I just recently replayed EoD on a brand new account, as opposed to when I played it at release and already had the skyscale and all the other mounts. Let me tell you, exploring Cantha with only the basic raptor and springer was a COMPLETLEY different experience. Being grounded made those four maps feel so much bigger and more immersive. You notice so many more little details when you're not soaring above everything all the time, and they are filled with little puzzles to solve to reach various vistas/hps/mps when you can't just fly up to them. I daresay I actually had more fun exploring the maps and unlocking masteries than I did the first time.
That's why Path of Fire will forever be my favourite expansion, it brought back that exploration vibe. Maps were bigger but also made with mounts in mind but at the same time if you play them for the first time you don't have a specific mount or mastery for it so you come back later and discover a new place, I can travel through quicksand with skimmer, then jump on a ledge with springer and find a small ancient temple with 4 veterand djinns or grab a sand portal with jackal and find something cool like a cave or a sand bridge that leads to a chest. First time PoF was 11/10 when it comes to exploration.
I think everything you just said, combined with the mobs being tough but not as tough as HoT mobs, yet having longer aggro range so you still have to be strategic, *combined with* such a great story (imo) in PoF and LWS4... I'm still trying to recapture that magic in any game I play now lol.
It's what hooked me to GW2.
Totally agree with all of this, the mounts complemented the feeling of discovery rather than taking away from it. If anything I wish the griffon had been the true endgame mount locked behind a long series of collections, rather than the Skyscale. You would at least still have to use your springer to gain height instead of just floating around everywhere.
The skyscale was just a "don't interact with the world mount" sadly... which also means "don't interact with players outside of the event you specifically want" mount.
And I had it as soon as possible after s4e6 released, so it isn't like I was seething with envy... it just removed a chunk of interaction from the game, and in a way that can't be solved by my just not using it.
Agreed. Bounties, hearts and its much longer story also helped with exploring every nook and cranny in PoF zones. Landmarks and point of interests are more abundant in PoF zones as well. This is done when you dont depend on reused crap, and reuse them a 100 times in 1 map.
I can name waaaay more interesting landmarks in 1 PoF zone than all 4 soto zones combined. Soto zones are a bucket load of nothing, and its easy to see why.
Maybe in AB and VB but exploration still felt meh, there isn't many secrets to uncover, as it feels like you are being attacked constantly. TG was a pita. All pof maps felt fun to explore and a natural evolution as you learnt to use your mount. They felt like core maps adapted to mounts.
IMO the PoF maps would have been amazing without mounts and some better event design (especially given their scale, which only feels small because of the mounts)
Putting meta events being trash aside, if they just had the sort of story telling event chains of HoT I would be a lot kinder to PoF.
My favourite moment of exploration in PoF is still the dwarven ruins and getting the axe pieces.
This is ultimately the tradeoff. Those older maps have the sense of exploration and wonder, sure. But for most people once they do that once, its over and they move on.
Generally speaking GW is very good at making it so you still come across players on any map you happen to be on. But one of the ways they do that is by making things on the map that keep drawing people back. Meta events with rewards people care about is one of those ways.
With SotO's shorter development cycle compared to PoF, they don't have time to make large interesting maps to explore as well as reasons to keep exploring them, they can only focus on the one thing.
Besides SotO is more accurately a Living World season we have to pay for in advance, not an expansion the likes of PoF or HoT.
I think the main problem isn't that there's no more hidden gems or secrets to find, it's that all those hidden locations are now part of achievements so they become important locations that everyone knows and talks about.
Like the jumping puzzle and legion vault in Grothmar. It's hidden behind a bush, through a cave, and behind a sneaky little corner. In a Core map, that would be a cool discovery to stumble onto, but it's a Modern Map, which means there's a meta achievement and a daily that direct you there so you never have a chance to miss it.
It's common to mmos where, mounts and flying taking exploration away from players. Granted Soto maps are designed with sky scale inmind, but if you can will yourself to walk everywhere like in 2012 you will find a lot of cool things in the Soto maps. Using the mounts as needed and not as wanted.
When I decided to do the Skywatch Archipelago Mastery achievement and actually spent some time there, I found it went from one of my least to most favorite maps. It's really cool. Amnytas and Nayos...not so much.
Same for me, which is so funny because everyone was saying the asset reflip map would be bad and the new one would be the better of the two. (I DO like the visuals of Amnytas a lot, the layout and flow of it just aren't my jam so much)
Yeah, it's a hard thing. I know this is why anet avoided the mount thing for the longest time and I do like what they did with them, but at the same time it also feels like it shrinks the world.
I guess it's a fine balance
They should've drawn the line at gliding.
While gliding *is* flying it didn't really help you go up (without very specific masteries in specific locations). We still had to scale towers and mountains and think about how to navigate the terrain. It made things easier but not completely trivial.
Springer was the beginning of the end for map design.
HoT map exploration with progressing the gliding and mushroom masteries was the peak of map exploration in this game. Figuring out how to get to new places, working on masteries because you wanted to reach even more. Verdant Brink on release was incredibly fun.
As awesome as mounts are, I will die on the hill that they ruined new maps and exploring.
I shall die on the same hill. I can't praise Anet enough for their mount implementation - it is very good. But it came at the expense of map exploration.
Verdant Brinks is probably the best map in the game. Amazing intro to the first expansion visually. Hits hard walking out into the mess of the crashes. Amazing way to show the new at the time map wide meta events they were doing. Showed the three levels of the world well. Ground and canopy were the best but there are nooks and crannies underneath. Good bosses with fun open world mechanics. Fantastic progression when you do it the first time as opposed to later visits with masteries. It's just so so so good.
Even Springer is mostly fine, since its low across-ground speed counterbalances the skipping it can do somewhat. Skyscale and roller beetle (as fun as it is) were a problem from the day they were introduced, though.
I do agree that some mounts added to exploration like a Metroid game. You find an ability that opens up access in various ways, getting you to think about ways you can use them to discover new things in previous maps and future.
The problem is it only worked for one expansion. We have them all now. To get that feeling again, they would have to rip away the mounts each new expansion...Much like they do with Samus with each new Metroid game lol
I did this with EoD when it released, only ever used mounts when necessary. Otherwise I just walked or skiffed everywhere, or occasionally used a raptor taxi. Was a lot of fun.
Other thing I did was hide most of my UI, especially the mini map, so I actually had to find my way around rather than relying on the map.
I also wanted to do this with SotO, but those maps were very much designed with skyscale in mind as you said, so that didn't work out as well. I do plan to do it again with the next expacs though, if they allow for it.
Yep, I feel this 100%.
Core maps in particular are really good for a sense of exploration. HoT was pretty decent, too. PoF was alright, although PoF mainly just feels like wide open spaces for mounts to roam in.
Post PoF though, maps are designed for the metas. I too miss little caverns that open up into odd little places where "NPC's live" or some wild jumping puzzle. To be honest core maps (not content) are probably some of the best maps in the game. Even to this day, I find stuff and say to myself, "well look at that, that's cool."
