Guild Wars 2

Could you imagine if they just removed all leveling tomes, books, scrolls, and made everyone grind up their toons the old fashioned way, THEN made them do this grind for Elite Specs?

I mean why not. Makes as much sense.

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

I mean why not. Makes as much sense.

Sarcasm? It makes no sense at all.

Some of us ARE leveling for the first time, leveling my reaper now and about half way through (the elite spec tree).

Loving it.
I can see how it would be tedious maybe after a couple more toons.

Some people are leveling the old fashioned way. A friend of mine is leveling her rev by map expIorarion. I did on my last char, who is a couple of months old. The only reason I didn’t do it this time was because how the mastery system is set up, otherwise I would have done the old way on my rev too.

It doesn’t make sense to remove levelling items though. Have both options open, if a player wants to explore to level then they can. If longer-term players want to use items to insta hit level 80 then there’s no problems there either. Everybody’s happy

Well since they are adding tedium back to the game, might as well remove all the tomes.

You’re not being required to do anything you consider tedious. You can always go and do whatever you find fun. I certainly don’t do part of a game that I think is tedious and if that’s what you are doing, maybe you need to reconsider when you’re doing and why.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Some people are leveling the old fashioned way. A friend of mine is leveling her rev by map expIorarion. I did on my last char, who is a couple of months old. The only reason I didn’t do it this time was because how the mastery system is set up, otherwise I would have done the old way on my rev too.

This is a good point. Because of the way central tyria masteries are done it makes most sense to scroll/tome your revenant up to 80, THEN do personal story and world completion.

If you level up through story and world completion you WASTE potential mastery xp.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

You’re not being required to do anything you consider tedious. You can always go and do whatever you find fun. I certainly don’t do part of a game that I think is tedious and if that’s what you are doing, maybe you need to reconsider when you’re doing and why.

Except you are if you want your Elite. When HoT dropped, I was able to drop 80 tomes on my revenant, fully equip him and I’d have been ready to do whatever I wanted with him, except for the elite. To get your elite, you have to GRIND until you have enough hero points to slowly unlock your character.

Don’t want your Elite? Boom, 80 tomes and you’re done. Want your Elite? Well… get on that treadmill because you’re not going to get your completed character until you go through the guise of “player progression” or the “see we have content, now grind it”.

It’s frustrating running around with an incomplete character.

Devildoc.6721:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Some people are leveling the old fashioned way. A friend of mine is leveling her rev by map expIorarion. I did on my last char, who is a couple of months old. The only reason I didn’t do it this time was because how the mastery system is set up, otherwise I would have done the old way on my rev too.

This is a good point. Because of the way central tyria masteries are done it makes most sense to scroll/tome your revenant up to 80, THEN do personal story and world completion.

If you level up through story and world completion you WASTE potential mastery xp.

Yep. It’s 4.8 million and some change to get to level 80. That’s a fair chunk of exp that’s not going towards a mastery line. I was going to level my usual way, by map completion until I realized how much exp is “wasted” with the old system.

At any rate, I don’t learn that much from autoattacking and being without traits or utility skills doesn’t teach me how to use my traits or utility skills.

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

You’re not being required to do anything you consider tedious. You can always go and do whatever you find fun. I certainly don’t do part of a game that I think is tedious and if that’s what you are doing, maybe you need to reconsider when you’re doing and why.

Except you are if you want your Elite. When HoT dropped, I was able to drop 80 tomes on my revenant, fully equip him and I’d have been ready to do whatever I wanted with him, except for the elite. To get your elite, you have to GRIND until you have enough hero points to slowly unlock your character.

Don’t want your Elite? Boom, 80 tomes and you’re done. Want your Elite? Well… get on that treadmill because you’re not going to get your completed character until you go through the guise of “player progression” or the “see we have content, now grind it”.

It’s frustrating running around with an incomplete character.

/shrug.

I guess it’s all your expectations. I’m learning to play a brand new profession and figuring out what works and what doesn’t when I’m fighting a mob. That’s still new and shiny for me at least. The Herald part I haven’t even gotten to yet. I’m getting hero points to unlock it, but I’ve got so much to learn already with this new profession that I’m not feeling the need to rush to get the “elite” profession.

I can see the complaints with the other 3 year old professions, not being able to play the new part of it. But a brand new profession? Why do you feel the need to rush past the base part just to get to another section?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

You’re not being required to do anything you consider tedious. You can always go and do whatever you find fun. I certainly don’t do part of a game that I think is tedious and if that’s what you are doing, maybe you need to reconsider when you’re doing and why.

