Guild Wars 2

Swagger.1459:

Colin “Heartbreaker of Thorns” Johanson

Sorry, but that is not really fair to him. He only works there and likely did not make the call that it would be 400. Actually, I consider it a favour that he let us know rather than they kept us in the dark completely.

So basically I have more than one of every class, and don’t want to do WvW. So does this mean I’m going to have to grind through the entire HoT storyline like a dozen times? If so, I’m at a loss as to how to not make that feel like 100% grinding after the first few runs through…

Easy, cap HPs to not much beyond one ES until there’s another.

Personally, I think that the cost and inflation is a bit silly. Are we to be perpetually stuck with 214 spare hero points?

Would have been better, IMO, if they required unlocking the elite spec to be a part of HoT gameplay (outside of WvW and PvP of course), such as a unique non-story instance in the open world or something akin to the second trait unlocking system (doing a particular event to unlock it), but the costs to be even managable as just doing core content – e.g., 100 points, with HoT only providing 50 hero points.

But what’s done is done…

Bitoku Kishi.8346:

So basically I have more than one of every class, and don’t want to do WvW. So does this mean I’m going to have to grind through the entire HoT storyline like a dozen times? If so, I’m at a loss as to how to not make that feel like 100% grinding after the first few runs through…

It would be faster to grind them out in HoT than try to pick up the levels fast enough in WvW. I’m close to pure WvW, and I’m still feeling forced into PvE to get my elites in a reasonable time frame, but it is what it is atm.

Behellagh.1468:

Easy, cap HPs to not much beyond one ES until there’s another.

Missing the point. I’m not going to spend ANY HP on Berserker with my Warrior. I am categorically disinterested in it theme-wise and mechanically. So I’m going to have 600 HP sitting around when the second Espec comes out. If “not having it first day” is such a big deal, are they gonna~

1. Say ‘Screw you and any sense of choice, you have to buy Berserker in full before you can start on the one you actually want.’
2. Say ‘Ha ha, the second one costs 2000 points. But don’t worry the challenges in the new zone are worth 50 HP each. Oh, and you can gets stared for a mere 500. (a.k.a. a direct repeat of todays’s bombshell)
3. Say ‘Fine. You planned. You saved. It’s 400 points and you can buy it now.’

‘Cause I’m not holding my breath for 3 after people planned and saved and built up their HP waiting for Heart of Thorns to release.

Exciton.8942:

I would be even more scared if some of the hero challenges require the highest level of masteries.

e.g. the gliding mastery
Ley Line Gliding Ley Line Gliding: Learn to enter ley-line energy flows while gliding to be moved along with the flow, gaining access to otherwise inaccessible places.

This one would require 16million exp to unlock. To put it into perspective, you need 200k exp to level up for level 80 character. That is equivalent leveling up 800 levels!

If that is the case, I probably won’t fully unlock my elite specs until next year.

Now THIS is one thing that did cross my mind and concern me. If the hero points are in areas inaccessible without high level masteries that is a problem. Now if you just need something like gliding and bouncy shrooms then that is fine because those are relatively easy to get. But if I need ley line gliding mastery….that’s going to hurt. Then I might really be forced to go into old tyria for my HP on my rev. Which is exactly what I don’t want.

I also wish we knew how many points we need to unlock all the traits and skills for the elite spec. I don’t really care about fluff items like skins, those can wait. But I want my traits and skills in a reasonable amount of time.

Menadena.7482:

Swagger.1459:

Colin “Heartbreaker of Thorns” Johanson

Sorry, but that is not really fair to him. He only works there and likely did not make the call that it would be 400. Actually, I consider it a favour that he let us know rather than they kept us in the dark completely.

He is the lead game director/designer. It is well within his control to make this kind of call or make a call to change it. Consequently, if he isn’t aware that this is a problem, or didn’t forsee the reaction of the community be it either disconnection or lack of interaction with those who did make this decision, there’s a huge failure on his end to either get connected with the players or to look over what the hell is going on with arguably the most important, game-changing part of the expansion.

