Heart Of Thorns - Worth the $50 or not?

Hi Everyone,

I am on the fence about getting Heart of Thorns, and need some help deciding.

1. Do you feel like it is worth the $50 expansion price?

2. How many days of new content do you think you'll get out of it ?

Thanks

The biggest complaint people have is it takes to long to get to the end.... this is an expansion pack not a patch. ArenaNet makes massive expansions and its ment to be a journey not a race. Its several months of content. And you also need to remember that it will be the foundation for more in the future. To me it was very well worth the 50 bucks and im not a typical pver. I didnt have to pay a dime for the wvw updates but the content in pve is aluring enough for it to become worthwhile.

It depends.   I bought the upgrade the day after it came out.  And then I paid $10 more for an extra character slot, so I could play the revenant class.  So it really was a $60 investment.

I have not seen any of the new content, as I've been trying to level my Revenant to 80.  With the $50, I received an instant upgrade to level 30, which I used immediately.   I do enjoy the Revenant class.  Wish I had known from level 1 that the HAMMER is your range weapon.  I didn't figure it out until after I had run a few dungeons, and could have used one.  Think Thor.  Revenant + Hammer = Thor from the Avengers.  :)   The staff is interesting.   So is an Axe+Sword or Axe+Mace.   Since finding out about Hammer, all I ever do is use Hammer.  For everything.  (It's very long range, and does incredible amount of damage).

If you enjoy PVE, and have alts to level up, you can probably wait awhile to get the expansion; play existing content.

If you enjoy PVE, and have want your primary toon to see new content, then get the expansion. 

If you are like me, and want to play the Revenant class, then you will need to get the expansion, and make sure you have an open character slot.  If not, you need to buy 800 gems = $10.

I like Hot. To disagree a bit with Fog though, my biggest complaint are the Hero Points. Many of the points now require groups to clear them. This is not always a problem, but there are enough times where I just prefer not to have to assemble a group. Either you are in the right place at the right time in the right instance, or you need to assemble a group. 

They put many of these points in out of the way locations which is not a problem in and of itself. The problem is that once someone has the points on a character, there is no real need to go back to that location. I would rather that they hid the points  behind the event mobs in the canopy, like the Legendary Wyvern. That at least would guarantee that others would have incentive to go to that location.

For me, the rest of the game is very, very nice. Relatively challenging mobs, neat maps, new mechanics, etc. etc. There is content available that will last for some time, definitely. 

Well, to be blunt, I don't know you, so I'm unable to give a good answer to the question(s). That being said, here's some advice that I'd offer to anyone asking similar questions: 

If you are "on the fence" about buying it right now, then I'd suggest just playing as you are now.  If you find yourself thinking, "man, I really want to get that xpac!", then go ahead and buy it, because then it will seem "worth it". 

On the flip side, you might find that you have no use for it, so so you won't regret having purchased it.

I think it was worth it. Love love love gliding and bouncy mushrooms. Spent 14 hours playing the first day and still a whole lot to be done. Going to get the maps with all my alts and work through the masteries for months to come.

1. Do you feel like it is worth the $50 expansion price?

Well, I paid the $100 for the Ultimate pack. I've been around the Guild Wars world since the alpha for the original game, and I absolutely love Arenanet and the game(s) they've created. I was going to get the Deluxe, but then an extra $25 for $50 worth of gems seemed like a "why the hell not" kind of deal. heh

That said, I already believe it was worth it. The amount of polish on the new areas that I've seen is amazing. The gameplay is fun, the new Elite specs are very interesting, and the story is far superior in both writing and execution to the base game. Overall, totally worth the cost to me.

2. How many days of new content do you think you'll get out of it ?

I don't think I've ever been asked something like that before. Do you mean to complete the storyline? Fully explore the new zones? Complete the mastery system? Unlock Elite spec for all Professions? If you include all of those things, then there's probably months of content here for me. But, I only have a handful of hours to play every week. The next couple weeks I'll probably be playing a lot more than usual because shiny, but then it will go back down to maybe a couple hours during the week and a couple more on the weekends. So, my progression may take longer than yours depending on how (and how often) you play. If you compare to the typical single player game, it's at a Bethesda/Bioware level of additional content. I'm thinking Skyrim or Mass Effect without their DLC.