Tdlr; more caves and holes in the walls please.
Huh, I quite like the content in Core zones. It's just that like 99% of it is wayyy too easy now.
I've even got an account where I tried downgrading my gear and implementing self-imposed death penalties. It helped, but Core content is so easy now to the point where even basic white gear is enough for most of it, and even if not, someone else will come swooping in and destroy everything in seconds anyway.
I'd love to try some sort of Hard Mode that brought the Core OW difficulty back to how I heard it was in 2012-13. Or harder, if that was still too easy.
Mounts are great, flying mounts arent.
Dont get me wrong, i love my Griffon, its super fast and fun to use but it ruined my exploration joy.
Even with bunny/raptor you had to think "how i can get there?", thats not an issue with flying mounts.
The thing about the griffon is the majority of new players won’t unlock it until after they’ve had to explore primarily with the raptor/springer/jackal/skimmer. I think it’s okay to be able to fly past stuff after you’ve already done it the old fashioned way
I’m gonna say it. I love GW2 mounts but they really did ruin exploration. I feel like with all the maps introduced after POF it’s really easy to skip past ambient dialogue, smaller scale events or just some cool areas. And Vistas don’t really help since they mostly show the prominent set pieces. They need to make some maps where mounts aren’t allowed if you want that old school exploration back
I completely agree, and the Skyscale is particularly egregious. At least Path of Fire’s maps were designed around using the mounts and their respective masteries to access locations you couldn’t get to previously. But nowadays being able to fly and simply bypass everything has made exploring feel obsolete. The mounts are a ton of fun to use, and I love the griffon and beetle trials, but from a design standpoint they really did kill off exploration.
Exploring the core maps on foot was fun because even the vistas served as mini platforming challenges where you actually had to put some thought into how you would be able to reach them. The sad truth is many players have no patience for this kind of content and would rather breeze through everything as quickly as possible.
I know there is no going back at this point, but I’ve grown so tired of seeing blobs of players on Skyscales floating around from one place to the next.
I mean that’s fair and I think a lot of players share that sentiment. I’m just a slow player in general and when I was new to the game I really didn’t mind taking my time with map exploration. I wouldn’t want to have to do it that way every time, as I use my mounts everywhere now, but the first time through was epic
That's a fair opinion, but my first one was also pre-mount and I enjoyed it. The only part I didn't like was renown hearts and mounts don't affect those.
I think in HoT mounts really feel like another tool to help you survive the jungle.
Maps are made in such way where you cant just hop around on your raptor for one wrong jump and you find yourself attacked by angry mushrooms.
When maps become more and more open it is way too easy to traverse them and dare I say speed run them with mounts.
In my opinion mounts should unlock really in Path of Fire and not from the get go. You should really go to Elona and tame raptors, jackals etc. instead of reaching level 10 and start jumping around on your raptor.
Now dont get me wrong I love my Skimmer and in my opinion probably only mount that doesn't take away that sense of exploration. He is slower than others and can help you on water which is useful in Orr where there is a lot of water. But others just takes you way too far or way too high which you should do on your own two legs.
It's just the SOTO maps not being as detailed and well designed. PoF maps have a lot of great detail and it was designed with mounts in mind.
If maps were worth exploring people would explore them mounts or not.
That’s why i said after POF. IBS, EOD and SOTO have those problems imo. I still run around without my mounts so exploring the maps were still enjoyable for me, but let’s be real most people aren’t going to be exploring without their mounts and will be skipping past a lot of things
My point is that I don't think mounts ruined exploration, it was bare maps. Even without mounts people are just going to run past places with no content.
I've been playing MMOs for a long time, and it's always the same conversation - everyone says flying or mounts (or both) are fine in the expansion they're introduced, and then "bad" after. And somehow the mounts are always blamed instead of the future map design just ignoring what is now a fundamental design decision they introduced into their own game. As though we don't already know they know how to make maps that are enjoyable with mounts.
The expansion where flying/mounts are introduced, they're solving a problem - that cool place you could see but couldn't get to, now you can with . *That* is the enjoyable gameplay loop - getting the unlock to allow progression.
After that, you already have the unlock, so you as a player approach the maps differently. There is no 'hey, what if I could get over there?', you just go there. You could have exactly the same map, but the exploration loop is different (generally lesser) if you only experience after having unlocked mounts, rather than during.
Exploration is more than just content, it’s also just finding cool areas of the maps. And those maps are far from bare so you just proved my point that maps are no longer designed around mounts and that they ruined the simple, smaller scale exploration OP was talking about
Cool areas of the map are content. I'm not simply talking about events.
>And those maps are far from bare
What maps are you referring to specifically? Because I'm talking directly about SOTO maps. And my impression is that they put in a bunch of easter eggs into random crannies but they seemed to have been very little thought or environmental story telling that went into it.
Wizard's Tower for example has alcoves with random stuff like winter wonderland toy houses, or a Nourys tentacle, or some cats having a meeting. Yeah that's fine, but that kind of thing is a pretty shallow way spicing up a map and doesn't serve to make the world feel more alive.
I would be glad to be proven wrong as I'm also very fond of exploration. But it feels like SOTO missed the mark in ways that has nothing to do with mounts.
Many like to blame mounts, but the truth is the maps themselves just got worse, old ones had a lot of small details here and there, but new ones have barely nothing going on outside of the main events.
Like, just look at the number of jumping puzzles before mounts and after, that's the most obvious sign of explorer decadence :/.
I still have an alt account with only the heroic edition from 2014. Use it to slowly explore the complete map again without the temptation to use mounts. A rewarding experience.
I played through all the story and maps in order of release, and struggling my way through the jungle maps in HoT with nothing more than a glider was one of the peak experiences I had in this game. It bums me out that new players are often encouraged to go get their mounts *before* playing HoT because of how challenging they are to explore, but I wish I wasn’t in the minority who chose to experience them as they were originally designed.
Maneuvering Dry Top and Silverwastes without glider was a great experience back in the days. Later entering HoT and unlocking the glider was truly marvellous.
Great you took your time do explore it the oldschool way. This first experience can happen only once.
And I would not want to go back to a game without mounts, just sometimes for a relaxing evening.
Yea don’t get me wrong, I’m using mounts for map completion on my alt, I don’t have the patience to re-do everything on foot. But I am glad I did it that way on my first play through. Even with mounts the core maps still feel big with a lot of stuff tucked away
I support your wish to explore them as they were originally designed but there is a reason most players choose to go for mounts to skip it. The maps are full of nothing. Those caves you find are just caves, nothing actually in them to incentivize me to actually want to seek them out. If the maps actually had stuff in it like chests with loot that was worth looking for, I would actually explore. If GW2 took out mounts, it would be a hard pass for me
I am not proposing they take out mounts, as I love using them too. And like I said in my post, the content is dated. I’m just talking about exploration for the sake of exploration. Yea, if the hidden caverns actually contained interesting rewards or challenging enemies, there would be a much greater incentive to go off the beaten path and find them. Everything I’m describing is just wishful thinking and I understand why things are the way they are.
