Beautiful environments, animations and voice acting.
    Horrible game-play design.
    Seems the company has no ideas for longevity besides endless grind. Earn 1 million xp to talk to this frog vendor. Then talk to the frog vendor and see all his stuff is locked until you earn 3 million xp or some nonsense like that. You definitely get the impression the company making this game either hates    Beautiful environments, animations and voice acting.
    Horrible game-play design.
    Seems the company has no ideas for longevity besides endless grind.
    Earn 1 million xp to talk to this frog vendor. Then talk to the frog vendor and see all his stuff is locked until you earn 3 million xp or some nonsense like that. You definitely get the impression the company making this game either hates players or just doesn't care anymore.    … Expand
  29. 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
  30. 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.
  31. 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
  32. 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
  33. 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
  34. 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
  35. 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
  36. 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
  37. 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
  38. 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
  39. 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
  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. 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
  42. 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
  43. LordHawks
    Jan 9, 2016
    6
    I've played Guild Wars 2 for a few years now, along with the expansion Heart of Thorns. Decided to take a break from GW2 because the expansion felt like more of a job than a game. I wasn't having fun. Wiping every event, boss, story, and even exploring became really tiresome. Still a okay expansion for a certain type of player, but I'm burnt out on GW2. Disinterested in the story, newI've played Guild Wars 2 for a few years now, along with the expansion Heart of Thorns. Decided to take a break from GW2 because the expansion felt like more of a job than a game. I wasn't having fun. Wiping every event, boss, story, and even exploring became really tiresome. Still a okay expansion for a certain type of player, but I'm burnt out on GW2. Disinterested in the story, new builds behind a wall, and you're essentially just soloing around a lot of people. PVP was always enjoyable but not enough to keep me around. This is where I part ways with Guild Wars 2.

    Moved onto Star Wars: Old Republic as a subscriber. Tank, DPS, healer is a breath of fresh air, and I like the teamwork aspect. Story is excellent. Environment is excellent. Dungeons are way fun, and raids are insanely fun.    … Expand
  44. 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.
  45. 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.
  46. 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
  47. 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
  48. 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
  49. 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
  50. 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
  51. Archon_Wing
    Oct 27, 2015
    7
    Guild Wars 2 was a fairly standout MMO, as I have never gotten into MMOs in the past.-- I've never been fond of excessive treadmills and progression that would trivialize previous progress. The expansion keeps a lot of this, as in the past, most of the content is by and large, optional and most of one's previous progress is still left intact.

    The new zones introduced are visually    Guild Wars 2 was a fairly standout MMO, as I have never gotten into MMOs in the past.-- I've never been fond of excessive treadmills and progression that would trivialize previous progress. The expansion keeps a lot of this, as in the past, most of the content is by and large, optional and most of one's previous progress is still left intact.

    The new zones introduced are visually stunning, accompanied by a story that is far superior and involving than the one found in the original. It may not be a literary masterpiece, but I see in-game stories as ways to get into the action, so it doesn't have to be. As always, Guild Wars 2's strongest strength is providing the atmosphere both in visual and auditory details that really makes brings forward the scope of the aftermath of events that have transpired. The zones aren't just larger-- they feel larger as well. In addition the enemies here are generally stronger than those found in the open world and also seem to have decent AI which is a nice contrast to the game pre-expansion. The new gliding mastery also drastically changes how movement works and is suited to the larger map size.

    Unfortunately, despite having the larger sense of scope, in terms of exploration, it feels oddly linear. This is because you must gather certain masteries in order to progress. The passageways tend to be rather narrow and meandering and going off the beaten path often just leads you into either certain death or realizing you need something else to progress. Oh, and whatever class you were using will get an elite specialization, but it will require you to do most of the content anyways, so don't count on it for help.

    But that's not the worst problem. The maps are so huge that you can go for a while without seeing a single person which was never a problem in the past. It can be mitigated with the "Looking for Group" tool, but I find it quite an annoyance especially when some of the hero points are intended for multiple players to do. Yea I understand this is an MMO. So it's not really good for the solo player if you were in the original game.

    Contrast this to the base game, where you could journey to any of the first 5 starter zones and explore the map in any number of ways. HoT exploration feels like it's on rails by contrast.

    But by any means, this is not a bad addition to Guild Wars 2. So why the low rating?

    Well, I primarily play World vs World and the new maps introduced are also interesting but are generally too large and complex when centered a mode where one expects to face players, not the environment as much. And much like the PvE maps, finding players, enemy or allied tends to be a issue. There are some interesting concepts at play here, such as structures being harder to attack and more interesting structure mechanics, but they seem a bit overtuned and meant for larger groups. Finally, there's the issue of World vs World progression being tied down the gated specialization mechanics-- World vs World can access them via a randomized item drop which is far more tedious than its pve counterpart. However, as of this writing, Arenanet has addressed some of these concerns and has lessened some of the requirements.

