Screw this game (Specifically Heart of Thorns)

[Senpai Noodlez]

I was having fun in the core game and bought the expansion bundle, only to get slap in the face with a huge difficulty spike when trying to do content in HoT.
"Work on your build" was the advice I was given which basically means get better gear.
Which I would love to do and get ascended gear but lfg groups want minimum AG resistance which I can't get because I can't do fractals or buy materials so I can try and craft because, "account verification" takes 4 days.
Most casual friendly mmo my ass, you want to do the expansion?
Get the best gear from the previous you noob or else enjoy dying over and over to 1-2 mobs that hit like a truck the second their aoe touches you.

[Kitemay]

Publicado originalmente por Noodlez009:

Well thanks for the help for those who thought I didn't know what stats were, like its my first mmo (it isn't) I'm just dropping doing HoT for while.
The rest of you telling me "git gud" or "its so easy" you can get bent and enjoy simping for crap game design.
I literally started playing around two weeks ago and if this is how you treat new players I hope you get nothing but misfortune in your future endeavors.
This is my second try at trying to like GW2 and it has been going well until HoT.
But apparently like all fan bases you voice a complaint people are quick to defend by attacking my skill as a player and not the fact maybe things could be tuned better or reworked to actually help new people discovering the game.

hey wanna do some bounty hunting in path of fire, or world bosses in core? or maybe just some map metas? add me i am kitemay.1327 on NA server... if you are eu we can't run together.

[4InchsOfFury]

What you should do if already in HoT maps is do the meta in silverwaste , just sit and farm the chests and built the materials to make your accended gear. There are always people farming the meta and as long as your active and praticipating youll get a group invite.

[Tyrian Mollusk]

Publicado originalmente por ( ◉Д◉) 彡:

I just boosted my elementalist recently

Then you have a full set of quite expensive exotic celestial gear and trinkets on one of the classes best matched for celestial stats, plus 18 gold worth of actually useful runes and 1g sigils.

Just, you know, keep perspective when comparing experiences.

Publicado originalmente por 4InchsOfFury:

There are always people farming the meta and as long as your active and praticipating youll get a group invite.

Nah, join a RIBA group in LFG if you want to run Silverwastes for profit. RIBA is "Red Indigo Blue Amber" and that's the order you capture the four forts in when the events first start up, and the order you keep moving in from event to event. That, and bring a lot of bandit skeleton keys for following the chest train after the meta boss are really all you need to know to participate. There's often one or two RIBA groups around, and you can just join their squad via LFG, switch to the commander's instance, and off you go.

[C4RNIVOR3]

Publicado originalmente por Noodlez009:

Sorry I expected more of the same after paying money for something I like for free you condescending fanboys.

You can voice your criticisms without insulting people, you know. Much of what you said is indeed valid, and you bringing them up is not a problem. But when people immediately do this then in my eyes it voids the criticism you have, because now you are lashing out for... honestly no reason. Most of the replies in this thread have been quite reasonable and it seems to me you are simply frustrated you aren't being told what you wanted to hear in frankly one of the tamest threads I've seen here in a while (barring our usual forum trolls that show up to stir the pot right on schedule), and so in turn we are "condescending fanboys." Calling others condescending while you yourself are being condescending. Get a grip.

[likous]

Well I played HoT and I loved it. I started HoT with yellow or orange armor. I played it alone and I didn't have any problems except the final boss of the story that killed me 2 times.

PoF is a more casual expansion where the most problematic mobs are the Hydras.

When I completed HoT + PoF was when I made ascended armor without fractals or raids

[amarrminer]

Publicado originalmente por likous:

Well I played HoT and I loved it. I started HoT with yellow or orange armor. I played it alone and I didn't have any problems except the final boss of the story that killed me 2 times.

PoF is a more casual expansion where the most problematic mobs are the Hydras.