Menadena.7482:

Swagger.1459:

Colin “Heartbreaker of Thorns” Johanson

Sorry, but that is not really fair to him. He only works there and likely did not make the call that it would be 400. Actually, I consider it a favour that he let us know rather than they kept us in the dark completely.

Oh my. You really don’t know who Colin IS, do you?

i agree, the mastery system sucks. they should at least offer something to unlock all that kitten you would need to grind exp for (like srsly, grinding exp in 2015? wtf) for 20 or 30 bucks in the gemshop. like the skill unlocks for pvp back in gw1.
as it is now i’m not gonna get to play any elite spec because i’m not willing to grind exp and whatever skillpoints are called nowadays. i don’t mind doing difficult content, i mind doing tons of easy content to unlock stuff a lot, tho.
gimme fractals lvl 500 or impossible raids anytime. please, torture me with game mechanics. beat me with tactics until i’m bloody. but farming skill points? lol, no, kitten you. i’m not doing that.

So, you will need 400 Hero Points for the Specialisation Trait line that consists of

• Traits
• Armor/Weapon Skins
• 60 Hero points to Start with the minor trait that unlocks the usage of it.

You can gain that by completing Hero-Challenges in Maguuna which worth 10 Hero Points / Challenge. In old Tyria the ratio will remain 1:1. In addition i will be needing to unlock PvE masteries like (Mushroom-Jumping ?) as some people mentioned.

In order to reach 400 Hero Points in WvW you will need about :

• 200 WvW-Ranks
• 6000 Badges.

As a WvW player have to say i am very disappointed. I play about 99% WvW and I have currently a rank of 1920 which my game time is a bit over 4351 Hours to achieve and about 501 Ability points currently unused as i have all the masteries. I have a total of 8 Chars for each core-profession that i enjoy playing depending what is needed.

The question that i have is this :
Since the WvW rank is account bound and the Hero Points are not i will be needing to gain an additional of 1800 Ranks and about 50 K badges to enjoy playing the core classes ? Seriously ?

I hope Anet can tweak the numbers a bit prior release.

Regards

Seed

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Personally, I think that the cost and inflation is a bit silly. Are we to be perpetually stuck with 214 spare hero points?

I agree that the cost/inflation is really the bad part of it. It essentially does the same thing that Anet said they weren’t doing with this expansion, and the problem that most other game expansions do have. It devalues the existing content, which in this case is the hero challenges in the core game areas. It seems kinda pointless to try and unlock your elite spec at the rate of 1 point per challenge, when HoT gives you 10 per challenge and enough of those challenges to fully unlock.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/sigh

(Silver platter) here yah go. The whole game unlocked for you. Enjoy.

Because it would be morally wrong to have new maps and new skills at the same time.

400 points make me feel like we having the 4th trait line, but no.. it just replace the 1 of the 3 trait lines.

this just doesnt make sense

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I have to say I don’t understand the forums.

Previously: Everything is too easy! We have nothing to do! Give us something, anything to do!

Now: OMG! You want us to do stuff??? This is uncalled for! Way too much to do!

Poor Devs.

Yeah, people also say stuff like this on the WoW forums, all the time, but what they seem to be missing is that it’s, normally, different people saying different things.

Obviously, if it really was the same people saying contradictory things, all the time, that would be unfair, but it’s not.

Occasionally, it will be the same people, but normally only if the design direction has done a total U-turn, or has swung from one extreme to another.

That’s not to say it’s always easy for developers to strike a balance, but still.

In the case of WoW, they did a remarkable job of pleasing (almost) no one, in WoD.

Only the super-casual and the super-selfish elitists were left, even vaguely, happy.

…and in the latter case, that “happiness” just added further fuel to their elitist fire and made them even more demanding that other people’s part of the game was removed entirely.

Proving I would have thought, once and for all, that you simply shouldn’t strive to please certain people, at all.

But, I digress…

BobbyT.7192:

Zenith.7301:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Delius.1968:

You’re confusing masteries (progression that I am looking forward to) with class mechanics (that I paid for as part of an expansion).