Except you are if you want your Elite. When HoT dropped, I was able to drop 80 tomes on my revenant, fully equip him and I’d have been ready to do whatever I wanted with him, except for the elite. To get your elite, you have to GRIND until you have enough hero points to slowly unlock your character.

Don’t want your Elite? Boom, 80 tomes and you’re done. Want your Elite? Well… get on that treadmill because you’re not going to get your completed character until you go through the guise of “player progression” or the “see we have content, now grind it”.

It’s frustrating running around with an incomplete character.

/shrug.

I guess it’s all your expectations. I’m learning to play a brand new profession and figuring out what works and what doesn’t when I’m fighting a mob. That’s still new and shiny for me at least. The Herald part I haven’t even gotten to yet. I’m getting hero points to unlock it, but I’ve got so much to learn already with this new profession that I’m not feeling the need to rush to get the “elite” profession.

I can see the complaints with the other 3 year old professions, not being able to play the new part of it. But a brand new profession? Why do you feel the need to rush past the base part just to get to another section?

Because sPvP exists and you can test out any build you want ad nauseum. And it doesn’t take away from the fact, that if you don’t want your elite, you can still get a basically complete character in 80 tomes.

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Could you imagine if they just removed all leveling tomes, books, scrolls, and made everyone grind up their toons the old fashioned way, THEN made them do this grind for Elite Specs?

Imagine it? Why would I even want to use those and play like a super casual?

They should have never added tomes and skill point scrolls in the first place. It made the game too casual, so these people expected everything new to be handed to them in the same way.

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

You’re not being required to do anything you consider tedious. You can always go and do whatever you find fun. I certainly don’t do part of a game that I think is tedious and if that’s what you are doing, maybe you need to reconsider when you’re doing and why.

Except you are if you want your Elite. When HoT dropped, I was able to drop 80 tomes on my revenant, fully equip him and I’d have been ready to do whatever I wanted with him, except for the elite. To get your elite, you have to GRIND until you have enough hero points to slowly unlock your character.

Don’t want your Elite? Boom, 80 tomes and you’re done. Want your Elite? Well… get on that treadmill because you’re not going to get your completed character until you go through the guise of “player progression” or the “see we have content, now grind it”.

It’s frustrating running around with an incomplete character.

/shrug.

I guess it’s all your expectations. I’m learning to play a brand new profession and figuring out what works and what doesn’t when I’m fighting a mob. That’s still new and shiny for me at least. The Herald part I haven’t even gotten to yet. I’m getting hero points to unlock it, but I’ve got so much to learn already with this new profession that I’m not feeling the need to rush to get the “elite” profession.

I can see the complaints with the other 3 year old professions, not being able to play the new part of it. But a brand new profession? Why do you feel the need to rush past the base part just to get to another section?

Because sPvP exists and you can test out any build you want ad nauseum.

If you’re talking about tomes and hero points, etc, then your post is about your char and PvE. Not the special circumstances of PvP, where you have a fully unlocked level 80, two seconds after leaving the first story instance by hitting the PvP button.

PvE is not the same. From day one in PvE, historically it’s create the char. Then s l o w l y level by doing events and map completion. Before tomes and EOTM it could take weeks to get to level 80 and get all your skills and traits and then your armor. If you’re going to compare your instant, fully unlocked PvP char to the normal slowly unlocked PvE char, then you’re confusing two very different ways of playing.

Your char is not unfinished. It’s a few days old PvE char and PvE chars, before they started throwing tomes at us, always took a long time to unlock. Taking a few days to unlock the Herald is not much time in the several year old life of a PvE char.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

PvE is not the same. From day one in PvE, historically it’s create the char. Then s l o w l y level by doing events and map completion. Before tomes and EOTM it could take weeks to get to level 80 and get all your skills and traits and then your armor. If you’re going to compare your instant, fully unlocked PvP char to the normal slowly unlocked PvE char, then you’re confusing two very different ways of playing.

Your char is not unfinished. It’s a few days old PvE char and PvE chars, before they started throwing tomes at us, always took a long time to unlock. Taking a few days to unlock the Herald is not much time in the several year old life of a PvE char.

You forget that WvW Exists?