When I completed HoT + PoF was when I made ascended armor without fractals or raids

pof is only slightly more casual. the aggro range and spawn rate makes it so annoying to
travel. and no, i wont grind a flying mount, just to have fun in a game i have paid for

[Xeph The Tamagotchi]

Publicado originalmente por Noodlez009:

I was having fun in the core game and bought the expansion bundle, only to get slap in the face with a huge difficulty spike when trying to do content in HoT.
"Work on your build" was the advice I was given which basically means get better gear.
Which I would love to do and get ascended gear but lfg groups want minimum AG resistance which I can't get because I can't do fractals or buy materials so I can try and craft because, "account verification" takes 4 days.
Most casual friendly mmo my ass, you want to do the expansion?
Get the best gear from the previous you noob or else enjoy dying over and over to 1-2 mobs that hit like a truck the second their aoe touches you.

HoT is the most difficult expansion imo. Even my condi eating necromancer had issues. Best advice is lvl via base game then do hot when you are geared and know your class better. PoF and eod are not nearly as bad.

[likous]

Publicado originalmente por amarrminer:

Publicado originalmente por likous:

Well I played HoT and I loved it. I started HoT with yellow or orange armor. I played it alone and I didn't have any problems except the final boss of the story that killed me 2 times.

PoF is a more casual expansion where the most problematic mobs are the Hydras.

When I completed HoT + PoF was when I made ascended armor without fractals or raids

pof is only slightly more casual. the aggro range and spawn rate makes it so annoying to
travel. and no, i wont grind a flying mount, just to have fun in a game i have paid for

Do you need the griffon to beat PoF??
I completed all LW4 and it was when I made griffon because I saw a video that to make gold in Dragonfall you need the flying mounts which is false.

The 3 mounts you need in PoF are Raptor, Rabbit and Skimmer and they are obtained by completing the golden heart.

[Tyrian Mollusk]

Publicado originalmente por likous:

Do you need the griffon to beat PoF??

You can't even get the griffon until after you play through all of PoF.

The 3 mounts you need in PoF are Raptor, Rabbit and Skimmer and they are obtained by completing the golden heart.

You do need the jackal, too, for some specific things, but you need it less (aside from sand portals) as you get mastery upgrades (jackal's adding evasion to all mounts, for example, is a big deal and makes you need jackal itself a lot less).

[likous]

You do need the jackal, too, for some specific things, but you need it less (aside from sand portals) as you get mastery upgrades (jackal's adding evasion to all mounts, for example, is a big deal and makes you need jackal itself a lot less).

I got the jackal when I got to LW4 because I didn't even know it existed :) . The jackal is needed for a griffon quest right after defeating Legendary Corrupted Facet

[Joker]

Publicado originalmente por likous:

You do need the jackal, too, for some specific things, but you need it less (aside from sand portals) as you get mastery upgrades (jackal's adding evasion to all mounts, for example, is a big deal and makes you need jackal itself a lot less).

I got the jackal when I got to LW4 because I didn't even know it existed :) . The jackal is needed for a griffon quest right after defeating Legendary Corrupted Facet

Raptor much cooler anyway

[Tyrian Mollusk]

Publicado originalmente por likous:

I got the jackal when I got to LW4 because I didn't even know it existed :) .

Even with all those sand portals around and traps for stopping other mounts? I guess you could do that, but there's not much reason to.

[amarrminer]

Publicado originalmente por Xeph The Tamagotchi:

Publicado originalmente por Noodlez009:

I was having fun in the core game and bought the expansion bundle, only to get slap in the face with a huge difficulty spike when trying to do content in HoT.
"Work on your build" was the advice I was given which basically means get better gear.
Which I would love to do and get ascended gear but lfg groups want minimum AG resistance which I can't get because I can't do fractals or buy materials so I can try and craft because, "account verification" takes 4 days.
Most casual friendly mmo my ass, you want to do the expansion?
Get the best gear from the previous you noob or else enjoy dying over and over to 1-2 mobs that hit like a truck the second their aoe touches you.

HoT is the most difficult expansion imo. Even my condi eating necromancer had issues. Best advice is lvl via base game then do hot when you are geared and know your class better. PoF and eod are not nearly as bad.

i disagree. very few people can stand the insane aggro range in pof. dont know about eod,
because i havent tried it, pof is slightly more casual. nothing more.

[Doombunny]

Publicado originalmente por Noodlez009:

I was having fun in the core game and bought the expansion bundle, only to get slap in the face with a huge difficulty spike when trying to do content in HoT.
"Work on your build" was the advice I was given which basically means get better gear.
Which I would love to do and get ascended gear but lfg groups want minimum AG resistance which I can't get because I can't do fractals or buy materials so I can try and craft because, "account verification" takes 4 days.
Most casual friendly mmo my ass, you want to do the expansion?
Get the best gear from the previous you noob or else enjoy dying over and over to 1-2 mobs that hit like a truck the second their aoe touches you.