Unlocking new abilities and new classes has always been a form of progression in video games. It has been the case for this very game, it has been the case for GW1, it has been the case for pretty much every RPG, and I could go on.

It also happens to be a more exciting form of progression than unlocking any skin that you’ll know you’ll never use. Even masteries are, in some way, a way to unlock new abilities. (HoT) Masteries just happen to be map abilities, while elite specs offer more personal character abilities.

I’m personally glad that I can enjoy a paced and gradual sense of character progression with elite specs. I want my characters to feel strong because they worked to be strong.

Again, I understand that this may be annoying for players that have a lot of alts. But that’s pretty much it.

Not a lot of alts. One of each class.

I truly pity the new revenant players who now are looking at 40+ hero challenges on top of some tyria content.

good way to learn a class imo

What, by spamming 1 in braindead dynamic events or open world pve? Please get a grip.

You don’t learn any good habits by leveling.

It’s starting to sound as if they are selling an incomplete product.

You need to do X to get your Elite specs eventually, sorry Guild hall arenas will take X time to get, Raids won’t be released until X date.

So wtf exactly is it we paid for ? The ability to eventually play content ?

Heres a jungle, we got that completed … mostly, but you will need to get all your masteries done so you can eventually explore it all.

This is just plain silly.

I’m not saying everything should be handed to us right off the bat and no work should be put in what so ever but it’s becoming very apparent that they bit off more then they can chew with the number of time gates put on literally every aspect of the expansion.

Seera.5916:

Halvorn.9831:

Tasao.4623:

Core gameplay should NOT be gated behind a grind.

What are you even talking about? In the core game, don’t you have to level to 80 in order to go to cursed shores? So cursed shores is gated behind a grind as well, isn’kitten

Nope, you can take a low level into Cursed Shore. The boundary doesn’t require you to be level 80.

Plus if the response is ‘because they are gated by dying’: a low-level can just log in every day and collect the tomes. Then when they have enough zap to 80 …. no gate at all other than logging in.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

gavyne.6847:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/sigh

(Silver platter) here yah go. The whole game unlocked for you. Enjoy.

Would you call having access to a lvl 80 character “the whole game unlocked”? No? Then I wouldn’t consider gaining access to the elite specs that we paid for “the whole game unlocked” either.

The actual game is playing for masteries, raiding, dungeon running, WvWing, PvPing, farming for mats, and map exploration which was always an optional thing not a requirement.

I would rather have access to the elite specs that I paid for, so I can go ahead and enjoy the rest of the game at my own pace, on my own time, when I want to. You know, the Guild Wars way. To the OP, yes today’s news is a buzzkill to many. People who enjoy PvE and map exploration of course are ok with the news. But for the rest of us that prefer other parts of this fine game, it was a buzzkill. It soured my mood 3 days before expansion launch…and here I was hyping and getting excited about it before we were slapped with this info.

Which by the way, the same info players have been asking clarification for weeks and months ago. People already had expectations that they could play their elite specs on day 1. And bang, 3 days before launch we’re slapped with this awful news. Buzzkill indeed. My hype & excitement now is filled with dread. Because frankly, running around unlocking hero points is not what I consider fun. Nor is it having to do it 11 times for my 11 characters.

You get the all core traits unlocked by dinging 80. You get the ELITE traits unlocked by playing the game. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have to play the game to unlock elite traits on all my level 80s.

People who enjoy PvE and map exploration of course are ok with the news. But for the rest of us that prefer other parts of this fine game, it was a buzzkill

It’s unlocked in PvP automatically for HoT owners. You can unlock in WvW just by playing in WvW. So this part of your complaint is not valid.

Why do PvP players get it unlocked for free and WvW players don’t? You cannot give any sort of logical rational argument as to why that is the case. Why don’t PvP’ers have to play X amount of pvp before it’s unlocked for them. It’s what the WvW player has to do. You completely gloss over the fact that PvP are given instant and complete access to the entire content for their favored mode yet WvW and PvE are not. Yet when the WvW community makes comments about the situation you come here with asinine comments about “silver platter”. It’s the pvp community that is given the entire content on a silver platter, why can’t the WvW have the same opportunity to have the content unlocked immediately for their game mode.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I have to say I don’t understand the forums.