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

PvE is not the same. From day one in PvE, historically it’s create the char. Then s l o w l y level by doing events and map completion. Before tomes and EOTM it could take weeks to get to level 80 and get all your skills and traits and then your armor. If you’re going to compare your instant, fully unlocked PvP char to the normal slowly unlocked PvE char, then you’re confusing two very different ways of playing.

Your char is not unfinished. It’s a few days old PvE char and PvE chars, before they started throwing tomes at us, always took a long time to unlock. Taking a few days to unlock the Herald is not much time in the several year old life of a PvE char.

You forget that WvW Exists?

You don’t get a fully unlocked char in WvW. You get an up leveled one with the same skills and traits as your PvE char, so, your point?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

You don’t get a fully unlocked char in WvW. You get an up leveled one with the same skills and traits as your PvE char, so, your point?

If you don’t want your elite, you can start a character, and have it maxed out ready to go instantly. The way the Elites have been introduced make no sense in that if you bought the expansion, and you want your elite, you have to put in 4x as much work?

Is this seriously a complaint at this stage?

I have fully locked:

Herald 1 (with 161 Hero Points to spare after 400 → 250 switch)
Herald 2 (250/250)
Elementalist (250/250)
Scrapper (250/250)
Reaper (250/250)

Then various other amounts on other characters at least up to 30 to unlock the basic collections for the class weapons. Like, it’s so easy to get Hero Points now. Once you do them a few times you get them down on a pattern and even throwing up a Mentor tag and asking if people want to join you is enough to get a Hero Point train rolling (which I’ve done multiple times now through Auric Basin and Tangled Depths). Hell Dulfy has video guides showing you how to knock these out with videos which even if you casually play for an hour a day you could have done by now.

Healix.5819:

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Could you imagine if they just removed all leveling tomes, books, scrolls, and made everyone grind up their toons the old fashioned way, THEN made them do this grind for Elite Specs?

Imagine it? Why would I even want to use those and play like a super casual?

They should have never added tomes and skill point scrolls in the first place. It made the game too casual, so these people expected everything new to be handed to them in the same way.

Maybe ANet should do what Blizzard does for these people. Sell max level chars in the cash shop. No need to play the game to level.

Healix.5819:

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Could you imagine if they just removed all leveling tomes, books, scrolls, and made everyone grind up their toons the old fashioned way, THEN made them do this grind for Elite Specs?

Imagine it? Why would I even want to use those and play like a super casual?

They should have never added tomes and skill point scrolls in the first place. It made the game too casual, so these people expected everything new to be handed to them in the same way.

How dare people expect to level through PvP after being told that they can level through PvP.

I take it that you would have also implemented actual XP gain in PvP instead of just ripping out the tomes that are there to compensate for the fact that you don’t gain XP in it.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Some people are leveling the old fashioned way. A friend of mine is leveling her rev by map expIorarion. I did on my last char, who is a couple of months old. The only reason I didn’t do it this time was because how the mastery system is set up, otherwise I would have done the old way on my rev too.

^^^

Ditto here. I have done 10 Chars so far the old fashioned way via world completes and would have done the same if not for this mastery exp thing. I could have levelled many of my alts up straight to 80 with tomes and the like. However usually I preferred to learn the class as I unlocked it bit by bit.

This time around I just saw all the exp from map completes, events and level ups being wasted potential Mastery exp so I tomed it. No one to blame here really besides anet. :P

Lastly it actually gives some of us some sense of value to tomes of knowledge and such too now. Previously they were just junk (my personal opinion) and were only good for extra Shards (got 2.5k so no real thing there for me) or some easy key farm runs. Since they killed the key farming of course this took a huge bit of value away from tomes and scrolls.

Healix.5819:

Imagine it? Why would I even want to use those and play like a super casual?

They should have never added tomes and skill point scrolls in the first place. It made the game too casual, so these people expected everything new to be handed to them in the same way.

Which part of levelling was more hardcore? The part where you pressed 1 or the part where you pressed F?

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

It’s frustrating running around with an incomplete character.

The irony is you yourself are an incomplete character. We all are!

Missing from the discussion is that all new account buyers of HoT have no tomes, no insta 20s, no hero points, level 1 with nothing.

It’s a pretty long slog for them to get to the content features HoT is selling.

Healix.5819:

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Could you imagine if they just removed all leveling tomes, books, scrolls, and made everyone grind up their toons the old fashioned way, THEN made them do this grind for Elite Specs?