I like Hot. To disagree a bit with Fog though, my biggest complaint are the Hero Points. Many of the points now require groups to clear them. This is not always a problem, but there are enough times where I just prefer not to have to assemble a group. Either you are in the right place at the right time in the right instance, or you need to assemble a group.

Which ones are these? I haven't explored them all by any means, but most of the ones that I ran across require special masteries to complete more than anything. (Thinking of the one in the first zone that requires froggy poison mastery.) Would it be worth putting together some kind of an event that people could sign up for to run through them? Perhaps a couple times a week, run through all the skill points in a particular zone/area/etc. That way if a group is required people know there's an option if they can't find a group otherwise.

My 0.02 I've stepped into HoT for about four hours during a guild event. I loved it Gliding needs to be in all games TBH I love that feature. I find gliding to be relaxing and fun. In fact I'm one of those that constantly face plant in Central Tyria when I forgot I don't have a glider.

However that said, I havn't spent alot of time in HoT content because of the massive amount of Central Tryia content that has been released. My wife and I have been focusing on world completion and other HoT provided achievements that currently takes most of our time up. With that in mind I'd have to state that the 50$ to purchase the expansion is worth it. Now I spent $200 on it for the collectors thingy for both my wife and I so I'm kind of biased that way.

However I find the amount of content to be about what I'd expect, although I would have liked more maps to explore I havn't even spent very much time on the ones they have launched so I cna't critic that just yet.

All opinions are subjective and your answer depends on what you want to get out of it, I say it was worth it. Disclaimer, I purchased the $99 edition.

I limited my opinion strictly to the time vs. money aspect. I've spent a comparable amount of time in HoT as my son spent on each Assasin's Creed, then Witcher 3 on Xbox One. He finished his content and I've barely scratched the surface, and I haven't even made it to all the maps yet. Good luck!!

~joey

Monsterbox - Schmi has an event Friday night in the 2nd Zone, and Osu has an event Saturday night for the first zone. I am not certain, but I think Schmi plans to have similar map unlock events for each zone, weekly. Hers is more than the hero points, including waypoints, etc. Osu's event is hero points only, be sure to have the map unlocked already. I think Osu mentioned sreaping the same zone with 2-3 alts, each week. 

If there is interest, I would be happy to sponsor a second event similar to Osu's in the first area, at least. I am familiar enough with that zone to find my way around.

After the update, there are only 3-4 hero points that require a group, this is much improved. 

From a solely PvP standpoint, what will be missed out on by not owning the expansion? Any PvP maps, gear, quests, etc?

Almost a year later, and I can tell you that it was worth every cent into the DLC :3

1. Do you feel like it is worth the $50 expansion price?

YES!

2. How many days of new content do you think you'll get out of it ?

 I'm still playing it!

"From a solely PvP standpoint, what will be missed out on by not owning the expansion? Any PvP maps, gear, quests, etc?"

 Not much, only the new elite specializations and the Revenant :3

"From a solely PvP standpoint, what will be missed out on by not owning the expansion? Any PvP maps, gear, quests, etc?"

You will miss out on the elite specializations which have defined the current PvP meta.  At the pro league level, no one plays the core professions because the HoT elite specialization are just too strong.  If you are a good PvP player, you may be able to play the core professions in the PvP League and progress to the Legendary division.  Several pro league players did it last season.

I wholeheartedly agree with Kitty on the expansion being worth the original $50 price.  I really enjoy the gliding skill and the new PvE and WvW maps (although the latter were temporarily removed).  The expansion introduced 10-player raids which I barely got into as I stopped going with our guild once the PvP League season started.   Hopefully, I can try the raids once the PvP League ends.

The only real negative in the HoT expansion is Anet's decision to tie the earning of Mastery points to Adventures.  I will watch Twitch to learn how the professional PvP players handle their characters or Youtube to see how players do the new raids. but I object to spending time watching videos to learn to use skills unique to Adventures and not the regular game---skills which I will never use again once the Adventure is done.  I believe players who primarily play PvP or WvW should have the opportunity to earn mastery points in those game modes.

 

» Edited on: 2016-08-15 20:41:45