GW2: Heart of Thorns
Well... Prior to today, I might have said the MMO expansion that was the least fun for me to pick up and play would have been GW: Factions, largely because I found the main city annoying in layout, unappealing in appearance, and the enemies boringly repetitive and frequently frustration.
HoT now gets the prize.
Admittedly, I'm only a few hours in, but those hours have been... a chore. It's poorly explained, but to unlock the new mastery abilities, you need to earn both 1) mastery points (which seem to come from story missions that I've done one of and map challenges - of which I haven't reached any yet) and 2) XP earned in either the new zones (for the new area movement masteries) or old zones (for the masteries added to that including legendary crafting and such). And opportunities to gain XP? Seems to be largely tied up in the same event-zerging play that has become common in the Silverwaste and some major events prior. It's exactly what I commented on disliking in the games direction previously. Oh, it's efficient, ending up with bags full of stuff in little time and some measure of XP (I finished the night at about 2/3 the way to "level 2" in the new system). But it's just so dull and boring.
The (extreme) alternative of soloing seems pretty much unviable with the way the events are designed. Oh it might actually be doable, but it wouldn't be fast and probably no more fun.
This is... not a good first impression.
HoT now gets the prize.
Admittedly, I'm only a few hours in, but those hours have been... a chore. It's poorly explained, but to unlock the new mastery abilities, you need to earn both 1) mastery points (which seem to come from story missions that I've done one of and map challenges - of which I haven't reached any yet) and 2) XP earned in either the new zones (for the new area movement masteries) or old zones (for the masteries added to that including legendary crafting and such). And opportunities to gain XP? Seems to be largely tied up in the same event-zerging play that has become common in the Silverwaste and some major events prior. It's exactly what I commented on disliking in the games direction previously. Oh, it's efficient, ending up with bags full of stuff in little time and some measure of XP (I finished the night at about 2/3 the way to "level 2" in the new system). But it's just so dull and boring.
The (extreme) alternative of soloing seems pretty much unviable with the way the events are designed. Oh it might actually be doable, but it wouldn't be fast and probably no more fun.
This is... not a good first impression.
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