Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns Review In Progress Part 3 .

In the previous Heart of Thorns review columns we’ve given an overall first impression of the new expansion, and critiqued the difficulty level of the new areas. Today I’d like to address two areas of the game that have been given similar treatment in HoT: dungeons and World vs. World battles.

Both dungeons and WvW were considered to be significant parts of the game at launch. Dungeons appealed to PvE players who wanted group combat and challenging encounters, and became one of the best ways for players to make in-game gold. World vs. World was considered to be one of the more unique aspects of Guild Wars 2, and appealed strongly to PvP players who wanted large-scale sieges, varied maps, and realm-wide leaderboards.

So how have these fundamental parts of Guild Wars 2 changed in Heart of Thorns? Let’s take a look.

Dungeons in the Expansion

Guild Wars 2 launched with 9 dungeons (not including temporary ones for holidays and special events). Heart of Thorns did not include any dungeons, and so far there are no known plans to add new ones in subsequent patches.

Additionally, dungeons received a pretty strong nerf to their monetary rewards in the expansion. John Smith, the new resident economist for Guild Wars 2, addressed this directly in a recent Q&A session, confirming that the new plan is to “deincentivize dungeons” by reducing the amount of gold that a player can earn by doing them.

Smith also stated in the same session that the plan is not to remove gold from the game in general, but just to spread out the ways of earning it across all aspects of the game rather than concentrating it in one activity. While that seems like a worthy goal for the game as a whole, the news was understandably upsetting for players who primarily focused on dungeons.
Of course as players we don’t really know how this nerf has affected the number of people who run dungeons, but at least anecdotally dungeon fans report slow LFG times and a lack of motivation to try different game options.

It seems likely that ArenaNet has chosen to focus on raids over dungeons as a source of challenging group PvE content. The first raid opens up later this week, and it remains to be seen how players who previously ran dungeons respond to the new “hard mode” content and potential monetary rewards.

WvW in the Expansion

World vs. World (vs. World) battles were truly one of the jewels of Guild Wars 2 at launch. They were unique, they were huge, and they gave players a reason to be proud of their home realm.

That’s not to say that they were without controversy! “Nightcapping”, or using the advantage of fewer players late at night to recapture resources quickly became a winning tactic and point of contention. WvW maps combined the opportunity for player vs. player skirmishes and more PvE-ish territory control activities, and the two groups often fought in general chat over which activity was more important, inciting namecalling and other unpleasant behaviors.

Additionally, some realms proved to be always at the top of the ranks and they quickly started draining dedicated WvW players from less successful realms. Realms that had organized WvW teams at launch (often from large web communities like Something Awful or Reddit) started out with a huge advantage and thanks to the talent drain in many cases they kept it over the years. Currently Silver and Bronze ranked realms are noticeably much less populated in WvW, and it can be difficult to motivate a large group for action.

Heart of Thorns introduced a new Desert Borderlands map for WvW, and added some new features through Guild Hall upgrades. The new War Room in a guild hall allows guilds to open up new weekly WvW missions, unlock craft schematics, claim Castles, and more.

However, players seem uncertain about the changes so far. Some take issue with the new maps and the reduced number of activities available, while others are disappointed that PvE currencies are required to level up the Guild Hall and its War Room. In general, most dedicated WvW players seem to agree that the changes in Heart of Thorns didn’t address the major issues of realm population and off-hours coverage.

Change is Scary

History shows that MMO players are initially sceptical about changes in their games, and Guild Wars 2 is no different. Even the tiniest adjustments can inspire a flood of angry forum posts! Players often demand change, and then at the same time get upset when they log on and something is different.

That being said, it’s easy to understand why players who were focused on dungeons would be disappointed by the Heart of Thorn changes: their favorite playstyle received a powerful nerf, and it’s been made pretty clear by ArenaNet that work on dungeons has been pushed out by more focus on Fractals and raids. For now, it’s hard to say if raids can properly replace the niche that dungeons once filled, but there’s definitely a demand for challenging PvE group content with robust rewards that needs filling.

The issues with WvW are a little more complicated, and for the most part existed before Heart of Thorns launched. Solving the problem of overnight coverage is extremely difficult in a global game, and not something easily introduced rolled out in an expansion. While it’s easy to understand why WvW-focused players take issue with having to do PvE content for their guild upgrades, at least they got something new out of Heart of Thorns!

As with dungeons and now raids, it’s possible that ArenaNet is focussing their post-HoT efforts on structured PVP over WvW, as the former is much more “eSports ready” and easier for players to comprehend.

It is perfectly reasonable for a publisher to use the launch of a huge expansion as a time to refocus their efforts and prioritize some parts of content over others. Arguably sPVP and world PvE have strongly benefited from the Heart of Thorns additions, while others, such as dungeons and WvW, were given less emphasis. Hopefully raids and the new sPVP leaderboards will help fill that gap for some players.