Guild Wars 2

This was posted in the HoT discussion section, but I saw so many complaints here that I think it’s important for everyone to see: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/heads-up-iteration-incoming/

In short, total hero points to learn an elite specialization will be reduced from 400 to 250. And “if you’ve already put more than 250 points into your elite specialization, surplus hero points will be refunded to your character for future use.”

The number of hero points is fine either way, at least for me.

I’m still concerned about the champs and the need to find people, but I guess we will see how it goes.
I trust that if in the future Champions turn out to be too much, adjustments can be made.

One possible idea is adding a section on lfg dedicated to hero challenges: the open world category is too cluttered in my opinion.

Another idea is a mob that spawns as an Elite if there’s only 1 or 2 people present, but it feels like it would be more complex to realize.

This would be nice since I haven’t even touched the elite specs yet and at the rate im going (3-4 hours a day) I’m not going to have Dragon hunter or Chronomancer unlocked any time soon.

I saw! This is exceedingly good news imo. I was hoping for 200 hero points, but I’m completely ok with 250. I have a char with 100% map (Been there done that) and he had just over 200 points. I felt 100% map plus another 20 group hero points was just to much. By the time you got elite up and useful there wouldn’t really be much map to enjoy it on.

About 50/50 between world and HoT seemed like it would leave a good amount left to do hence the 200 idea. But another 5 group HP I’m good with that

Casual and lazy has nothing to do with it, at least for me. I simply wanted to have things to do in the worlds so I could enjoy the specialization. I would have no issue getting 400, I just see no merit in it given that the elite specializations are only moderately better than standard skills.

“We’ve had a lot of really positive reactions to our new take on endgame progression with our Mastery system.”

hashtagTrollFace

also i already grinded out the 315 hero points that i needed for the grandmaster trait (which i needed to be able to make my build viable) and now i’ve burnt out and only log in for the daily log in reward…little too late for me.
imho the point requirement wasn’t an issue, it was putting the hero points behind master grind-walls which was the issue, 40 accessible hero challenges would be no trouble and enjoyable.

Maxwell.7843:

One possible idea is adding a section on lfg dedicated to hero challenges: the open world category is too cluttered in my opinion.

That’a a REALLY GOOD idea tho!

Awesome! Honestly, getting the 400 points can be fun the first time, meh the second and third time, and just plain annoying after that…

Now my oft-played alts at least have a shot to use their specs before the next expansion.

This is great news. So glad to hear it. Not all players play at a professional level. I’ve been player for a few years now and my fingers still tend to get tangled from time to time. So it is great that everyone can get the chance to enjoy the game. And don’t be selfish or inconsiderate Malediktus.

rhelik.4876:

Awesome! Honestly, getting the 400 points can be fun the first time, meh the second and third time, and just plain annoying after that…

Now my oft-played alts at least have a shot to use their specs before the next expansion.

Yeah, I have 11 chars 8 of which are lv80, one with 100% regular wolrd, one that’s 74, and two dawdling at 55. I really wasn’t looking forward to getting 400. In fact I wasn’t going to, there was no point. There are only two or three elites I even want. Basically I have one char for each class, plus extra for ones I want the elite for but it wouldn’t work with my current builds.

I totally agree. THEY SHOULD LEAVE IT AS IT IS. just because a few people kick up a stink they change it? what about all the people that were just happily playing the game. grow some balls Aent. You’ll lose my respect doing this change.

Silverstone.4539:

I totally agree. THEY SHOULD LEAVE IT AS IT IS. just because a few people kick up a stink they change it? what about all the people that were just happily playing the game. grow some balls Aent. You’ll lose my respect doing this change.

Because the game is supposed to be hard and not fun and grindy and because you won’t feel superior to others who don’t have time to do all their alts grinding and because reasons…

YAY, this news made me happy and suddenly a lot less buyers remorse like. I played reaper a bit and LOVE it. And now I can actually play it viable while playing the expansion. I think 250 is perfect. It still needs a decent amount of work to unlock, so you have worked for it and earned it, but you can get it soon and easy enough to get much use out of it and also make it viable for alts. Think 250 is the perfect sweetspot personally, so this news made me happy

This is good imo. 250 is enough that it it will take a while to do but it’s low enough that you don’t need to 100% complete all of the maps to get (or go back and do a ton of world completion in the old maps first).

Well that was HoT for me then,
the only reason for me to explore the new maps and masteries was to eventually complete all the Hero Challenges and completely unlock my Elite Spec,
now I’ll have it free without even seeing the 3rd map yet, no sense of rewarding experience anymore.
This is ridiculous, the new content is supposed to be challenging but you immediately nerf it because some minority of casual players ask for it? Ridiculous.