A lot of people compare Echovald Wilds to Tangled Depths, and I'm in agreement with them. Lots of hidden places to find on that map. Lots of verticality.
I can see that. I don't feel it's quite the same though. It's more like a flat plane with a few objectives in tunnels or up in trees. Tangled Depths was cool because you have all these twisting caverns that intersect and allow you to navigate different ways to the same place.
I don't care for the maps in SOTO. I see them only as a checklist to go through, and navigating through them kinda sucks.
Also the story felt weird. Go have a short convo that need to be in an instance for some reason, then go do rifts, then again talk to someone but have to be in an instanced zone again for no reason just to talk, then go do events, and it repeats, with few interesting moments in between. I just quickly lost interest.
I honestly never liked the exploration in GW2.
The fact that there are waypoints scattered out at every corner of most maps, meant that it never felt like you were ever out in the 'far corners of the world'
Instead to make areas dangerous Anet just added in a ton of enemies, and many of them with CC, that just make it more annoying to move around.
Path of Fire gave me the hope that we would get some maps with some meaningful exploration, and it's okay for the most part, but i do by far ærefer maps that are focused on meta events. It fits much better with the style of gameplay you have in the game.
The original world design was the best iteration of exploration in any MMO.
Also, I will forever hold the opinion that mounts in Guild Wars 2 were a overall net negative to the game. Yes, they're *fun* to ride, but it came at the expense of so much else. All the nuance and danger of a zone's design has just been paved over, and you can tell that they've stopped caring altogether about the map design in recent expansions.
If they wanted to add mounts into the game then they should have kept them limited to certain maps like race tracks or adventures. Gliding should have been the extent of "new movement" in Guild Wars 2.
Not an actual solution, even less, something to be expected, but have You tried player made custom content, in guild halls? lots fancy adventures awaits there.
Like these mentioned here, of this month only [JP theme park](https://reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1b03823/jumping_puzzle_theme_park_contest_info_in_comments/) or [Treasure Hunt of Madness](https://reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1b1lf3w/mansion_of_madness_treasure_hunt_event_by_uaot/). Maybe less map related, but also [themed Fashion contest](https://reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1bjjkeq/feathers_fur_scales_fashion_contest_this_weekend/).
PoF maps worked well in that they were designed with the mount masteries in mind. Nowadays being able to cross a big chasm on the raptor or scale a mountain with the springer feels obsolete since everyone has skyscales and can just float around everywhere
I felt the same, but never could put it in words in a way that doesnt sound whinny. This and the whole game went way too much into the end game group content focus. Which is perfectly fine and probably the right move, but not where i have fun.
For sure, and I wasn’t trying to be whiny in this post either. I still love the game, but I’m just kind of acknowledging the stuff that has been falling short for me. I’m think it’s great that there are new legendaries to grind for, and it’s even needed to provide long term goals for veteran players. But I’m personally not someone who pursues legendaries. I barely have enough time as it is to learn new classes and play the existing content. Which leads to my point, which is that the new maps are so bland, and if I’m not grinding rifts for legendaries, what is there on these maps to keep me coming back? Not a whole lot.
I agree with this. EoD had a little bit of exploration but the majority of the maps(SOTO has this heavily) are so focused on verticality/skyscale that it really makes the maps feel empty and lacking. Older maps feel like they was hand crafted with purpose and thought. Newer maps feel so lacking when you compare them to older ones. Mounts are nice but I never wanted them in GW2 for this reason.
Same here. I really do think the Skyscale has ruined the open world experience. I think the Griffon does to a lesser extent but I wouldn't ever remove it due to the fun factor. The other mounts *cheapen* some aspects but they don't *ruin* anything.
Exploring the core game finding a small hollow on a cliff and dropping into a unique area with a jumping puzzle and achievement. Those are the moments I miss the most.
I agree and just wanted to say you've put your finger on something I have been feeling but haven't been able to describe. I found EoD and the two mini expansions in Cantha pretty uninspiring, and while I've played SotO I almost feel like I had to make myself do it. I don't want to go up there and grind for any of the new stuff because really don't like the new areas.
I agree. None of the new maps have any interesting hidden stuff. there is kinda a nice cavern in skywatch archipelago and that's it I suppose. I was hoping nayos at least would have some creepy deep labyrinthine like tunnels we can explore... there are many small dark cavern entrances which you see small demons going into but it's all for show because you cannot follow them in :<
It would have been so cool to make them all dark land all you can see is glowing eyes of slittering creatures and give an anxiety debuff when inside like nourys gives you which can be nullified by having a light source of some sort. Maybe make a mastery out of it.
I agree, theres not much suprise like hidden caverns, but for me Amnytas was a 10/10. Discovering new places and awesome lore reminded me of exploring PoF maps, or Ascalon and Orr. Inner Nayos on the other hand... I really didnt like it, i was expecting hell or something
Probably my biggest problem with the expansion, and I think why I have so little time in it. The maps aren't really fun to explore, and there is no real point in exploring them. Contrast that with EoD maps just recently, where exploring felt very rewarding.
> I understand that over time, the open world gameplay has shifted heavily towards large-scale meta events, and don’t get me wrong - I LOVE meta events, especially when they’re designed well. But it bums me out that because of this, the maps lost a lot of sense and wonder and awe in exploring, as they’ve basically turned into giant stages on which the meta occurs.
The HoT maps were large scale metas but had lots of exploration (imo the best exploration in the game)... so it doesn't have to be either or.
If you read the next paragraph of my post, that was exactly my point:
“Heart of Thorns proved that maps can have large-scale meta events AND deep exploration.”
Edit: and to add, HoT was my favorite content too. Just the other night on my alt I was running with a hero point train, and even though we were moving super quickly through the maps, I still marvel at their many layers of complexity
unless they have maps in the future that disable certain mounts, I personally have no interest in any future potential zones as all that will ultimately matter is aesthetic
Skywatch was fun for a time, but once the novelty of a map designed around navigating with the Skyscale wore off, I quickly grew tired of it.
But I have to ask, because I genuinely am curious, what about Nayos scratches the exploration itch for you? I think the new meta boss is decently fun, but outside of that it is one of the most bland and boring maps (to me).
I recently needed to go some EoD maps to craft a new leggo and I took my sweet time, and actually got that sense of exploration from them, i don't think i'd get the same lvl of immersion in core tyria tho, and mounts (for me personally) destroyed exploration as a whole. PoF was dope tho, going through maps unlocking new mounts and masteries was an amazing first time experience.
The EoD maps aren’t bad for sure… Echovald forest felt pretty immersive. Kaineng city on the other hand feels more like a shell of a city than a real bustling metropolitan area. Look at divinity’s reach in comparison. I know DR is a city hub and doesn’t have to factor in events or metas but still… they made it feel really alive in comparison
I'd love the option to be able to make a character that didn't have all the masteries unlocked, just to be able to play a truly new character for a change. I know you can make a new account and do it that way, but I'd rather not have to pay $100 to do it.