Previously: Everything is too easy! We have nothing to do! Give us something, anything to do!

Now: OMG! You want us to do stuff??? This is uncalled for! Way too much to do!

Poor Devs.

There’s this interesting phenomenon where people of differing opinions tend to speak up in the same places and be heard by the same audience.

Nike.2631:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/sigh

(Silver platter) here yah go. The whole game unlocked for you. Enjoy.

Because it would be morally wrong to have new maps and new skills at the same time.

Hmmm. I could have sworn that when the game first started I had to unlock the weapon skills then the utility skills then the traits by playing to level 80 and getting skill points, for each and every single char I made.

Could be wrong of course, but that’s what I remember.

lol it’s like no one reads at all, it’s 40 hero points on the new maps you don’t need to do core tyrian hero points at all which takes far longer.

You will need to donate a major organ first, then you will receive the discounter HP price of 500.

Random.4691:

It’s starting to sound as if they are selling an incomplete product.

You need to do X to get your Elite specs eventually, sorry Guild hall arenas will take X time to get, Raids won’t be released until X date.

So wtf exactly is it we paid for ? The ability to eventually play content ?

This is exactly right. One of the big things that nobody brings up about expansion packs is that after release, all new content requires the expansion pack. Even content that isn’t explicitely listed as part of the expansion pack. You have to pay if you want to play all the new stuff.

Most of us get it.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Random.4691:

It’s starting to sound as if they are selling an incomplete product.

You need to do X to get your Elite specs eventually, sorry Guild hall arenas will take X time to get, Raids won’t be released until X date.

So wtf exactly is it we paid for ? The ability to eventually play content ?

This is exactly right. One of the big things that nobody brings up about expansion packs is that after release, all new content requires the expansion pack. Even content that isn’t explicitely listed as part of the expansion pack. You have to pay if you want to play all the new stuff.

Did you really expect any less?

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Nike.2631:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/sigh

(Silver platter) here yah go. The whole game unlocked for you. Enjoy.

Because it would be morally wrong to have new maps and new skills at the same time.

Hmmm. I could have sworn that when the game first started I had to unlock the weapon skills then the utility skills then the traits by playing to level 80 and getting skill points, for each and every single char I made.

Could be wrong of course, but that’s what I remember.

Just you. When I played the game at the start, players finished weapon skills by level 3 of a particular set if starting fresh via mob kills, and also received all traits by level 60, there were no level requirements by tier, and all of these were based solely on level instead of any kind of content-gating.

I.E., you had the last 20 levels to enjoy a full build and start working on gear for endgame rather than reaching 80 and just learning about the game or not getting to enjoy the content you’ve just completed to create a build to complete better.

if you cant do 40 hero points on day 1 idk what to say, most are " eat this" or " duel this noob"

Six months or a year from now, they’re going to lower the cost in hero points to buy all the HoT elite stuff.

Zypher.7609:

All I am reading is a few people upset about the change that keep posting every few post trying to say how bad this will be.

Maybe you took this comment back as I am trying to catch up right now. More than ‘a few’ people have a problem!

The one to Rule.2593:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Random.4691:

It’s starting to sound as if they are selling an incomplete product.

You need to do X to get your Elite specs eventually, sorry Guild hall arenas will take X time to get, Raids won’t be released until X date.

So wtf exactly is it we paid for ? The ability to eventually play content ?

This is exactly right. One of the big things that nobody brings up about expansion packs is that after release, all new content requires the expansion pack. Even content that isn’t explicitely listed as part of the expansion pack. You have to pay if you want to play all the new stuff.

Did you really expect any less?

Nope. Not my first rodeo. I bought the x-pac as soon as it was announced because of this kind of nonsense.

The one to Rule.2593:

lol it’s like no one reads at all, it’s 40 hero points on the new maps you don’t need to do core tyrian hero points at all which takes far longer.