Imagine it? Why would I even want to use those and play like a super casual?

They should have never added tomes and skill point scrolls in the first place. It made the game too casual, so these people expected everything new to be handed to them in the same way.

I know rite? The second I used an exp tome I suddenly felt I was entitled to precursors dropping from copper nodes, a box of ascended, and a personal “Worship Me” beacon over my head. Oh, that slippery slope!!!!

Man you guys whine alot…

Every MMo expact generally caters for the max level. So anyone buying it doesnt really ger anything out of it till they get to that point.

Kyrne.1590:

Man you guys whine alot…

Every MMo expact generally caters for the max level. So anyone buying it doesnt really ger anything out of it till they get to that point.

Gee. I guess that is why good expacs often contain new lands, new races, new starting areas and storylines unique to them. You know.. for the maxed players….

You have a point i guess, some offer a small bit of content for the lower level, but id still say 80 % is aimed at max level / progressing their story.

I guess we got the rev class.

Spirit shards. Mastery will eventually cap out, making all that exp you skipped through tomes meaningless. You could’ve used the tomes on a level 80 to get more spirit shards, which can be used for mystic forge shenanigans.

I leveled up my first 8 characters normally. I thought I wouldn’t need anymore characters after getting one for each class. I now have 17 level 80 characters, as you might have guessed, the other 9 characters were leveled up with the help of level 20/30 scrolls and tomes of knowledge. I don’t see your point OP, as those with many characters will still grind for hero points.

Honestly I rather like that there is the option to level your charr quickly via tomes. Most people that have a stack of tombs also likely have a stack of characters (or would that be a pile? crowd?), and thus likely already experienced the PvE content several times (i.e. map completion to level is only fun for so long).

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Could you imagine if they just removed all leveling tomes, books, scrolls, and made everyone grind up their toons the old fashioned way, THEN made them do this grind for Elite Specs?

I mean why not. Makes as much sense.

I’m not exactly sure what you’re sarcastically inferring here. I assume based on other replies it’s about having to unlock the elite specs?

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Well since they are adding tedium back to the game, might as well remove all the tomes.

Ah ok so you are being passive aggressive and sarcastic. Well I’m sure that will make ANet instantly listen to your feedback /s

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

Don’t want your Elite? Boom, 80 tomes and you’re done. Want your Elite? Well… get on that treadmill because you’re not going to get your completed character until you go through the guise of “player progression” or the “see we have content, now grind it”.

I think you’re not playing the right genre of games here. MMOs particularly the RPG-MMO genre tend to be defined by grind and farming. The reason for this is simple enough, there is no way for a developer to produce sufficient unique content to keep players occupied for thousands of hours. Furthermore a common trend in RPGs is this sense of progression things like better equipment, new items, new abilities, stat increases etc. So what we have in the MMO-RPG is a genre known for not giving players everything at the start (i.e. players having to slowly work towards things) and a certain amount of repetition. Well these are desirable traits since the desire to progress is part of the motivation to play (and of course the social aspects). I think you might be more comfortable with different genres, can’t really think of one… maybe chess? I do know you don’t have to unlock the chess pieces so that could work.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Your char is not unfinished. It’s a few days old PvE char and PvE chars, before they started throwing tomes at us, always took a long time to unlock. Taking a few days to unlock the Herald is not much time in the several year old life of a PvE char.

You know I have the feeling we might eventually see something similar to tomes for elites, although I guess they already have something like that in WvW.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Missing from the discussion is that all new account buyers of HoT have no tomes, no insta 20s, no hero points, level 1 with nothing.

It’s a pretty long slog for them to get to the content features HoT is selling.

So ANet should sell instant max level characters?

Kyrne.1590:

Man you guys whine alot…

I don’t even like wine, it tastes like rotten grapes, how can someone like the taste of something rotten?

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Kyrne.1590:

Man you guys whine alot…

Every MMo expact generally caters for the max level. So anyone buying it doesnt really ger anything out of it till they get to that point.

Gee. I guess that is why good expacs often contain new lands, new races, new starting areas and storylines unique to them. You know.. for the maxed players….

Please define ‘good expacs’ cause I can think of several MMO expansions that did not include new races or new staritng areas or unique storylines to them (although those all are pretty related), but those all might not be classifiable as good.

