Guild Wars 2

Do we have any idea how many points we are talking about for new specializations?

Probably find out for sure in a couple of days. If not then, at most in a few short weeks.

Good luck.

should be more or less the same as previous one…. 250

In the demo we still had 10 hero points per hero challenge and as seen from the backlash that HoT got it’s pretty safe to say it won’t be above 250.
Characters who thoroughly played HoT should have around 350 points left, so they should be able to instantly max the new elite out.

azizul.8469:

should be more or less the same as previous one…. 250

So they can unlock the entire spec without touching PoF zones? That’s unlikely to happen.

maddoctor.2738:

azizul.8469:

should be more or less the same as previous one…. 250

So they can unlock the entire spec without touching PoF zones? That’s unlikely to happen.

I think it’s quite likely to happen, largely because it’s consistent game design. Think about it this way: would it make sense, looking 2-3 expansions down the line, to have the elite specs cost 250, 350, 250, 250, etc? No. However, if you look at the PoF demo map, it had 5 HPs, compared to 11 in most HoT ones (7 in DS). My guess is that they’re going to reduce the amount of HPs in PoF to exhaust existing supplies, then get onto a regular rhythm.

DeShadowWolf.6854:

maddoctor.2738:

azizul.8469:

should be more or less the same as previous one…. 250

So they can unlock the entire spec without touching PoF zones? That’s unlikely to happen.

I think it’s quite likely to happen, largely because it’s consistent game design. Think about it this way: would it make sense, looking 2-3 expansions down the line, to have the elite specs cost 250, 350, 250, 250, etc? No. However, if you look at the PoF demo map, it had 5 HPs, compared to 11 in most HoT ones (7 in DS). My guess is that they’re going to reduce the amount of HPs in PoF to exhaust existing supplies, then get onto a regular rhythm.

The demo map was not the entire map so there is an unknown amount left to find.

I think we may have to go through the NPCs that represent each elite and probably do a side quest before we can spend the points we have.

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Think about it this way: would it make sense, looking 2-3 expansions down the line, to have the elite specs cost 250, 350, 250, 250, etc?

It would be 250 for HoT, then 500 for all future expansions. HoT’s hero challenges were worth 10 points each solely because they didn’t want you unlocking the spec right at the start. It was balanced so that 100% completion was roughly 50% of the elite. If they want to try that again, they’ll simply double it, making it 20 points per challenge for a total of 500 for the elite.

Yargesh.4965:

DeShadowWolf.6854:

maddoctor.2738:

azizul.8469:

should be more or less the same as previous one…. 250

So they can unlock the entire spec without touching PoF zones? That’s unlikely to happen.

I think it’s quite likely to happen, largely because it’s consistent game design. Think about it this way: would it make sense, looking 2-3 expansions down the line, to have the elite specs cost 250, 350, 250, 250, etc? No. However, if you look at the PoF demo map, it had 5 HPs, compared to 11 in most HoT ones (7 in DS). My guess is that they’re going to reduce the amount of HPs in PoF to exhaust existing supplies, then get onto a regular rhythm.

The demo map was not the entire map so there is an unknown amount left to find.

I think we may have to go through the NPCs that represent each elite and probably do a side quest before we can spend the points we have.

The loading screen showed 5 Hero Challenges for the Crystal Oasis map. The available Hero Challenges awarded 10 Hero Points each. Unless the ‘quests’ were disabled, the Elite Specialization NPCs only offered lore. It’s possible there will be ‘quests’ attached to them, but there didn’t seem to be any ‘blank spaces’ in their dialogue options.

remember, HoT elite specs was initially 400 hero points. they toned it down to 250 after people complained they didn’t have enough points and the maps was too hard. could be 350 this time. or perhaps 300.

Guys, don’t forget that ANet’s plan going forward seems to be design and market expansions independent of one another (at least concerning profession gameplay), which means about equal number of Hero Challenges rewarding about the same amount of HPs is consistent design across each expansion – for a player coming from the core game without HoT, they’ll have to get their share of the PoF HPs to unlock the PoF elite.

Of course, players who have multiple expansions and do all HPs will have a surplus which could be looked at as a bonus for doing more… or ANet could make it so that for each expansion’s elite you’d need a minimum amount of HPs from that expansion…

Yargesh.4965:

DeShadowWolf.6854:

maddoctor.2738:

azizul.8469:

should be more or less the same as previous one…. 250

So they can unlock the entire spec without touching PoF zones? That’s unlikely to happen.

I think it’s quite likely to happen, largely because it’s consistent game design. Think about it this way: would it make sense, looking 2-3 expansions down the line, to have the elite specs cost 250, 350, 250, 250, etc? No. However, if you look at the PoF demo map, it had 5 HPs, compared to 11 in most HoT ones (7 in DS). My guess is that they’re going to reduce the amount of HPs in PoF to exhaust existing supplies, then get onto a regular rhythm.

The demo map was not the entire map so there is an unknown amount left to find.

I think we may have to go through the NPCs that represent each elite and probably do a side quest before we can spend the points we have.

Iirc, not all 5 were within the demo, and certainly not all the PoIs/Vistas/WPs were accessible, so I assume the number is for the entire map.