This is good news for me too. The progression seemed a bit slow for me.

Well, I hope they reduce the hero points from the new challenges to 5, otherwise we’re going to have a repeat of this in the next expansion when they try to figure out what to do with all these excess hero points.

I honestly don’t understand why they didn’t make elite specs an achievement unlock. Make it challenging once, not make it challenging the first time and tedious for every remaining character you have.

Pandaman.4758:

Well, I hope they reduce the hero points from the new challenges to 5, otherwise we’re going to have a repeat of this in the next expansion when they try to figure out what to do with all these excess hero points..

That would make the grind just like if it was left at 400.

Matter of fact, you’d end up doing more Hero Challenges since you cut the amount gained by 50% while the Elite spec was cut back by around ~45%.

Math is your friend.

Ravion Hawk.4736:

Pandaman.4758:

Well, I hope they reduce the hero points from the new challenges to 5, otherwise we’re going to have a repeat of this in the next expansion when they try to figure out what to do with all these excess hero points..

That would make the grind just like if it was left at 400.

Matter of fact, you’d end up doing more Hero Challenges since you cut the amount gained by 50% while the Elite spec was cut back by around ~45%.

Math is your friend.

Thank you for that bit of pedantry and for missing the point.

There’s no way for them to make it equal for everyone. Not if some are starting out with 200 plus and some with none. Some with only one char, some with multiples. This is a good compromise. 250 is still a fair amount, especially for those starting with zero. For those with 200 already, it’s still 5 of the champ fights. Not extremely hard or takes a long time but if you have multiple level 80s, then that adds up.

My alts are saved.

Whats this future use though? It sounds very far off, unless they are going to make it account bound to further save my 8 alts with very little map completion.

The problem is people have an I want it now mentality
and are not content to let progress be a form content

leveling up masteries and unlocking my elite spec I have found to be an incredibly engaging activity with an incredible reward at the end

I got my full elite spec unlock last night after playing a lot over the weekend and now every hero challenge in the game is redundant and the hero points will just sit in my wallet tab now for the next 2 years.

people wonder why they get bored with games so quickly

it sucks to be in a games market where the majority of consumers just want give it to me now content all the time

When does this take effect? Still shows 400 HP needed to completely unlock the Elite Specialization.

‘To that end, we’ll be making some changes in an update today that will address some of the things that have come up as players have dug into Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.’

Heishi.8530:

Casual and lazy has nothing to do with it, at least for me. I simply wanted to have things to do in the worlds so I could enjoy the specialization. I would have no issue getting 400, I just see no merit in it given that the elite specializations are only moderately better than standard skills.

The Berserker elite skills is actually a downgrade from the regular warrior specs.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

When does this take effect? Still shows 400 HP needed to completely unlock the Elite Specialization.

‘To that end, we’ll be making some changes in an update today that will address some of the things that have come up as players have dug into Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns.’

Probably tomorrow at the earliest. Next Tuesday by the latest.

Foomnz.6954:

The problem is people have an I want it now mentality
and are not content to let progress be a form content

leveling up masteries and unlocking my elite spec I have found to be an incredibly engaging activity with an incredible reward at the end

I got my full elite spec unlock last night after playing a lot over the weekend and now every hero challenge in the game is redundant and the hero points will just sit in my wallet tab now for the next 2 years.

people wonder why they get bored with games so quickly

it sucks to be in a games market where the majority of consumers just want give it to me now content all the time

The thing is Elite spec isn’t a goal, it is a tool, tool to have fun in other activities. I’ve played a few of MMOs but none of them limited you in skills(exept choice tree) since level cap, lack of things to do is an another problem

400 hero points was fine, it’s the fact that that most of the hero challenges are group content that sucked about unlocking elite specializations.

250 points looks kind of lowish to me. I like the idea of elite specialization is part of character progression and I don’t have a problem if it takes me 1 month to fully unlock it. As long as there’s enough time to unlock the full elite specialization (while playing reasonably) before the first raid opens I don’t have a problem.

Bearhugger.4326:

400 hero points was fine, it’s the fact that that most of the hero challenges are group content that sucked about unlocking elite specializations.

250 points looks kind of lowish to me. I like the idea of elite specialization is part of character progression and I don’t have a problem if it takes me 1 month to fully unlock it. As long as there’s enough time to unlock the full elite specialization (while playing reasonably) before the first raid opens I don’t have a problem.

250 is just the right amount to reward people who have map completion on a character while letting those who just tome’d/EotM’d to 80 to do 25 challenges instead which is much less time than it takes to do map completion.

But the devs saw the Elite as a goal. They were probably expecting that if you go through the story, you would get the Elite unlocked by the time you reached the climax.