    In the end, I appreciate the designer's will to expand on concepts that already existed and also to cater to a more hardcore fanbase. However, it's very clear that a lot of these things are not suited for me, and the game seemingly lacking in polish in a number of places such as the rather unintuitive PvP Guild missions and other minor things like having daily achievements for content that no longer exists in addition to the empty feel that seems present in a lot of locations just makes me feel the game was rushed to some degree. Given that this is merely a first impression and I expect changes for the better in the future, this may mean HoT has the potential to be an excellent addition. In fact, since this initial writing, some steps were already being taken to addressed, so at the very least you have a company that's willing to listen to player. As for now though, I would say don't rush for it.    … Expand
  52. 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
  53. 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!
  54. 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
  55. 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
  56. 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
  57. 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.
  58. 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
  59. MarcTryon
    Nov 23, 2015
    5
    At first blush, HoT has a lot going for it. The specialization are fun, the glider is a hoot, the new zones are lush and the critters unique and challenging.

    But as the hardcore players have pushed deeper into the new zones, the more accessible zones are left underpopulated. This isn't too bad in the first zone but, since it's hard to even solo the trash on the paths, and impossible to    At first blush, HoT has a lot going for it. The specialization are fun, the glider is a hoot, the new zones are lush and the critters unique and challenging.

    But as the hardcore players have pushed deeper into the new zones, the more accessible zones are left underpopulated. This isn't too bad in the first zone but, since it's hard to even solo the trash on the paths, and impossible to do most hero points or events without a decent number of people, it means for second and later zone, there is little worth doing unless you can get to a commander's pin and those are hard to come by, at least when I play.

    The mastery system is a long haul, which is not necessarily bad- it's good to have some goals. But it is frustrating to repeatedly find content that you can't access without some mastery since, unless you spend a crazy amount of time playing, it will be weeks or months before you've unlocked the necessary mastery. Plus the mastery "gate" seems frankly just arbitrary- like the hero point that poisons you over time and the only way to last long enough to earn the hero point is to have one of the end masteries, something that takes a very long time. Arbitrary content gates remind me of the old adventure games that put in obscure puzzles just so you didn't blow through the content too quickly.

    The legendary precursor collections proved to be another long grind without even the benefit of saving you money on your precursor since you still need to craft and/or buy quite a lot.

    It feels like the only option is to join a guild (which is hard to find at my late play time) and spend lots of time repeating the same content.

    GW2 went from quite enjoyable to starting to get painful to log in. For me, it's time to give it a six month break and see if they fix anything after a few patches. Definitely a disappointing xpac.    … Expand
  60. 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
  61. 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
  62. 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.
  63. 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
  64. 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
  65. 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.
  66. 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
  67. shagworth
    Oct 27, 2015
    6
    At this point after release of the base game, if you're still playing Guild Wars 2 then Heart of Thorns will most likely be a breath of fresh air.

    If you're looking to try out Guild Wars 2 for the first time, this is a good time to join in seeing that Heart of Thorns comes with the core game included. For the price, I have no doubt you will be able to get your money's worth out of the    At this point after release of the base game, if you're still playing Guild Wars 2 then Heart of Thorns will most likely be a breath of fresh air.

    If you're looking to try out Guild Wars 2 for the first time, this is a good time to join in seeing that Heart of Thorns comes with the core game included. For the price, I have no doubt you will be able to get your money's worth out of the purchase.

    If you played Guild Wars 2 in the past, dropped it for whatever reason and are thinking about coming back with the Heart of Thorns expansion, I would say that it's more of the same and not to expect anything that you're not used to.

    Pros: New maps are well designed
    Specializations add a lot of depth to classes
    The writing in their new story isn't as terrible as in the past

