The first week or two after Heart of Thorns went live, I was a bit disappointed. Playing on, first because four of my friends and I always play together on Mondays, I got a little more of a philosophical handle on how the expansion changes the game, and I'm no longer ambivalent about having bought it - I love some parts, and I just had to learn that the "different kinds of fun as you feel like it" game design is now painted in broader strokes - especially you should only go into one of the new zones if you feel like the activity that is going on in it.
Roughly speaking, HoT adds four things to the game: A new character class, a new "elite" subclass for each class, a new form of progression at L80, and a bunch of new zones with their story. Of these, the zones are the most visible and important, and the mastery tracks are the most novel and IMO successful, so I'll leave those for last.
In thinking about these changes together, I think I see a philosophical pattern here about what ArenaNet believes they've learned about their players. As a nontypical player, this hurts me a little but they haven't taken out much of what I've loved about the game, even if the new content doesn't add as much more of the stuff I really like at it would if they'd done the easy thing.
Basically, if you just reach level 80 without doing any hero challenges, you will have exactly enough points to fill out all your skill tracks and your five standard specializations. So at 80, or earlier if you do lots of hero challenges, you will have almost all the flexibility that the old system gave you, and unlike in the old system you'll actually have a full set of traits from the three specializations you choose.
After you have filled out all that stuff and hit 80, you can start training the elite specialization. Of course, unless you've unlocked most of it you will be giving up a lot of traits just to be able to use one new weapon and touch one new mechanic, so most players won't really look at an elite spec until they have accumulated a lot of points from doing challenges (including from the new zones).
The exact effects of each elite spec, obviously, depend on the class, though it always includes one new weapon with its weapon skill set. For some of the classes the elite stuff completely changes or adds a new dimension to the class. For example, a Ranger with Druid slotted and a staff is possibly the highest-output healer in the game, but a non-Druid Ranger has basically no healing. For other classes it's not such an obvious change, especially if you don't use the new weapon. An Engineer with a melee weapon (hammer) is very different from normal, but if they stay with their rifle and kits the new pet still adds funky new options.
Even though I'm an altoholic, I don't actually have an 80 of every class. With the ones I have, I've found the elite specs to be interesting, but only my Ranger has built up enough points to actually play with it selected. That said, for her it's been cool to try out new things, and in fact leaving Ranger slotted but eschewing the staff for the same weapons she's always used has given her some nice CC and the special healing transformation while still keeping her solo-centric.
In general, the masteries for the new zones are very integrated into them, providing iconic things like gliding, the ability to use special objects, etc. The masteries for the old zones are more surprising, and reflect some thought about what people with level 80 characters would be interested in when adventuring in downlevel areas and visiting the cities.
To me it looks like the masteries for Old Tyria are the area where it's most obvious that ArenaNet has been paying close attention to what people enjoy and their pain points. Faster movement in towns, for example - although they also streamlined the way folks without the mastery can get a runspeed buff in town. And the legendary crafting track gives a less grindy and more predictable way to get a legendary precursor weapon, for those whom the PRNG hates or who really don't like grinding for a rare random drop.
Roughly speaking, HoT adds four things to the game: A new character class, a new "elite" subclass for each class, a new form of progression at L80, and a bunch of new zones with their story. Of these, the zones are the most visible and important, and the mastery tracks are the most novel and IMO successful, so I'll leave those for last.
In thinking about these changes together, I think I see a philosophical pattern here about what ArenaNet believes they've learned about their players. As a nontypical player, this hurts me a little but they haven't taken out much of what I've loved about the game, even if the new content doesn't add as much more of the stuff I really like at it would if they'd done the easy thing.
New class: The Revenant.
Of course I started a revenant. Equally of course, I didn't play up from level one - I used a scroll of instant level 20 to skip the introductory tutorial limitations, and a few Tomes of Knowledge to get up to the mid 30s to have some room to explore the class. A big problem with the game since the traits revamp that prepared for HoT is that it's much less fun to play any class below max level; but in the case of the Revenant it's far worse, especially if you are a new player.
The Revenant is the ultimate easy-mode character, with very few choices. The class has only four skill tracks, and each is locked to one of the four "legends" (stances). Each stance has a fixed package of exactly one healing, three utility, and one elite skill. That means you have zero choices about interesting combinations of skills to mix, beyond which weapons to carry. Within a stance, the package is quite powerful, to the extent of in some cases being overpowered.