CureForLiving.5360:

I think you’re not playing the right genre of games here. MMOs particularly the RPG-MMO genre tend to be defined by grind and farming. The reason for this is simple enough, there is no way for a developer to produce sufficient unique content to keep players occupied for thousands of hours. Furthermore a common trend in RPGs is this sense of progression things like better equipment, new items, new abilities, stat increases etc. So what we have in the MMO-RPG is a genre known for not giving players everything at the start (i.e. players having to slowly work towards things) and a certain amount of repetition. Well these are desirable traits since the desire to progress is part of the motivation to play (and of course the social aspects). I think you might be more comfortable with different genres, can’t really think of one… maybe chess? I do know you don’t have to unlock the chess pieces so that could work.

I think you’re missing the bigger picture here. HoTs has set a very real precedent that you can never know what to expect from Anet. They went for years with this policy of no grind, at your own pace, enjoy the way you want to enjoy. To HoT. Even today I could start a new class, and spend the tomes and the gold and have a fully functional character in WvW and in everything but HoT PvE, unless you want your Elite Spec… It’s not like it’s purely a cosmetic thing(Legendaries) but your character is now missing a trait line until you grind out a ridiculous amount of hero points, and there is no explanation why such a steep departure from established norms.

Especially considering the original amount was coincidentally the exact same amount you would have gained through playing through 100% of the pve side of expansion. This massive forced gate is a terrible precedent.

And someone else brought up a fantastic point. New players. Could you imagine being a new player, getting to 80, and only being 1/5 of the way done your character? The magnitude of the grind that a fresh new player now has to face without access to Tomes?

You now have to grind, all the way to 80, THEN you get to start the grind to finish spec’ing your character.

The entire “Elite Spec” implementation is terrible.

SoulstitchMMO.1396:

CureForLiving.5360:

I think you’re not playing the right genre of games here. MMOs particularly the RPG-MMO genre tend to be defined by grind and farming. The reason for this is simple enough, there is no way for a developer to produce sufficient unique content to keep players occupied for thousands of hours. Furthermore a common trend in RPGs is this sense of progression things like better equipment, new items, new abilities, stat increases etc. So what we have in the MMO-RPG is a genre known for not giving players everything at the start (i.e. players having to slowly work towards things) and a certain amount of repetition. Well these are desirable traits since the desire to progress is part of the motivation to play (and of course the social aspects). I think you might be more comfortable with different genres, can’t really think of one… maybe chess? I do know you don’t have to unlock the chess pieces so that could work.

I think you’re missing the bigger picture here. HoTs has set a very real precedent that you can never know what to expect from Anet. They went for years with this policy of no grind, at your own pace, enjoy the way you want to enjoy. To HoT. Even today I could start a new class, and spend the tomes and the gold and have a fully functional character in WvW and in everything but HoT PvE, unless you want your Elite Spec… It’s not like it’s purely a cosmetic thing(Legendaries) but your character is now missing a trait line until you grind out a ridiculous amount of hero points, and there is no explanation why such a steep departure from established norms.

Especially considering the original amount was coincidentally the exact same amount you would have gained through playing through 100% of the pve side of expansion. This massive forced gate is a terrible precedent.

And someone else brought up a fantastic point. New players. Could you imagine being a new player, getting to 80, and only being 1/5 of the way done your character? The magnitude of the grind that a fresh new player now has to face without access to Tomes?

You now have to grind, all the way to 80, THEN you get to start the grind to finish spec’ing your character.

The entire “Elite Spec” implementation is terrible.

In literally every other game on the market that has a “grind”, you’re only 1/5th of the way done with your character once you hit the max level.

Try playing WoW without gears, for example.

You’re basically bashing ANet for implementing somethign that has been in pretty much every MMO since the dawn of time, and which people have often requested. They want grind, they want challenge. They want more to do than just farm gold in CoF P1 all day long with the occasional Tequatl kill.

As strange as it may sound, the kind of gameplay introduced in HoT can not only be relaxing to classic MMO veterans, but also more fuflilling.

The difference is, now that they’ve added elite specializations and masteries, you’re grinding for character development instead of grinding gold for yet another gemstore outfit that you will never equip more than once.

Ima just update this and say I’ve now fully unlocked every specialization in the game mastered at 250/250.

Still waiting to hear a real issue with the system. Even in GW1 you didn’t have all the new skills instantly unlocked. You had to go capture/buy them and grind them out a bit. This is nothing new. Hell this is nothing like the faction grind from GW1 for faction skills.