I too am a new player (going on 2 months now) whose experience almost EXACTLY mirrors yours; I had played the base game from 1-80 and was really enjoying it so i bought all 3 expansions/LW seasons etc...
Only to get mushroom stamped HARD the first time i set foot in HoT. It was a terrible experience and I felt absolutely awful about my purchase. What happened to the game that was so friggin' awesome that I dropped 95 bucks on ALL the expansions at once? Not only were the mobs absolute BEASTS but the FIRST map was designed for HoT gliding mechanics which I hadn't even unlocked and I couldn't even fully participate in the zone meta...

Luckily for me, I had a mentor; A friend from another game who had been playing for years. I let him know my frustrations and he bought a full set of appropriately runed/stats exotic gear for my class and commiserated about how the game simply does not prepare you for the expansions. After some review, i saw I was still wearing some lvl 40 gear at lvl 80 because i never got any upgrades for that slot!

The gear helped with the mobs, but the map design in that initial zone was just...terribad. I left HoT alone until I at least had the springer mount but I liked PoF alot better so i just stayed there and finished it as well as LW 4 for the roller beetle and griffon mounts. going back to HoT and doing it WITH mounts was a much better experience and I actually enjoy it now, especially Auric Basin meta with Dragon's Stand a close second. Really I like all the zone metas except Tangled Depths...that map is just terrible to get around in.

Anyway, there are a few things you need to do to fix your experience:

Review your best stat options for your class and elite spec and replace any gear that doesn't meet that best option with rare at the very least. Exotic would be ideal and those pieces aren't TOO expensive.

there are groups/squads that form to do Hero Point (HP) runs in the HoT and PoF expansions. Join one in the beginning and hang on for a wild ride! They go fast but they usually provide mesmer portals for the really tough ones. You'll have to AT LEAST unlock gliding though and it would help if you have a mount or two to keep up.

[mysaga]

Publicado originalmente por Doombunny:

Luckily for me, I had a mentor; A friend from another game who had been playing for years. I let him know my frustrations and he bought a full set of appropriately runed/stats exotic gear for my class and commiserated about how the game simply does not prepare you for the expansions. After some review, i saw I was still wearing some lvl 40 gear at lvl 80 because i never got any upgrades for that slot!

That "game simply does not prepare you for expansions" is actually a fair criticism I can agree upon - from my own experience on the original release as well as from what I hear from people trying out the game. As well as the advice of finding a mentor ingame as a workaround.
On the other hand, the first two seasons of the living world actually already increase the difficulty level compared to the base game, but I also know that a lot of people simply skip it.
Sadly this seems to not have worked out for OP, who was seemingly loaded with frustration and didn't take responses meant as understanding and explaining things well. Not sure how we can improve on it though.

Publicado originalmente por Doombunny:

The gear helped with the mobs, but the map design in that initial zone was just...terribad. I left HoT alone until I at least had the springer mount but I liked PoF alot better so i just stayed there and finished it as well as LW 4 for the roller beetle and griffon mounts. going back to HoT and doing it WITH mounts was a much better experience and I actually enjoy it now, especially Auric Basin meta with Dragon's Stand a close second. Really I like all the zone metas except Tangled Depths...that map is just terrible to get around in.

Welcome to the club - although not a new player, it is pretty much the same perspective I and some friends I know have. Accept we just did stick to the chronological order because story was important for us.

Publicado originalmente por Doombunny:

there are groups/squads that form to do Hero Point (HP) runs in the HoT and PoF expansions. Join one in the beginning and hang on for a wild ride! They go fast but they usually provide mesmer portals for the really tough ones. You'll have to AT LEAST unlock gliding though and it would help if you have a mount or two to keep up.

If you don't have access to everything, you can let the squad know about it in squad chat and usually they will wait for you or help you to get to the places. There is just no way of guessing it in a group of 40 if someone just got distracted or skips a point he already has or if he actually can't keep up.

Communication is key.

Edit: Fixed misaligned quote