The specialization tracks come in the usual set of five-plus-the-elite; but for the Revenant, four of the five regular tracks are designed to work more or less exclusively with one stance each. So while you could mix oddly, the result will be weak, not quirky. Your three specialization choices will be the two that match your stance choices plus the general one that enhances stance switching.
So basically, if you don't want to be different, or if you have the old non-GW2 attitude of having to have the "perfect" build for your character, this is the one for you. For me, it's a yawn.
Now here's the really stupid part: Of the four stances, two are not usable underwater. And the one you start with for free, which when you first play the character you're likely to assume is a good starting choice, is not aquatic-capable. Because of the stupid lack of respecs, not realizing this can cripple your character underwater (even more than some classes) all the way from the point aquatic combat first happens until the 50s or so when you have collected enough hero points to fill out two stances - otherwise during that time you'll either be half-powered in each of two stances or stuck in one that is useless underwater.
Elite Specializations
I think the idea here is pretty cool, and once they have done some serious tweaking they will be a nice solid addition to the game.Basically, if you just reach level 80 without doing any hero challenges, you will have exactly enough points to fill out all your skill tracks and your five standard specializations. So at 80, or earlier if you do lots of hero challenges, you will have almost all the flexibility that the old system gave you, and unlike in the old system you'll actually have a full set of traits from the three specializations you choose.
After you have filled out all that stuff and hit 80, you can start training the elite specialization. Of course, unless you've unlocked most of it you will be giving up a lot of traits just to be able to use one new weapon and touch one new mechanic, so most players won't really look at an elite spec until they have accumulated a lot of points from doing challenges (including from the new zones).
The exact effects of each elite spec, obviously, depend on the class, though it always includes one new weapon with its weapon skill set. For some of the classes the elite stuff completely changes or adds a new dimension to the class. For example, a Ranger with Druid slotted and a staff is possibly the highest-output healer in the game, but a non-Druid Ranger has basically no healing. For other classes it's not such an obvious change, especially if you don't use the new weapon. An Engineer with a melee weapon (hammer) is very different from normal, but if they stay with their rifle and kits the new pet still adds funky new options.
Even though I'm an altoholic, I don't actually have an 80 of every class. With the ones I have, I've found the elite specs to be interesting, but only my Ranger has built up enough points to actually play with it selected. That said, for her it's been cool to try out new things, and in fact leaving Ranger slotted but eschewing the staff for the same weapons she's always used has given her some nice CC and the special healing transformation while still keeping her solo-centric.
Masteries
This is the area of HoT about which I'm most unequivocally happy. They've come up with a progression mechanic that is distinctive from some sort of "new kind of levelling" or just adding more levels, and fits the game better. Specifically, masteries are account-wide and generally provide either mobility or meta benefits. Given that, in my mind and to my great pleasure, GW2 is more account-centric and altoholic-friendly than any other MMO, this is really up my alley.In general, the masteries for the new zones are very integrated into them, providing iconic things like gliding, the ability to use special objects, etc. The masteries for the old zones are more surprising, and reflect some thought about what people with level 80 characters would be interested in when adventuring in downlevel areas and visiting the cities.
To me it looks like the masteries for Old Tyria are the area where it's most obvious that ArenaNet has been paying close attention to what people enjoy and their pain points. Faster movement in towns, for example - although they also streamlined the way folks without the mastery can get a runspeed buff in town. And the legendary crafting track gives a less grindy and more predictable way to get a legendary precursor weapon, for those whom the PRNG hates or who really don't like grinding for a rare random drop.
New Zones and Story
Depending on your personal preference, the new zones in the expansion either address the sore lack of a given style of gameplay in the base game, or seriously undermine the base game's attention to the philosophical point that different kinds of activity are fun for different players, or for the same player at different times.
In the base game, there are a huge variety of activities you can get into, and all of them are rewarding in at least one way (character development, gear improvement, cosmetics and bragging rights). Renown hearts, world bosses, map completion bonuses, exploration bonuses, jumping puzzles, and hidden chests for PvE, open-world PvP in WvW, and carefully managed fair competition in sPvP, plus daily quests and various achievements leading to titles and cosmetic items in all modes.
The new zones feel quite different. Although they have hero points and mastery points for exploration, they have no renown hearts and each has its own treadmill of events that interfere to a lesser or greater, or even ruinous degree with both goal-oriented and purely scenic exploration.
On the good side, for the small set of players who have trouble self-motivating, or for those who are often self-motivating but just want a stream of stuff to shoot/slice/zap after a hard day, the constant stream of events provide an ongoing list of goals so they are never vexed by a lack of outside direction. But I really wish the team had taken a little more thought toward players with more relaxed mindsets.