    Cons: Unlocking the nice new specializations is pretty grindy and you have to do it for each character.
    Killed WvW as an actual PvP focused game mode.
    Less actual content than I would have expected. No new dungeons? No new fractals?    … Expand
  68. 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
  69. 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.
  70. 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
  71. oyesur2
    Oct 27, 2015
    7
    The zones are packed, but the areas feel so small compared to the original release. Explorers will feel a bit underwhelmed, but it is fun to play. The new world vs world maps feel deserted, but that may be because so many people are in the new content and aren't back to the open world pvp style warfare.
  72. 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
  73. 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.
  74. 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.
  75. 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
  76. 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
  77. 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
  78. 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
  79. rxepyon
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    So I made an account to write this review to basically set it straight for the scrubs giving it negative reviews and complaining. The expansion is good, it tore away from the main stay of the core game. People kept complaining about it being too easy and wanting something new. Now anet delivered.
    They delivered and people are complaining, sorry you can't curb stomp every mob now and    So I made an account to write this review to basically set it straight for the scrubs giving it negative reviews and complaining. The expansion is good, it tore away from the main stay of the core game. People kept complaining about it being too easy and wanting something new. Now anet delivered.
    They delivered and people are complaining, sorry you can't curb stomp every mob now and actually have to create different builds for your characters instead of just stacking in a corner and cleaving things down. The mastery gated stuff? Please, it's not even that bad, I got everything I needed in less than 2 days (while I was working keep in mind) to complete the whole story and basically explore 85-90% of the new maps. The elite specs being gated? That's true, but again it isn't that bad, in those 2 days I was playing I even got 2 elite specs done and the rest of my guildies and friends are all on the same boat. People keep saying it's grindy, but please, have they even gone through other expansions from other MMOs? Adding more level caps, gear, etc. guild wars 2 took a different approach and the community is just butthurt over the change of pace that they are used to (stack, cleave, earn everything easy).

    That's not to say the expansion is perfect, it has its bugs here and there like every other expansion, but they are being dealt with as we speak and it isn't game breaking. But this expansion is ultimately a breathe of fresh air for the game and renewed it. It has changed, the meta in the game has changed, the community begged for harder and more challenging content, anet delivered, deal with it.    … Expand
  80. 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
  81. Razor4884
    Oct 27, 2015
    10
    A-net hit the ball out of the park with this expansion. I've hardly sunk my teeth into it but I can already taste the juices.

    They decided to not raise the level cap (as that would invalidate gear earned to date), but decided to add a whole new progression in the form of masteries. With these, you can really feel your character's progression.
  82. 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
  83. 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
  84. eien_kiseki
    Oct 28, 2015
    6
    1st day impression: 8 - the new maps were interesting to explore if a little frustrating due to the height, flying, and jumping puzzle-like parts that made it hard to navigate.
    2nd - 3rd day: 7 - i realized how much of a grind the mastery system is, i can't get enough points to max my elite spec and the new maps were frustrating and not rewarding.
    4th day: 6 - new fractal merchant was    1st day impression: 8 - the new maps were interesting to explore if a little frustrating due to the height, flying, and jumping puzzle-like parts that made it hard to navigate.
    2nd - 3rd day: 7 - i realized how much of a grind the mastery system is, i can't get enough points to max my elite spec and the new maps were frustrating and not rewarding.
    4th day: 6 - new fractal merchant was disabled so i couldn't work on increasing my AR to do higher scale fractal. On top of that every time i found a organized map for doing events, there would be a patch requiring me to restart and lose my map. *sigh*

    Overall my progressively worsening experience with HoT launch. Fascination turned into annoyance and frustration.    … Expand
  85. 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
  86. skilledspell
    Oct 26, 2015
    7
    Maps are really beautiful and some of the changes in place are really good for the game, ie. addition of raids and more focus on fractals. I just finished the story and found it slightly lacking, but those who aren't very into the lore shouldn't mind as much. I think both these 10/10 and 1/10 ratings are dumb, it has obvious flaws, but its not a terrible xpac because you can't get yourMaps are really beautiful and some of the changes in place are really good for the game, ie. addition of raids and more focus on fractals. I just finished the story and found it slightly lacking, but those who aren't very into the lore shouldn't mind as much. I think both these 10/10 and 1/10 ratings are dumb, it has obvious flaws, but its not a terrible xpac because you can't get your elite spec in 3 days.