Healix.5819:

DeShadowWolf.6854:

Think about it this way: would it make sense, looking 2-3 expansions down the line, to have the elite specs cost 250, 350, 250, 250, etc?

It would be 250 for HoT, then 500 for all future expansions. HoT’s hero challenges were worth 10 points each solely because they didn’t want you unlocking the spec right at the start. It was balanced so that 100% completion was roughly 50% of the elite. If they want to try that again, they’ll simply double it, making it 20 points per challenge for a total of 500 for the elite.

1. It’s 10 points per HP in PoF, at least from the demo (can’t imagine they’d change that).
2. The thing is, HoT and PoF are separate products. So while some of us vets have 250+ stockpiled from HoT + core, a new player who doesn’t have HoT won’t. Each expansion needs to be balanced around this fact, so that those people are also able to get their elite specs.
3. If they make it 500 and 20 per challenge, how will we not end up in the exact same situation next expansion?
4. Consistency is a very important design principle. Sure, for those of us who don’t even thing about the gen 1 elite spec unlocks, this would be fine. But someone looking at this a few years down will be utterly confused. Why does Daredevil cost 250 HP but, say, Deadeye and Assassin cost 500?

I’m honestly expecting it to be higher. If you have a character that’s finished central tyria mapping and gotten all of the hero points in HoT you will have at least 363 (not sure if I’ve gotten any wvw hps on the toon I checked) excess hero points. They don’t need to make it some horrendous challenge just to get the elites but I think since we’re going into the second expansion they might wanna make it a little bit harder

Well, supposedly there is a live stream about the elites in 50 minutes. If they take any questions in Twitch chat, this seems like a good one to ask. Their usual Twitch channel is https://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2

DeShadowWolf.6854:

maddoctor.2738:

azizul.8469:

should be more or less the same as previous one…. 250

So they can unlock the entire spec without touching PoF zones? That’s unlikely to happen.

I think it’s quite likely to happen, largely because it’s consistent game design. Think about it this way: would it make sense, looking 2-3 expansions down the line, to have the elite specs cost 250, 350, 250, 250, etc? No. However, if you look at the PoF demo map, it had 5 HPs, compared to 11 in most HoT ones (7 in DS). My guess is that they’re going to reduce the amount of HPs in PoF to exhaust existing supplies, then get onto a regular rhythm.

I have a separate thread going right now on this very topic and I’m hoping this will happen. A hero point is a hero point …. so If new elites require them, as they should to level or max them out then yes those of us with excess from doing HOT should be able to max out a new elite immediately.

~fingers crossed~

I’m hoping the number of hero points required to fully train the new elite specs will not be higher than 250. (In fact I’d prefer to see it lower.) Reason being I want to enjoy as much of the new content as possible with my new specs. I don’t want to consume most of the content by the time I get the specs unlocked.

Yeah am hoping it isn’t out there but I wouldn’t mind going through a little story to unlock the new elites. Any dev wanna chime in let us know what to expect?

I hope they make the right decision and stick to 250.

There is absolutely nothing wrong for some characters to have enough skill points for the entire elite spec line.

Many players including me enjoy playing with the new spec but not the process of unlocking it. And that is also why we love GW2 which doesn’t gate content behind grinding. You only need to grind the content if you want.

Sarge shot Grif.6450:

I’m honestly expecting it to be higher. If you have a character that’s finished central tyria mapping and gotten all of the hero points in HoT you will have at least 363 (not sure if I’ve gotten any wvw hps on the toon I checked) excess hero points. They don’t need to make it some horrendous challenge just to get the elites but I think since we’re going into the second expansion they might wanna make it a little bit harder

Since they aren’t bundling HoT with the purchase of PoF, they can’t assume everyone will have HoT for the decision on number of hero points to be needed.

And they can’t do it via the Heroics from WvW because those choose a Hero Challenge to be marked as completed.

They can’t exceed the number of points available with the total in Core Tyria + PoF maps, less the points required to max out the core traits and core skills. Unless they remove that requirement for PoF elite specs.

DeShadowWolf.6854:

3. If they make it 500 and 20 per challenge, how will we not end up in the exact same situation next expansion?

PoF would have 25 challenges at 20 points each for the 500 total. There wouldn’t be anything adding to the excess, so this would no longer be a problem moving forwards. This is what HoT tried to do originally by having 40 of them at 10 points each, but they made the mistake of making them group events and having too many of them.

They’ll probably just leave it as is at 10 per for 250 total. Although 500 is still only 25 challenges, the same as HoT, people will see the higher total and scream grind. The vast majority of players aren’t going to have the points to immediately unlock their elite anyways and the smaller total would lead to a better experience. The average player is only going to have around 40-100 points by level 80 and less than 10 after HoT. For the few that are able to unlock it immediately, ArenaNet can simply further gate the elite behind the story.

For a simple catch-all solution, they would just make hero points specific to the expansion. They could also do something completely different, such as offering 5 quests/challenges for the 5 utilities, like back in GW1.

I would assume it will cost as much as those in the HoT expansion. A lot of people are banking on unlocking the elite specialisation straight away and playing it from the start of the expansion.

They created the expectation that you will be able to do that when they launched HoT. If it’s going to cost more then they should have said something by now.