Silverwastes
The first of the new zones is slightly smaller than most zones, but a bit underdeveloped even so. And it's the worst offender in the all-frenetic, all the time problem. The various forts are constantly in a cycle of attack; retaking a fort or surviving an attack gives only a minute or two before it is attacked again. There are only 3 waypoints and two "town" areas in the whole map. Map completion requires completing a massive jumping puzzle that takes several hours (speed runs by experts reportedly get it down to a half hour), which can be split across play sessions but can't be broken up by leaving the map.
Verdant Brink
What most folks will think of as the first "real" zone of the expansion, the first that contributes toward HoT masteries rather than old-world masteries, is not quite as frenetic as the Silverwastes but it's possibly worse for forcing players to do what the designers want. For two hours out of every four, the zone is in "night", and is populated by swarms of tough monsters that will quickly smash a solo player, or even a small party unless the zone is pretty empty of players, if they try to leave the base camps. So half of your potential playtime you will be effectively prevented from any sort of solo exploration or any other casual activity.
That said, I find Verdant Brink a much more congenial place to go than the Silverwastes, when I am occasionally in the mood for zerg-y running action. The flow of the daytime events is decently varied, with even some events that consist purely of interacting with NPCs in a camp. The nighttime camp defenses, at least if you stay in the central camp where all the other players are, are much more dynamic than the similar-scale old world battles like the Claw of Jormag, and actually require some attention to what is going on.
And if you do manage to get some exploration time, and don't get caught in one of the couple places where even in the daytime you can get swarmed by killer frogs or cornered by too many Mordrem, there are some really lovely views and cool visual elements to find. For sightseeing value, daytime Verdant Brink is almost as fun as nighttime Verdant Brink is frustrating.
Auric Basin
Auric Basin is a little harder to get around in than Verdant Brink, and fully winning the overall zone event is quite difficult (if you aren't playing on a weekend evening, forget it) but even when it is "lost" there are decent rewards for trying. But most importantly it has two features: if you aren't interested in the overall zone event, you can just explore with only a few places where you'll be overmatched, and even those you'll be able to retreat from; it also doesn't require that you have a filled-out set of mobility masteries to get around. If you have bouncing mushrooms and updrafts you are good, though you'll want Exalted Markings if you want to help in the zone event climax.
Tangled Depths
Tangled Depths is the most mobility-impaired of the new zones. Even with the full set of bouncing mushrooms, bug tunnels, and gliding III it takes a lot of trial and error to figure out how to get between the major hubs and the four fight "lanes". The zone event set is also a little opaque, until you've been through the cycle to see what a "lane" is and how they work.
One nice thing about this zone, though, is that the players who are working on the zone events tend to be paying attention, and there are generally commanders and/or mentors helping organize things. It still takes a minimum player population to "win" this zone, but it's a smaller number than Auric Basin, and the penultimate fights to force the Big Bug to surface are much more winnable than the ultimate fights against the Octovines in Auric Basin.
Dragon's Stand
This zone is more than a little special-purpose, though I still find it less hostile to an exploration mindset than nighttime Verdant Brink. It takes thoughtful use of the movement masteries, but it's generally nowhere near as convoluted to get between places as it is in Tangled Depths.
You can only enter the zone by having a waypoint from getting there the hard way, or by winning the Tangled Depths zone event; I'm sure this zone has a decent population on weekend evenings but it's a ghost town the rest of the time, so I've never even seen how the zone event works.
Bad Side Effects
No Respecs
One of the areas I really hope the ArenaNet folks are planning to address is the lack of a way for a sub-80 character to respec their hero point choices. While the revised level/trait/specialization system fits well into the gradual learning strategy that really supports new players, the lack of a respec option of any kind is just punitive.
Even a major altoholic is unlikely to have two characters of the same class, so without respecs or rerolling and starting over, every midlevel character is living with choices made when the player was unfamiliar with the class and its mechanics. The lack of a respec means that you are stuck with your bad decision for a long time; even if you realize your mistake and start dumping all your points into the thing you should have picked, you won't have it for a long time and meanwhile the thing you started with will get even lamer as you fail to max it out.
I haven't even seen comments from ArenaNet explaining why they did this; I sincerely hope that it's an oversight, that they had only thought about the effects of the new system on new players and on L80s, and need to retrofit for the folks stuck between.
Even if one argues that making respecs as easy as they used to be (any time out of combat) adds cognitive load for a new player because of perceived opportunity cost, that's no reason not to make them availble freely but, say, only from special characters in major cities.
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