Personally instead of the 60 point unlock I would have liked to see a story element you had to do to initially unlock it. Seems strange for your Ranger to wake up one day and say “I know what I’ll do today, I’ll become a Druid”.

The biggest problem was gating most of the hero points with masteries, had they not done that 400 wouldn’t have been as bad.

Behellagh.1468:

But the devs saw the Elite as a goal. They were probably expecting that if you go through the story, you would get the Elite unlocked by the time you reached the climax.

Personally instead of the 60 point unlock I would have liked to see a story element you had to do to initially unlock it. Seems strange for your Ranger to wake up one day and say “I know what I’ll do today, I’ll become a Druid”.

And yet it makes perfect sense that an accomplished engineer would be able to switch to Scrapper or a Thief to Daredevil without some epic spirit journey in the jungle.

the HP requirement is fine, but the gating to get to the Hero’s Challenge is not. why must anyone have ley line mastery to get to a golem ?

well, i appreciate this change. At least now i can use the elite skills to do something, as opposed to finishing all the PvE content and when you finally get the skills, there’s nothing left to use them for (exploring wise).

I didnt have a problem with it being 400 (was already up to grandmaster traits on the only 2 toons I play, and i havent put in more than 3-4 hrs a day so far), but this seems like a good change to keep all the angry kiddies happy without giving up too much in terms of long term goals.

Now if they gut how long it takes to get masteries and nerf mob damage in new zones you could say they are pandering to the “casuals”, but i doubt that will happen.

I have absolutely no problem with this change. It’s nothing to whine about.

Wildstar cough hardcore “content” cough

I’m actually thrilled. Since the only character I wanted the elite spec unlocked on was starting at 0 HP, it would end up with me not having the elite spec unlocked until I’d FINISHED the HoT content.

That was bad design.

They initially attempted to pander to the game locusts – the ones who have nothing better to do than live in game 24/7.

This is also bad design.

Now it’s achievable for those of us who work and have families, and play games casually. That demographic will always be the biggest cash cow.

By any sane business model, making something appeal to the majority is good design.

Substance E.4852:

Behellagh.1468:

But the devs saw the Elite as a goal. They were probably expecting that if you go through the story, you would get the Elite unlocked by the time you reached the climax.

Personally instead of the 60 point unlock I would have liked to see a story element you had to do to initially unlock it. Seems strange for your Ranger to wake up one day and say “I know what I’ll do today, I’ll become a Druid”.

And yet it makes perfect sense that an accomplished engineer would be able to switch to Scrapper or a Thief to Daredevil without some epic spirit journey in the jungle.

I dunno, it would’ve been pretty cool for Engineers to hear a rumor about some new Inquest tech being used for evil and then have to run through a storyline where you stop them and then iterate on their design. For Thief, maybe you have to travel to a high mountain and learn the ways of the Bo staff from a wise old master.

It really wouldn’t be very hard to think of fun adventures for every profession to go through in order to unlock their Elite Specialization. Implementing something like that would require a lot more development work than slapping a 30 HP pricetag onto it, but in a perfect world with unlimited budgets, that would’ve been a neat thing to do for the players.

Foomnz.6954:

The problem is people have an I want it now mentality
and are not content to let progress be a form content

leveling up masteries and unlocking my elite spec I have found to be an incredibly engaging activity with an incredible reward at the end

I got my full elite spec unlock last night after playing a lot over the weekend and now every hero challenge in the game is redundant and the hero points will just sit in my wallet tab now for the next 2 years.

people wonder why they get bored with games so quickly

it sucks to be in a games market where the majority of consumers just want give it to me now content all the time

Wait, your reason for opposing the change is because your Hero Points are going to sit there unused for another 2 years? Let me get this straight. You completed your Elite Spec in 5 days since launch of HoT. Assuming it was 250 HP from the start, you got like what? 4 additional days of “mandatory” content (which by the way is only changed to optional content and not removed entirely) and you’re seriously arguing for that 4 additional days of grind?

You need to apply some logic here and understand that the point of Elite Spec is to play them, not to earn them. If you found the journey fun, great for you, but they’re not meant to be as exclusive as Legendary or other premium achievements. Not all content are created equal and not all content are created for the same purpose.

Reducing the hero point requirement for elite spec to 250 was a good move. This goes a long way towards allowing players to unlock their elite specialization while still having choice in terms of playing style. The 400 hero point cost for elite spec IMO required way too much focus on platforming and finding areas that would be difficult to navigate to even with a video guide.

Putting in more hero points then are strictly “needed” in an area to unlock core class stuff like elite specializations doesn’t make the game overly easy or “casual”. What this really does is let players continue to progress and master their class while sticking more within their preferred playing style (combat or exploration/platforming).