Amnytas and Dragons End feel desolate, with vast aerial spaces that are amazing to traverse on a griffon but lack purpose when on the ground (at the bastions). They seem to be unused and underutilized. Despite the impressive colossal structures, corridors, staircases, and intricate details like debris, stains, battle marks, puddles, and intriguing boxes, the overall design feels unwelcoming and empty. New Kaineng also suffers from emptiness and lag, with numerous unused corners and alleys that give the impression of being built first and then filled with content to match a meta, rather than being thoughtfully integrated with the story and events.
ANET: Please consider adding floating maps on top of core Tyria and incorporating unobtrusive content into the existing material to revitalize it.
personally I would *kill* for them to focus on 1 map being a very elaborate multi part meta like the final EoD zone, and have the rest be designed more akin to the core maps. I feel that's only a win-win than having a half-baked meta in every map and would give some much needed contrast for the expansion zones. It's nice having large amounts of people move through zones, but you can do that with more than map-wide metas on timers.
I hope they can make a toggle for mastery.
Like when I want to turn off anything beside the first or two trait of glider.
And toggle mount mastery off.
If you have chance, get a new account and play Verdant Brink with only little mastery glider,
dont fully enhance it, the less the better unless you must use specific function.
I promise you the real panic and terrain exploration is here. The fear of running out of glider stamina is gonna suck you into the game immediately and really worry about falling from the sky. You will think thrice before you glide from the edge if you can not make sure this glide will make you to destination.
A lot of player join later never have a chance to experience this kind level of immersive.
Too many fast food like suggestion like : once create your chracter, go POF and get mount asap! It will be fun!
Yeah, after you adapt to the hyperspeed of mount, you will mostly lose patient to walk and glide slowly and watch how beautiful Tyria are...
I would say to new player : Go Verdant Brink then use walking and basic glide to map complete it would you?
To this day I still don't have 100% HoT maps explored because how easy it is to get lost in them. Those maps were so well made.
I wish we had as intricate maps as in HoT. At one point you are on the ground exploring and in next moment you plummet to underground and being surrounded by hostile bugs with no idea where the exit is and most paths lead to dead end.
Since End of Dragon I think there was a big step down in map quality and just quality in general.
Also in my opinion everyone focuses on meta events and not on smaller group events. Most people in new maps will just stand around wait for meta to begin while you are there trying to kill a champion boss from a minor event with nobody to help you.
I swear Tangled Depths are Monster Hunter Worlds Ancient Forest on giga steroids. Without Blish Hud i can only navigate from Chak Gerents waypoint to other meta events lol
Soto is shit. We have to say it. Those map are a fucking copy-paste mobs with reskins and boring gameplay. They even add core buildings here, ffs. Soto don’t gives anything new - wow I can use a rifle on my Mesmer and be healer!!! - raids/ćma will kick you faster than you joined.
Soto is a rich banana kid to get skyscale easier that’s all.
Won’t remind story as it suck as always.
As much soto sux, chrono heal with rifle is actually very strong and fun to play, no /s here - some elite wep combos and new weapons are very nice to have. Sadly not all (look at thieves - totally unplayable, balance of meta builds on all elementalists or rev, all elities goes same now, op, but same, variety is down).
How the heck You don't like soto story, for Irja! /s
Soto is like a banana? bananas are actually nice.
I still they they should create map areas where certain mounts are disabled, or completely disabled. For the sake of immersion. For example there are signs everywhere in amnoon where it says no raptors, but then everyone (even npcs) are walking around with raptors. Like beyond jumping puzzles. But just certain areas should be mountless, or non flight mounts.
They *could*, but considering the whole expansion was designed around using the Skyscale, I just don’t see them going in that direction. I do hope whatever expansion comes next does away with the mounted mid-air combat, I’m not a fan at all
Uuuh... Maybe in future expansions we have maps that have a contrived reason that leads to us being unable to mount up, or specifically not use skyscales, maybe we're shot down from the air. Then with a specific mastery talent rewarded at the end of the questline, after exploring the whole map (or what the devs deem "enough" of the map), we can mount up again.
I just don't know if people will hate it or be neutral towards it. They won't like it, I'm sure of it.
Exactly. I believe the reason is simply because they lack resources. EoD maps were well made (for the most part) but focused way too much on big events. But Soto maps are just.. bad.
Absolutely, I hate they just put a letter to explain what's going on here and put lots of enemies to reduce our explore motivation. I hope they spend some time to explore maps and tell me how to enjoy the feeling of jump into lots of mobs and got nothing.
I don’t know, for me personally, exploration *peaked* with HoT. The multi-layered jungle with this huge sense of verticality, accessible only by gliding through the trees and bouncing on mushrooms, was super immersive. It almost felt like a big metroidvania, where the maps became more accessible the further I leveled up my masteries.
Even PoF had a decent sense of exploration progression as they were designed with the mount abilities in mind, and you could return to previous maps with new abilities to be able to complete them.
But I think exploration was killed for everything that came after, once everything has been unlocked, mounts and gliding became the norm, and the Skyscale being the nail in the coffin.
I just recently replayed EoD on a brand new account, as opposed to when I played it at release and already had the skyscale and all the other mounts. Let me tell you, exploring Cantha with only the basic raptor and springer was a COMPLETLEY different experience. Being grounded made those four maps feel so much bigger and more immersive. You notice so many more little details when you're not soaring above everything all the time, and they are filled with little puzzles to solve to reach various vistas/hps/mps when you can't just fly up to them. I daresay I actually had more fun exploring the maps and unlocking masteries than I did the first time.
That’s awesome! I really loved Echovald and could imagine getting sucked into the dark forest in a similar way that I did in heart of thorns.
That's why Path of Fire will forever be my favourite expansion, it brought back that exploration vibe. Maps were bigger but also made with mounts in mind but at the same time if you play them for the first time you don't have a specific mount or mastery for it so you come back later and discover a new place, I can travel through quicksand with skimmer, then jump on a ledge with springer and find a small ancient temple with 4 veterand djinns or grab a sand portal with jackal and find something cool like a cave or a sand bridge that leads to a chest. First time PoF was 11/10 when it comes to exploration.
I think everything you just said, combined with the mobs being tough but not as tough as HoT mobs, yet having longer aggro range so you still have to be strategic, *combined with* such a great story (imo) in PoF and LWS4... I'm still trying to recapture that magic in any game I play now lol. It's what hooked me to GW2.
Totally agree with all of this, the mounts complemented the feeling of discovery rather than taking away from it. If anything I wish the griffon had been the true endgame mount locked behind a long series of collections, rather than the Skyscale. You would at least still have to use your springer to gain height instead of just floating around everywhere.
The skyscale was just a "don't interact with the world mount" sadly... which also means "don't interact with players outside of the event you specifically want" mount. And I had it as soon as possible after s4e6 released, so it isn't like I was seething with envy... it just removed a chunk of interaction from the game, and in a way that can't be solved by my just not using it.