Well I had more typed, but I broke the rule to copy everything before I click reply x.x

We do not know that the jungle hero points are easier. We do not know what masteries might be required to access them. If it’s maxed masteries… then you are not going to be able to convince me that they will be easier than getting Central Tyrian hero points.

This keeps getting said that they will be easy to get, and we do not know that at all. they could very well be difficult, and if gated behind the masteries, especially higher than the first tier.. Well, we just don’t know yet. Even if they are easy to get, it’s still requiring those that want the elite specs, to rush the content to get the hero points.

Ok guys, for those who are in panic mode and being tunnel-visioned right now, think about it:

“Do you really think they (Anet) want players to play a half-kitten Elite Spec across the entire 4 new maps just to unlock the traitlines and utility skills?”

I don’t think so. It would be a kitten experience to run a half-baked komali build where you are missing traits and utility skills for the new Elite Spec.

So, don’t panic and ATLEAST WAIT for launch. This overreaction is funny to me because I see so many people QQing about “oh I have 5000 characters, how am I going to unlock Elite Specs? I was excited blaah blah blah and now it’s such a hassle! So many unlocks to do for each character and grindy. GW2 is not grindy… Anet cheat my feelings.. I was excited for HoT but this made me think twice about playing”.

SERIOUSLY? Do yourself a favour and stop being so overly dramatic.

Boy, you gotta realise no one forced you to have 5000 characters and assume an easy peasy life. Anything more than 1 character means extra work, extra effort.

/popcorn

The one to Rule.2593:

if you cant do 40 hero points on day 1 idk what to say, most are " eat this" or " duel this noob"

We dont know anything about them yet though. What if they become harder to obtain this time around? What if they require masteries that take a while to earn first? And more importantly, why even require this for your core gameplay at all, when masteries have been advertised as the new form of progression this whole time?

The people complaining about this are literally complaining that character progression systems scale linearly relative to the number of characters you want to progress.

Next you’ll be asking for waypoints to be account unlocks.

Players want to play, not “work” and do menial tasks..,

Random.4691:

It’s starting to sound as if they are selling an incomplete product.

You need to do X to get your Elite specs eventually, sorry Guild hall arenas will take X time to get, Raids won’t be released until X date.

So wtf exactly is it we paid for ? The ability to eventually play content ?

Heres a jungle, we got that completed … mostly, but you will need to get all your masteries done so you can eventually explore it all.

This is just plain silly.

I’m not saying everything should be handed to us right off the bat and no work should be put in what so ever but it’s becoming very apparent that they bit off more then they can chew with the number of time gates put on literally every aspect of the expansion.

This post made me laugh more than it shouldn’t.

When you bought the original game, did it come out with a fully leveled 80, full map exploration, full legendaries, full gold, full items? You paid to be able to do those things, and also paid for all the future incoming content, since the base game is not getting any new content.

So yes, you are saying everything should be handed to you right off the bat.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

The one to Rule.2593:

lol it’s like no one reads at all, it’s 40 hero points on the new maps you don’t need to do core tyrian hero points at all which takes far longer.

Well I had more typed, but I broke the rule to copy everything before I click reply x.x

We do not know that the jungle hero points are easier. We do not know what masteries might be required to access them. If it’s maxed masteries… then you are not going to be able to convince me that they will be easier than getting Central Tyrian hero points.

This keeps getting said that they will be easy to get, and we do not know that at all. they could very well be difficult, and if gated behind the masteries, especially higher than the first tier.. Well, we just don’t know yet. Even if they are easy to get, it’s still requiring those that want the elite specs, to rush the content to get the hero points.

That’s true and im sure some will be gated to a small extent, but to say that you’ll need max mastery points is a bit ridiculous and an over reaction. You may need a few gliding points or mario jumping points but I sincerely doubt it’s going to be very difficult

BrotherBelial.3094:

The same could be said for the core game, you payed $50 to do the same dungeons for 3 years. To do the same world completion.