    All in all, if you've played gw2 before and enjoyed it, give this a try. If you didn't like gw2 before, this won't change that. If you've never played gw2, the base game is free, so try it and choose from there.    … Expand
  87. aleks331
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    The expansion added massive amounts of replayable content to the game with engaging and improved storyline. The new progression system is very enjoyable and new features have opened up numerous new goals
  88. 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
  89. daid
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Great expansion so far. Yes, the elite specialization is gated behind hero points that you have to earn and the monsters are hard, but that's better than getting everything spoon fed to you up front and being tired of it after a week. The maps are awesome and give a very zelda/castlevania/metroid feel. The monsters are dangerous and require you to change up your play style and strategize.Great expansion so far. Yes, the elite specialization is gated behind hero points that you have to earn and the monsters are hard, but that's better than getting everything spoon fed to you up front and being tired of it after a week. The maps are awesome and give a very zelda/castlevania/metroid feel. The monsters are dangerous and require you to change up your play style and strategize. It's a great expansion and Anet did a great job.… Expand
  90. Linkthebear
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    I loved the story. The gliding was just great, adventures are such a blast. Most elite specs are great. The Maps are so crazy and meta event are super fun. Been loving the masters, though some lacking with the flavor. Dont understand why people think it is grindy. It doesnt take long at all. And even if it was whats the big deal? They are account bound!!!!
  91. Magesterium
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    Very Challenging and well to its name, Guild wars has to be one of the greatest games I have ever played because of the Unique tactical system they employed. The Scenery is immaculate the open world content is amazing and the story is well written with all the appropriate twists and turns and not disappointing at all. i would prefer to see some more heels for my characters but otherwiseVery Challenging and well to its name, Guild wars has to be one of the greatest games I have ever played because of the Unique tactical system they employed. The Scenery is immaculate the open world content is amazing and the story is well written with all the appropriate twists and turns and not disappointing at all. i would prefer to see some more heels for my characters but otherwise the characters cosmetic enhancing is amazing. I played wow and at a certain point it gets boring because there isn't much skill to it (plus its a consistent payment which is annoying) Guild wars keeps you on the edge and you have to get good at it i enjoy it and im trying to get my friends into it.… Expand
  92. Bringo
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    A great experience all around.
    The new map wide meta events are fun, engaging and actually require people to work together. The lore that accompanies them is excellent.
    The voice acting and writing is surprisingly good considering the base game had problems with that. This goes for both the story instances and the open world content. With all the new masteries, legendary precursor    A great experience all around.
    The new map wide meta events are fun, engaging and actually require people to work together. The lore that accompanies them is excellent.
    The voice acting and writing is surprisingly good considering the base game had problems with that. This goes for both the story instances and the open world content.
    With all the new masteries, legendary precursor crafting, achievement hunts + raids coming soon GW2:HOT will keep me playing for a long time.
    I don't understand the view that many others have that playing the game is "grind". I like having to progress my character and I like that after 4 days I still have done very little. That is a good thing.    … Expand
  93. thexmuffinxmanx
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    Welcome to the jungle, guys. My initial impressions with this xpac have been outstanding. I played for practically two days straight, and had a blast the whole time. The maps are amazing, and literally rise above any map made by an mmo to date. I feel as if I am deep in the jungle. The ambience and soundtrack range from mystical hymns to terrifying growls that echo throughout the forest.Welcome to the jungle, guys. My initial impressions with this xpac have been outstanding. I played for practically two days straight, and had a blast the whole time. The maps are amazing, and literally rise above any map made by an mmo to date. I feel as if I am deep in the jungle. The ambience and soundtrack range from mystical hymns to terrifying growls that echo throughout the forest. As I gain masteries, I constantly find new places to go.

    On that note, the masteries work very well. I can see how some people want the process to go quicker, but I don't mind it. I don't want to see it all in one day. Right now, the easiest way to level masteries is by completing the meta events in the map. These are really fun and unique, but they require a good amount of people to do them. If your map isn't that populated, its frustrating, but I feel this is a problem Arenanet will fix. Additionally, I know that the meta events are repetitive, and this will turn me off down the line.

    My only other gripe with the xpac is how grindy the process of unlocking your elite specilization is. Simply put, it's too much. Anet has already stated they're looking into the issue, so I'm not too worried about this either.

    The story isn't amazing, but in terms of Guild Wars standards, it is a huge leap forward. There are plot twists, deaths, and dramatic situations, something I haven't seen tried before. This was the first time I looked forward to continuing the story in this game. I got excited during each mission.