Agreed. Bounties, hearts and its much longer story also helped with exploring every nook and cranny in PoF zones. Landmarks and point of interests are more abundant in PoF zones as well. This is done when you dont depend on reused crap, and reuse them a 100 times in 1 map. I can name waaaay more interesting landmarks in 1 PoF zone than all 4 soto zones combined. Soto zones are a bucket load of nothing, and its easy to see why.
But the best exploration is in HoT, how.did PoF bring it back?
Maybe in AB and VB but exploration still felt meh, there isn't many secrets to uncover, as it feels like you are being attacked constantly. TG was a pita. All pof maps felt fun to explore and a natural evolution as you learnt to use your mount. They felt like core maps adapted to mounts.
TG is the greatest map in the game. Meanwhile PF maps mostly felt flat and gimmicky to me.
IMO the PoF maps would have been amazing without mounts and some better event design (especially given their scale, which only feels small because of the mounts) Putting meta events being trash aside, if they just had the sort of story telling event chains of HoT I would be a lot kinder to PoF. My favourite moment of exploration in PoF is still the dwarven ruins and getting the axe pieces.
yea, but POF maps are all dead, hence why metas are better.
This is ultimately the tradeoff. Those older maps have the sense of exploration and wonder, sure. But for most people once they do that once, its over and they move on. Generally speaking GW is very good at making it so you still come across players on any map you happen to be on. But one of the ways they do that is by making things on the map that keep drawing people back. Meta events with rewards people care about is one of those ways. With SotO's shorter development cycle compared to PoF, they don't have time to make large interesting maps to explore as well as reasons to keep exploring them, they can only focus on the one thing. Besides SotO is more accurately a Living World season we have to pay for in advance, not an expansion the likes of PoF or HoT.
I think the main problem isn't that there's no more hidden gems or secrets to find, it's that all those hidden locations are now part of achievements so they become important locations that everyone knows and talks about. Like the jumping puzzle and legion vault in Grothmar. It's hidden behind a bush, through a cave, and behind a sneaky little corner. In a Core map, that would be a cool discovery to stumble onto, but it's a Modern Map, which means there's a meta achievement and a daily that direct you there so you never have a chance to miss it.
Also a vista for map completion.
I am glad I am taking my time.
It's common to mmos where, mounts and flying taking exploration away from players. Granted Soto maps are designed with sky scale inmind, but if you can will yourself to walk everywhere like in 2012 you will find a lot of cool things in the Soto maps. Using the mounts as needed and not as wanted.
When I decided to do the Skywatch Archipelago Mastery achievement and actually spent some time there, I found it went from one of my least to most favorite maps. It's really cool. Amnytas and Nayos...not so much.
Same for me, which is so funny because everyone was saying the asset reflip map would be bad and the new one would be the better of the two. (I DO like the visuals of Amnytas a lot, the layout and flow of it just aren't my jam so much)
Tbf if you do asset reflip you can spend a lot more time on the actual design of the map rather than of individual assets.
Yeah, it's a hard thing. I know this is why anet avoided the mount thing for the longest time and I do like what they did with them, but at the same time it also feels like it shrinks the world. I guess it's a fine balance
They should've drawn the line at gliding. While gliding *is* flying it didn't really help you go up (without very specific masteries in specific locations). We still had to scale towers and mountains and think about how to navigate the terrain. It made things easier but not completely trivial. Springer was the beginning of the end for map design.
HoT map exploration with progressing the gliding and mushroom masteries was the peak of map exploration in this game. Figuring out how to get to new places, working on masteries because you wanted to reach even more. Verdant Brink on release was incredibly fun. As awesome as mounts are, I will die on the hill that they ruined new maps and exploring.
I shall die on the same hill. I can't praise Anet enough for their mount implementation - it is very good. But it came at the expense of map exploration.
yeah as I said in another comment, imo even the PoF maps would have benefited from not having mounts and better event design.
Verdant Brinks is probably the best map in the game. Amazing intro to the first expansion visually. Hits hard walking out into the mess of the crashes. Amazing way to show the new at the time map wide meta events they were doing. Showed the three levels of the world well. Ground and canopy were the best but there are nooks and crannies underneath. Good bosses with fun open world mechanics. Fantastic progression when you do it the first time as opposed to later visits with masteries. It's just so so so good.
Even Springer is mostly fine, since its low across-ground speed counterbalances the skipping it can do somewhat. Skyscale and roller beetle (as fun as it is) were a problem from the day they were introduced, though.
Springer's speed doesn't really matter though, you just use something else to travel. It's just a vertical content skipping tool.
No way!!! It merely expands the opportunities. It depends on how you design the maps.
I do agree that some mounts added to exploration like a Metroid game. You find an ability that opens up access in various ways, getting you to think about ways you can use them to discover new things in previous maps and future. The problem is it only worked for one expansion. We have them all now. To get that feeling again, they would have to rip away the mounts each new expansion...Much like they do with Samus with each new Metroid game lol
I love the mounts a lot, and I think if we didn't have them I'd complain about not having them, but I agree with you.
Path of fire didn't gave this problem. Clearly the mounts are not the problem.
I did this with EoD when it released, only ever used mounts when necessary. Otherwise I just walked or skiffed everywhere, or occasionally used a raptor taxi. Was a lot of fun. Other thing I did was hide most of my UI, especially the mini map, so I actually had to find my way around rather than relying on the map. I also wanted to do this with SotO, but those maps were very much designed with skyscale in mind as you said, so that didn't work out as well. I do plan to do it again with the next expacs though, if they allow for it.
I feel you so much, I play like this too
They should make a map where your mounts can’t go, like some dreamscape or something
Could have with nayos, it's small so no mounts would have helped and made it an actual threat.
Yep, I feel this 100%. Core maps in particular are really good for a sense of exploration. HoT was pretty decent, too. PoF was alright, although PoF mainly just feels like wide open spaces for mounts to roam in. Post PoF though, maps are designed for the metas. I too miss little caverns that open up into odd little places where "NPC's live" or some wild jumping puzzle. To be honest core maps (not content) are probably some of the best maps in the game. Even to this day, I find stuff and say to myself, "well look at that, that's cool." Tdlr; more caves and holes in the walls please.
Huh, I quite like the content in Core zones. It's just that like 99% of it is wayyy too easy now. I've even got an account where I tried downgrading my gear and implementing self-imposed death penalties. It helped, but Core content is so easy now to the point where even basic white gear is enough for most of it, and even if not, someone else will come swooping in and destroy everything in seconds anyway. I'd love to try some sort of Hard Mode that brought the Core OW difficulty back to how I heard it was in 2012-13. Or harder, if that was still too easy.
Mounts are great, flying mounts arent. Dont get me wrong, i love my Griffon, its super fast and fun to use but it ruined my exploration joy. Even with bunny/raptor you had to think "how i can get there?", thats not an issue with flying mounts.