That would only be able to be said if I had been grinding world completion and dungeons for those 3 years.

All of my characters have been levelled up through a variety of means and some have skipped levelling entirely due to all of those means becoming exhausted. This will not be possible for unlocking elite specs and and this will certainly not be new content any more by the time I get to my 14th character.

Probably the exact same number considering the first elite spec is technically an upgrade to the base class (swapping a base line for an elite line) in terms of progression (though possibly not in terms of power) but further elite specs are pure sidegrades (swapping out one elite spec for another)

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Personally, I think that the cost and inflation is a bit silly. Are we to be perpetually stuck with 214 spare hero points?

Would have been better, IMO, if they required unlocking the elite spec to be a part of HoT gameplay (outside of WvW and PvP of course), such as a unique non-story instance in the open world or something akin to the second trait unlocking system (doing a particular event to unlock it), but the costs to be even managable as just doing core content – e.g., 100 points, with HoT only providing 50 hero points.

But what’s done is done…

Then you would get an even bigger kittenstorm because people don’t want to get hero points in the core game, it’s better that way if core game points are not required.

shameful move by anet

Setting grinding gate to core game content is just plain bad design.
First mastery system, I can live with that. Then this….sorry can’t take the compromise again.

You already use mastery system to set a exp grinding gate for map exploration. Then you use this map exploration as a gate for just playing elite specs? How many gates do you want to set for players just to enjoy the core content.

There are some valid complaints in this thread and I do agree that 400 points is a ridiculous amount. But people on the other side fail to see the point of people’s arguments, no matter how well they are articulated. It’s ridiculous really. I don’t think these people realize, they’re part of the problem, why some things never change.

I’ve seen a lot of posts over the years whining about people complaining and yet the irony is, without complaints, things would never change. Complaints, valid complaints, with valid criticism, is what makes change.

Seriously, so far from the other side of the isle, all I hear is:

Exciton.8942:

Setting grinding gate to core game content is just plain bad design.
First mastery system, I can live with that. Then this….sorry can’t take the compromise again.

You already use mastery system to set a exp grinding gate for map exploration. Then you use this map exploration as a gate for just playing elite specs? How many gates do you want to set for players just to enjoy the core content.

Shhhh
or we might get a gate for our gated gate, because they heard we like gates….

I need smacked just for typing that x.x

This is so kittening lame. 400 points to replace the third trait? I will be more than happy to grind for 400 points if its a 4th trait.

Vague Memory.2817:

I haven’t heard one good reason why we were only told 3 days before launch. This indicates that they knew it wouldn’t go down well and were happy to let people believe they would have access to elite spec on launch. Maybe they thought it would affect HoT sales, who knows. They could have mentioned this at any time before now but choose not to. I call skulduggery and shenanigans of the highest order.

I am also perplexed how this was handled. It is not on their list of news articles. I assume it is not in another thread (it feels like I have been in this one for hours …. oops, I have). It comes out as a dev post 6 pages into a thread asking for the information.

This is comparable to a bunch of adorable kittens in a box… only they are $5 each, they have Rabies, and you live in a pet-free apartment complex with a family member that is allergic to cats.

gg ANET. gg

(Also see: the rest of my week is about getting all the hero points on all the characters I have.)

PopeUrban.2578:

The people complaining about this are literally complaining that character progression systems scale linearly relative to the number of characters you want to progress.

Next you’ll be asking for waypoints to be account unlocks.

Even with your assumption that everyone is only worried about having to grind alts aside (Protip: That’s not the only reason people are unhappy about this), many people have already progressed their characters. Not everyone enjoys being told that the work that they did amounts to nothing.

People who want more “progression” can feel free to make a new character and start over. The rest of us would just like to be able to complete the new content with the elite spec of our choice fully fleshed out from the start. I’m not very satisfied with the thought of finally fully unlocking the Herald, only to realize that after rushing through the content and not having any fun that there’s none of it left to complete with my fancy new e-spec.

I am really disappointed that they made such a lame announcement 3 days before the launch. Way to go Anet!!

/facepalm