    Overall, Heart of Thorns has held its ground. It introduced a whole new way to expand an mmo. The content doesn't seem like it will be abandoned soon, as it is in other games, and the vanilla game still proves to be relevant. They nailed so many things, and got a few things wrong, but it still gets a 9/10 from me. As I have stated, Arenanet has already announced they're looking into changes to the problems I have mentioned, so I'm not worrying too much about those hurting the game's growth. Check it out if you haven't already. Ignore the trolls.    … Expand
  94. hawkeye8880
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    Sure, it is not a perfect expansion. But it delivered everything I hoped for and more. As a player with over 4,000 hours played, the game gave me things to do, and hope for the future if more content is like this. Overall the maps are as beautiful as they are frustrating. But that is what the Jungle was supposed to me. I have goals to work toward. If you didn't enjoy normal Guild Wars 2,Sure, it is not a perfect expansion. But it delivered everything I hoped for and more. As a player with over 4,000 hours played, the game gave me things to do, and hope for the future if more content is like this. Overall the maps are as beautiful as they are frustrating. But that is what the Jungle was supposed to me. I have goals to work toward. If you didn't enjoy normal Guild Wars 2, you will probably find the content repetitive, but it really is as good as you can get with the game. Absolutely worth every penny.… Expand
  95. romanodio
    Oct 26, 2015
    9
    story is sooooo good! i love it so much! the game play is engaging and fun. at the end of the day no matter whats good or bad this is WELL worth over 50 dollars. thank you anet
  96. Ammund
    Oct 26, 2015
    10
    The absolute best experience I have ever had with an expansion. Amazing storyline. Amazing maps. Amazing specs. Everything is how it should have been. They listened to us, the players, and did some good changes. Story is much darker than vanilla as well, which I love. I still have SO much to do even after unlocking my elite spec(after two days. kind of wish it was longer) and beating theThe absolute best experience I have ever had with an expansion. Amazing storyline. Amazing maps. Amazing specs. Everything is how it should have been. They listened to us, the players, and did some good changes. Story is much darker than vanilla as well, which I love. I still have SO much to do even after unlocking my elite spec(after two days. kind of wish it was longer) and beating the storyline.
    Cheers to Arenanet for making such a fantastic game and fantastic expansion. I'll be sticking around to the very end.    … Expand
  97. thatfool
    Oct 28, 2015
    9
    Very solid expansion with new mechanics, a new profession, and new horizontal progression on level 80. I'd give it more points but some of the bugs are downright embarrassing, if not particularly problematic, and show a serious lack of QA (e.g. the new profession not showing up as an option on the trading post... not an actual problem, but one of many examples that show their QA doesn'tVery solid expansion with new mechanics, a new profession, and new horizontal progression on level 80. I'd give it more points but some of the bugs are downright embarrassing, if not particularly problematic, and show a serious lack of QA (e.g. the new profession not showing up as an option on the trading post... not an actual problem, but one of many examples that show their QA doesn't involve actually playing the game like a normal player).… Expand
  98. Grathorius
    Nov 2, 2015
    8
    I'd give it an 8.5 if I could

    A lot of things were done right in the expansion. Many systems were overhauled for the better, and the amount of content is great for the price. Yes, servers have had some instabilities lately, but its been smoother than almost every other MMO expansion launch ever. There is a fair amount of "grind" despite being advertised as "Grind-less" and I won't    I'd give it an 8.5 if I could

    A lot of things were done right in the expansion. Many systems were overhauled for the better, and the amount of content is great for the price.

    Yes, servers have had some instabilities lately, but its been smoother than almost every other MMO expansion launch ever.

    There is a fair amount of "grind" despite being advertised as "Grind-less" and I won't sugarcoat it. You will do a lot of things over and over again. What is important is that the combat is fun and engaging, the events are dynamic, and the rewards (although this is debatable) feel enticing.

    If you play 24/7 and min/max the gains, you WILL run out of things to do, but for the average player, things are in a good place.

    Some systems, such as squad UI, Raids, PvP leagues and new legendary weapons are still to come (For Free!) and will only add to what has been a very pleasant expansion    … Expand
  99. DavidZetavon
    Oct 27, 2015
    9
    So Far so great the new PvE content is challenging and fun, The masteries are a decently paced grind towards progression you want. The story is awesome, more immersive and gripping. The new zones look amazing and have wonderful musical scores to back them up.

    Gliding as always is a fun and interesting way to travel and the new adventures give you and friends a fun new way to challenge    So Far so great the new PvE content is challenging and fun, The masteries are a decently paced grind towards progression you want. The story is awesome, more immersive and gripping. The new zones look amazing and have wonderful musical scores to back them up.

    Gliding as always is a fun and interesting way to travel and the new adventures give you and friends a fun new way to challenge each other in little mini games. Anet is also taking the communities feedback well even lowering the elite specs cost.(Even though like some people like me thinking it's not really needed)    … Expand
  100. Neuxe
    Oct 31, 2015
    8
    Heart of Thorns adds a whole lot of new End Game content, a completely new storyline, and a whole lot of more features. The content is mostly recommended for players who already have a max level character, and it can be hard for new players to understand the story, as it is recommended to play the Living World Season 2 first. While the expansion has a lot of great content, there are someHeart of Thorns adds a whole lot of new End Game content, a completely new storyline, and a whole lot of more features. The content is mostly recommended for players who already have a max level character, and it can be hard for new players to understand the story, as it is recommended to play the Living World Season 2 first. While the expansion has a lot of great content, there are some flaws, and the story could have been done better.… 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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