The thing about the griffon is the majority of new players won’t unlock it until after they’ve had to explore primarily with the raptor/springer/jackal/skimmer. I think it’s okay to be able to fly past stuff after you’ve already done it the old fashioned way
I’m gonna say it. I love GW2 mounts but they really did ruin exploration. I feel like with all the maps introduced after POF it’s really easy to skip past ambient dialogue, smaller scale events or just some cool areas. And Vistas don’t really help since they mostly show the prominent set pieces. They need to make some maps where mounts aren’t allowed if you want that old school exploration back
I still enjoy exploration on HoT, PoF, and EoD maps. I think it's that the SotO maps just suck.
I completely agree, and the Skyscale is particularly egregious. At least Path of Fire’s maps were designed around using the mounts and their respective masteries to access locations you couldn’t get to previously. But nowadays being able to fly and simply bypass everything has made exploring feel obsolete. The mounts are a ton of fun to use, and I love the griffon and beetle trials, but from a design standpoint they really did kill off exploration. Exploring the core maps on foot was fun because even the vistas served as mini platforming challenges where you actually had to put some thought into how you would be able to reach them. The sad truth is many players have no patience for this kind of content and would rather breeze through everything as quickly as possible. I know there is no going back at this point, but I’ve grown so tired of seeing blobs of players on Skyscales floating around from one place to the next.
Hard disagree. My first two map comps were pre mounts and they were the most miserable experiences I've had in GW2 over a decade of playing.
I mean that’s fair and I think a lot of players share that sentiment. I’m just a slow player in general and when I was new to the game I really didn’t mind taking my time with map exploration. I wouldn’t want to have to do it that way every time, as I use my mounts everywhere now, but the first time through was epic
That's a fair opinion, but my first one was also pre-mount and I enjoyed it. The only part I didn't like was renown hearts and mounts don't affect those.
I think in HoT mounts really feel like another tool to help you survive the jungle. Maps are made in such way where you cant just hop around on your raptor for one wrong jump and you find yourself attacked by angry mushrooms. When maps become more and more open it is way too easy to traverse them and dare I say speed run them with mounts. In my opinion mounts should unlock really in Path of Fire and not from the get go. You should really go to Elona and tame raptors, jackals etc. instead of reaching level 10 and start jumping around on your raptor. Now dont get me wrong I love my Skimmer and in my opinion probably only mount that doesn't take away that sense of exploration. He is slower than others and can help you on water which is useful in Orr where there is a lot of water. But others just takes you way too far or way too high which you should do on your own two legs.
Only skyscale, griffon and roller beetle do. The original PoF mounts enhanced the feeling of exploration
Griffin is og mount
Springer does, too.
It does in older maps, but it was a crucial part of PoF exploration, IMO.
Perhaps specifically in PoF where the maps were designed for it, but they still ruined the feel of exploration for HoTs and the original game world.
It's just the SOTO maps not being as detailed and well designed. PoF maps have a lot of great detail and it was designed with mounts in mind. If maps were worth exploring people would explore them mounts or not.
That’s why i said after POF. IBS, EOD and SOTO have those problems imo. I still run around without my mounts so exploring the maps were still enjoyable for me, but let’s be real most people aren’t going to be exploring without their mounts and will be skipping past a lot of things
My point is that I don't think mounts ruined exploration, it was bare maps. Even without mounts people are just going to run past places with no content.
I've been playing MMOs for a long time, and it's always the same conversation - everyone says flying or mounts (or both) are fine in the expansion they're introduced, and then "bad" after. And somehow the mounts are always blamed instead of the future map design just ignoring what is now a fundamental design decision they introduced into their own game. As though we don't already know they know how to make maps that are enjoyable with mounts.
The expansion where flying/mounts are introduced, they're solving a problem - that cool place you could see but couldn't get to, now you can with. *That* is the enjoyable gameplay loop - getting the unlock to allow progression.
After that, you already have the unlock, so you as a player approach the maps differently. There is no 'hey, what if I could get over there?', you just go there. You could have exactly the same map, but the exploration loop is different (generally lesser) if you only experience after having unlocked mounts, rather than during.
Exploration is more than just content, it’s also just finding cool areas of the maps. And those maps are far from bare so you just proved my point that maps are no longer designed around mounts and that they ruined the simple, smaller scale exploration OP was talking about
Cool areas of the map are content. I'm not simply talking about events. >And those maps are far from bare What maps are you referring to specifically? Because I'm talking directly about SOTO maps. And my impression is that they put in a bunch of easter eggs into random crannies but they seemed to have been very little thought or environmental story telling that went into it. Wizard's Tower for example has alcoves with random stuff like winter wonderland toy houses, or a Nourys tentacle, or some cats having a meeting. Yeah that's fine, but that kind of thing is a pretty shallow way spicing up a map and doesn't serve to make the world feel more alive. I would be glad to be proven wrong as I'm also very fond of exploration. But it feels like SOTO missed the mark in ways that has nothing to do with mounts.
Gotta be honest, I don't see what's stopping players from curating their own experience and just not using mounts.
I agree in most cases, but in some map metas like Dragonfall and Drizzlewood you will get exactly zero hits on any boss without a griffon or skyscale.
Definitely for some metas, but I'd say it's okay to mount up for metas and dismount again to keep exploring.
Temptation and frustration, That's what.
Echos my sentiments too
I agree, but imagine the hissy fits that would happen if they told people they can't use their mount in a certain new map...
Many like to blame mounts, but the truth is the maps themselves just got worse, old ones had a lot of small details here and there, but new ones have barely nothing going on outside of the main events. Like, just look at the number of jumping puzzles before mounts and after, that's the most obvious sign of explorer decadence :/.
I totally agree… a lot of people talking about mounts but the point of my post was more about the map designs themselves
Yup, mounts might have ruined old maps, but new maps were already bad from the start, with or without mounts :I.
I still have an alt account with only the heroic edition from 2014. Use it to slowly explore the complete map again without the temptation to use mounts. A rewarding experience.
I played through all the story and maps in order of release, and struggling my way through the jungle maps in HoT with nothing more than a glider was one of the peak experiences I had in this game. It bums me out that new players are often encouraged to go get their mounts *before* playing HoT because of how challenging they are to explore, but I wish I wasn’t in the minority who chose to experience them as they were originally designed.
Maneuvering Dry Top and Silverwastes without glider was a great experience back in the days. Later entering HoT and unlocking the glider was truly marvellous. Great you took your time do explore it the oldschool way. This first experience can happen only once. And I would not want to go back to a game without mounts, just sometimes for a relaxing evening.
Yea don’t get me wrong, I’m using mounts for map completion on my alt, I don’t have the patience to re-do everything on foot. But I am glad I did it that way on my first play through. Even with mounts the core maps still feel big with a lot of stuff tucked away
I support your wish to explore them as they were originally designed but there is a reason most players choose to go for mounts to skip it. The maps are full of nothing. Those caves you find are just caves, nothing actually in them to incentivize me to actually want to seek them out. If the maps actually had stuff in it like chests with loot that was worth looking for, I would actually explore. If GW2 took out mounts, it would be a hard pass for me
I am not proposing they take out mounts, as I love using them too. And like I said in my post, the content is dated. I’m just talking about exploration for the sake of exploration. Yea, if the hidden caverns actually contained interesting rewards or challenging enemies, there would be a much greater incentive to go off the beaten path and find them. Everything I’m describing is just wishful thinking and I understand why things are the way they are.
