There's no doubting that Heart of Thorns is a fantastic expansion pack but there's room for improvement and there's a couple of issues I think stand out more than most. Below are my five which I think if tweaked, could make a huge difference to the fun of the game. 

Increase Event Experience

One of the biggest surprises in Heart of Thorns is the fact that the events, without boosters, provide so little experience. At 18,000 experience (roughly) for completion of an event, it’s very little when you consider some Masteries during the later stages require over 4 million experience. It’s an enormous amount and whilst there’s no pressure on players to maximise their masteries right this instance, it’s fair to say it’s still a huge slog to whittle down your experience bar. The fact that farming spiders in Verdant Brink or Flame Legion in Citadel of Flame is infinitely quicker results in players avoiding events, when they should be participating in them. At over 4,000 experience per spider (with boosters) and a route of the upper gantries taking less than two minutes, it’s not hard to see why events are being avoided when 90,000 experience is attainable. I’m not in any way suggesting that farming monsters should be stopped, but bringing Events up to their standard is a sure fire way of keeping them healthy when it comes to player numbers.

Improve Rewards

I think it’s fair to say that Guild Wars 2 is somewhat stingy when it comes to rewards. Unless you farm The Silverwastes until your eyes bleed or land lucky in the Mystic Forge, you’re never going to get rich quick. I have to say, it’s the first MMO where gold gain is a real challenge and you’re ever so gently pushed towards buying gems through overly tight rewards. That’s somewhat fine for a Buy to Play game, but I don’t think there’s quite the need to always give two greens and a blue item for nearly every event. Heart of Thorns events are time consuming and to earn so little as a reward for sticking them out is disappointing. I fully appreciate ArenaNet need to balance gold earning potential with their need to earn revenue from the Gem store, but at the same time, I think we’re at the far end of the spectrum here.   

Reduce Bag Handling

I can honestly say I’ve never, in my entire gaming life, opened more loot bags than in Guild Wars 2. As exciting as it is to have a little treasure chest wobble seductively on the right hand side of the screen, it’s reached the point where - because of the above point - there’s little player care for what’s inside. Combined with the fact almost every enemy seems to drop a bag of some sort, I fear in two years time millions of Guild Wars 2 players will be raising reports of carpal tunnel syndrome due to excessive use of their index finger. I’d rather see far, far fewer bags and instead, just rewards players directly with one item of a particular value - preferably a rare or exotic.

Adjust Map Topography

One of the things that I’ve found particularly difficult in Heart of Thorns is determining exactly where something is, especially when it comes to completing maps. Just having a small arrow saying it’s “up” or “down” doesn’t really help when there’s so much graphical overlap on paths and there’s a few locations where I’ve struggled to find exactly how to reach somewhere. I think clarity on whether something is in the canopy, ground level or root would be great but also to grey out the map better when you’re above or below a location so that you don’t waste twenty minutes looking for a path that’s actually underground.

Profession Balance and Communication

It’s as absolutely no surprise that many of the elite specializations are strong but what I’d like to see is ArenaNet engage with the community on their patch notes and follow Blizzard's lead. In Heroes of the Storm, one of the things they do best is next to any significant Hero changes, they’ll provide a developer quote. In a paragraph (or two) the developer who made the change will detail the reasoning as to why, instead of simply dropping the change and walking away. In addition to this, I think there has to be greater community engagement when it comes to balance. Unfortunately for ArenaNet, they’re dealing with not only a passionate playerbase but the variables of individual skill, perception and build versus build. I actually think Guild Wars 2’s balance is very good but there’s inevitably a few concerns at the moment. Indestructible Druids (I know, I play one), Scrapper having not only huge survivability but eye watering damage (thanks boons!) and Dragonhunter trap bombing when teleporting instead of using traps as pre-armed defensive tools. Just visiting the structured PvP forums or Reddit and highlighting what’s up and coming in the quarterly update or that they are aware of the "issues" would alleviate so many of the threads that are repeated.

How would you improve Heart of Thorns? Let me know!