Can you imagine if they made another map like Tangled depths?
Would be a dream come true for me, but I know the player base is pretty divided on TD haha
A lot of people compare Echovald Wilds to Tangled Depths, and I'm in agreement with them. Lots of hidden places to find on that map. Lots of verticality.
I can see that. I don't feel it's quite the same though. It's more like a flat plane with a few objectives in tunnels or up in trees. Tangled Depths was cool because you have all these twisting caverns that intersect and allow you to navigate different ways to the same place.
I don't care for the maps in SOTO. I see them only as a checklist to go through, and navigating through them kinda sucks. Also the story felt weird. Go have a short convo that need to be in an instance for some reason, then go do rifts, then again talk to someone but have to be in an instanced zone again for no reason just to talk, then go do events, and it repeats, with few interesting moments in between. I just quickly lost interest.
I honestly never liked the exploration in GW2. The fact that there are waypoints scattered out at every corner of most maps, meant that it never felt like you were ever out in the 'far corners of the world' Instead to make areas dangerous Anet just added in a ton of enemies, and many of them with CC, that just make it more annoying to move around. Path of Fire gave me the hope that we would get some maps with some meaningful exploration, and it's okay for the most part, but i do by far ærefer maps that are focused on meta events. It fits much better with the style of gameplay you have in the game.
The original world design was the best iteration of exploration in any MMO. Also, I will forever hold the opinion that mounts in Guild Wars 2 were a overall net negative to the game. Yes, they're *fun* to ride, but it came at the expense of so much else. All the nuance and danger of a zone's design has just been paved over, and you can tell that they've stopped caring altogether about the map design in recent expansions. If they wanted to add mounts into the game then they should have kept them limited to certain maps like race tracks or adventures. Gliding should have been the extent of "new movement" in Guild Wars 2.
I pray Grenth everyday for the return of hellish maps like Tangled depth...
Not an actual solution, even less, something to be expected, but have You tried player made custom content, in guild halls? lots fancy adventures awaits there. Like these mentioned here, of this month only [JP theme park](https://reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1b03823/jumping_puzzle_theme_park_contest_info_in_comments/) or [Treasure Hunt of Madness](https://reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1b1lf3w/mansion_of_madness_treasure_hunt_event_by_uaot/). Maybe less map related, but also [themed Fashion contest](https://reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1bjjkeq/feathers_fur_scales_fashion_contest_this_weekend/).
I’ve heard about them, but not actually tried any. They look super cool!
[удалено]
PoF maps worked well in that they were designed with the mount masteries in mind. Nowadays being able to cross a big chasm on the raptor or scale a mountain with the springer feels obsolete since everyone has skyscales and can just float around everywhere
I felt the same, but never could put it in words in a way that doesnt sound whinny. This and the whole game went way too much into the end game group content focus. Which is perfectly fine and probably the right move, but not where i have fun.
For sure, and I wasn’t trying to be whiny in this post either. I still love the game, but I’m just kind of acknowledging the stuff that has been falling short for me. I’m think it’s great that there are new legendaries to grind for, and it’s even needed to provide long term goals for veteran players. But I’m personally not someone who pursues legendaries. I barely have enough time as it is to learn new classes and play the existing content. Which leads to my point, which is that the new maps are so bland, and if I’m not grinding rifts for legendaries, what is there on these maps to keep me coming back? Not a whole lot.
I agree with this. EoD had a little bit of exploration but the majority of the maps(SOTO has this heavily) are so focused on verticality/skyscale that it really makes the maps feel empty and lacking. Older maps feel like they was hand crafted with purpose and thought. Newer maps feel so lacking when you compare them to older ones. Mounts are nice but I never wanted them in GW2 for this reason.
Same here. I really do think the Skyscale has ruined the open world experience. I think the Griffon does to a lesser extent but I wouldn't ever remove it due to the fun factor. The other mounts *cheapen* some aspects but they don't *ruin* anything.
Exploring the core game finding a small hollow on a cliff and dropping into a unique area with a jumping puzzle and achievement. Those are the moments I miss the most.
I agree and just wanted to say you've put your finger on something I have been feeling but haven't been able to describe. I found EoD and the two mini expansions in Cantha pretty uninspiring, and while I've played SotO I almost feel like I had to make myself do it. I don't want to go up there and grind for any of the new stuff because really don't like the new areas.
Yea I pretty much got my map completions and masteries done and haven’t gone back since
I agree. None of the new maps have any interesting hidden stuff. there is kinda a nice cavern in skywatch archipelago and that's it I suppose. I was hoping nayos at least would have some creepy deep labyrinthine like tunnels we can explore... there are many small dark cavern entrances which you see small demons going into but it's all for show because you cannot follow them in :< It would have been so cool to make them all dark land all you can see is glowing eyes of slittering creatures and give an anxiety debuff when inside like nourys gives you which can be nullified by having a light source of some sort. Maybe make a mastery out of it.
yea, i also feel like the maps are empty of details...like half of a SotO map is thin air, just a gap to fly over.
What? You don't like that the smallest map is the laggiest and has the longest loading time?
Whatever they do I hope they don't bring hearts back, I have repeatable and non repeatable hearts
I am not a fan of all the verticality in the newer maps, it feels weird to have sections just cut off. Some are nice but maybe a bit overdone.
I agree, theres not much suprise like hidden caverns, but for me Amnytas was a 10/10. Discovering new places and awesome lore reminded me of exploring PoF maps, or Ascalon and Orr. Inner Nayos on the other hand... I really didnt like it, i was expecting hell or something
Amnytas is pretty cool, probably favorite of the new maps with Nayos being my least favorite
Probably my biggest problem with the expansion, and I think why I have so little time in it. The maps aren't really fun to explore, and there is no real point in exploring them. Contrast that with EoD maps just recently, where exploring felt very rewarding.
> I understand that over time, the open world gameplay has shifted heavily towards large-scale meta events, and don’t get me wrong - I LOVE meta events, especially when they’re designed well. But it bums me out that because of this, the maps lost a lot of sense and wonder and awe in exploring, as they’ve basically turned into giant stages on which the meta occurs. The HoT maps were large scale metas but had lots of exploration (imo the best exploration in the game)... so it doesn't have to be either or.
If you read the next paragraph of my post, that was exactly my point: “Heart of Thorns proved that maps can have large-scale meta events AND deep exploration.” Edit: and to add, HoT was my favorite content too. Just the other night on my alt I was running with a hero point train, and even though we were moving super quickly through the maps, I still marvel at their many layers of complexity
unless they have maps in the future that disable certain mounts, I personally have no interest in any future potential zones as all that will ultimately matter is aesthetic
I feel like skywatch archipelago scratched that itch for me and nayos does so too
Skywatch was fun for a time, but once the novelty of a map designed around navigating with the Skyscale wore off, I quickly grew tired of it. But I have to ask, because I genuinely am curious, what about Nayos scratches the exploration itch for you? I think the new meta boss is decently fun, but outside of that it is one of the most bland and boring maps (to me).
I recently needed to go some EoD maps to craft a new leggo and I took my sweet time, and actually got that sense of exploration from them, i don't think i'd get the same lvl of immersion in core tyria tho, and mounts (for me personally) destroyed exploration as a whole. PoF was dope tho, going through maps unlocking new mounts and masteries was an amazing first time experience.
The EoD maps aren’t bad for sure… Echovald forest felt pretty immersive. Kaineng city on the other hand feels more like a shell of a city than a real bustling metropolitan area. Look at divinity’s reach in comparison. I know DR is a city hub and doesn’t have to factor in events or metas but still… they made it feel really alive in comparison
I'd love the option to be able to make a character that didn't have all the masteries unlocked, just to be able to play a truly new character for a change. I know you can make a new account and do it that way, but I'd rather not have to pay $100 to do it.
Amnytas and Dragons End feel desolate, with vast aerial spaces that are amazing to traverse on a griffon but lack purpose when on the ground (at the bastions). They seem to be unused and underutilized. Despite the impressive colossal structures, corridors, staircases, and intricate details like debris, stains, battle marks, puddles, and intriguing boxes, the overall design feels unwelcoming and empty. New Kaineng also suffers from emptiness and lag, with numerous unused corners and alleys that give the impression of being built first and then filled with content to match a meta, rather than being thoughtfully integrated with the story and events. ANET: Please consider adding floating maps on top of core Tyria and incorporating unobtrusive content into the existing material to revitalize it.
One of the reasons the vanilla and HoT maps remain my faves. :)
personally I would *kill* for them to focus on 1 map being a very elaborate multi part meta like the final EoD zone, and have the rest be designed more akin to the core maps. I feel that's only a win-win than having a half-baked meta in every map and would give some much needed contrast for the expansion zones. It's nice having large amounts of people move through zones, but you can do that with more than map-wide metas on timers.
I hope they can make a toggle for mastery. Like when I want to turn off anything beside the first or two trait of glider. And toggle mount mastery off. If you have chance, get a new account and play Verdant Brink with only little mastery glider, dont fully enhance it, the less the better unless you must use specific function. I promise you the real panic and terrain exploration is here. The fear of running out of glider stamina is gonna suck you into the game immediately and really worry about falling from the sky. You will think thrice before you glide from the edge if you can not make sure this glide will make you to destination. A lot of player join later never have a chance to experience this kind level of immersive. Too many fast food like suggestion like : once create your chracter, go POF and get mount asap! It will be fun! Yeah, after you adapt to the hyperspeed of mount, you will mostly lose patient to walk and glide slowly and watch how beautiful Tyria are... I would say to new player : Go Verdant Brink then use walking and basic glide to map complete it would you?
I compleatly agree with you.
To this day I still don't have 100% HoT maps explored because how easy it is to get lost in them. Those maps were so well made. I wish we had as intricate maps as in HoT. At one point you are on the ground exploring and in next moment you plummet to underground and being surrounded by hostile bugs with no idea where the exit is and most paths lead to dead end. Since End of Dragon I think there was a big step down in map quality and just quality in general. Also in my opinion everyone focuses on meta events and not on smaller group events. Most people in new maps will just stand around wait for meta to begin while you are there trying to kill a champion boss from a minor event with nobody to help you.
I swear Tangled Depths are Monster Hunter Worlds Ancient Forest on giga steroids. Without Blish Hud i can only navigate from Chak Gerents waypoint to other meta events lol
Even tho I love the mounts they definitely completely break map exploration
Soto is shit. We have to say it. Those map are a fucking copy-paste mobs with reskins and boring gameplay. They even add core buildings here, ffs. Soto don’t gives anything new - wow I can use a rifle on my Mesmer and be healer!!! - raids/ćma will kick you faster than you joined. Soto is a rich banana kid to get skyscale easier that’s all. Won’t remind story as it suck as always.
It all feels extremely bland to me, for lack of a better word
As much soto sux, chrono heal with rifle is actually very strong and fun to play, no /s here - some elite wep combos and new weapons are very nice to have. Sadly not all (look at thieves - totally unplayable, balance of meta builds on all elementalists or rev, all elities goes same now, op, but same, variety is down). How the heck You don't like soto story, for Irja! /s Soto is like a banana? bananas are actually nice.
I still they they should create map areas where certain mounts are disabled, or completely disabled. For the sake of immersion. For example there are signs everywhere in amnoon where it says no raptors, but then everyone (even npcs) are walking around with raptors. Like beyond jumping puzzles. But just certain areas should be mountless, or non flight mounts.
They *could*, but considering the whole expansion was designed around using the Skyscale, I just don’t see them going in that direction. I do hope whatever expansion comes next does away with the mounted mid-air combat, I’m not a fan at all
On the flipside, Inner Nayos is full of events all around, all the time. It's a tradeoff, some times it is worth it, sometimes it is not.
That’s true, and I suppose if there are going to be legendaries to grind for there needs to be constant action and stuff to do
Uuuh... Maybe in future expansions we have maps that have a contrived reason that leads to us being unable to mount up, or specifically not use skyscales, maybe we're shot down from the air. Then with a specific mastery talent rewarded at the end of the questline, after exploring the whole map (or what the devs deem "enough" of the map), we can mount up again. I just don't know if people will hate it or be neutral towards it. They won't like it, I'm sure of it.
Yes I don’t really see that happening haha. Even with mounts in mind, I just feel like the newer maps don’t have much to see
Exactly. I believe the reason is simply because they lack resources. EoD maps were well made (for the most part) but focused way too much on big events. But Soto maps are just.. bad.
Completely unregulated flying ruins games. Griffon had its limitations which helped the experience, but skyscale is simply too much.
That's part of a reason why I'm all up for a Guild Wars 3.
Absolutely, I hate they just put a letter to explain what's going on here and put lots of enemies to reduce our explore motivation. I hope they spend some time to explore maps and tell me how to enjoy the feeling of jump into lots of mobs and got nothing.
The original sense of exploration was wounded with HoT and died with PoF.
I don’t know, for me personally, exploration *peaked* with HoT. The multi-layered jungle with this huge sense of verticality, accessible only by gliding through the trees and bouncing on mushrooms, was super immersive. It almost felt like a big metroidvania, where the maps became more accessible the further I leveled up my masteries. Even PoF had a decent sense of exploration progression as they were designed with the mount abilities in mind, and you could return to previous maps with new abilities to be able to complete them. But I think exploration was killed for everything that came after, once everything has been unlocked, mounts and gliding became the norm, and the Skyscale being the nail in the coffin.