Guild Wars 2

Yes, it is another anti-grind elite specialization thread. You have been warned, so any misgivings from beyond this point are on your head. Like, on the forehead. Below the hairline. Where everyone can see it. In public, in front of both your girl/boyfriend and your father.

There is something that has been bothering me a bit: I can’t figure out who loses. When looking at how the elite specs were handled, when their required hero point amount was changed from 175 in betas to 400 at launch, I have to think “there’s some reason why they changed this. This is to the benefit of someone who lost out on the previous system”. But… who is this person? Who is the one who is better for having to grind through all the content to get the elite spec? Who is the person that loses when elite specs cost 175 points, and what do they lose?

I’m going to do a pseudo cost-benefit analysis on the impacts of both decisions. I call it pseudo mostly because I’m just using it as a framework for how I structure my logic, as I don’t have the numbers. With all that said, lets begin:

Option A: Having the elite specs cost 400 points.
+People who want the exclusivity of grind will be happy, particularly because other players don’t get to use the e-spec.
-Players who play WvW now have to grind WvW endlessly to get their e-specs in their chosen game mode. This is compounded by alts.
-Players who want to run legacy content and aren’t interested in HoT but still want the elite specs now have to put unimaginable grind in content they don’t want to play.
-Players who wanted to run HoT with the new specs now have to run HoT without the new specs to the point where the entire map becomes repetitious and bland.
-Players who grinded out hero points on legacy content feel ripped off due to getting an incomplete and unusable spec.
-Players looking to buy HoT for the elite specs are discouraged from doing so.
-Players feel pressured into grinding HoT content.
0Players who don’t like or don’t care about e-specs aren’t affected in any way.
0Players who didn’t buy HoT aren’t affect in any way.

Overall, the system is oppressive and restricting to anyone who doesn’t crave rewards gated behind long grinds. HoT maps are now wall which restricts play for a large number of players, and as such every required step is another brick on top. Only a small subset of players are happy.

Option B: Having the elite specs cost 175 points.
+Players who WvW either have to grind half as long, or don’ t have to grind at all if they have the PVE hero points.
+Players who want to run legacy content with e-specs now have the option to do so, exclusively through legacy content.
+Players don’t feel pressured into doing HoT content, and thus can do it at their leisure. This makes it much more fun.
+Players who want to run HoT in their elite specs now get the option to do so.
+Hero points on legacy content are now not completely outmoded
+Players who still want to get Hero Points in HoT can do so.
+HoT maps are no longer a repetitious and bland grind, as they are now played exclusively for players who want to enjoy the new content in them.
+People looking to buy HoT for the elite specs are encouraged to do so.
+More alt friendly.
+Still plenty of grind for masteries.
-Players who deeply desire exclusion via grind will not be as happy.
0Players who already have grinded some for the elite specs will feel a bit ripped off now that their HoT grinding was unnecessary. This is a mixed bag, because many of these players will also be happy that they received 225 free hero points.
0Players who don’t like or don’t care about e-specs aren’t affected in any way.
0Players who didn’t buy HoT aren’t affect in any way.

Overall, nearly every player ends up better off. More convenience, less oppression, more options, more fun, more attractive prospect to buyers. There is only one type of person who will miss out: those who are personally disturbed that someone out there is having fun without grinding specific content for it.

So yes, we gotta make sure that people who want others to grind are satisfied. Everybody else? Forget them! It is all about the grinders who demand other people grind! We know that is a pleasant crowd to appeal to. They just can’t be happy with raids, masteries, and gold. Its gotta be other people that grind. I mean, how is a game supposed to function if you don’t make everyone grind the exact same stuff? The only reason why they have this opinion in the first place is because Anet changed their minds at the last second, but who says we can’t appeal to an incredibly selfish desire that Anet themselves have manufactured?

Seriously though. It should be very clear what the superior option is. It is obvious that the devs wanted the elite specs to cost 400 points, because they wanted it to be another thing that you had to very slowly work for. But why do they want it to be that way? Who loses if that isn’t the case? This isn’t an economic problem, it is an entertainment one. Who gets wronged? Who is at such a loss from a 175 point system that they will refuse to buy HoT or quit HoT? Is there a dev somewhere who’s wife is held hostage, and the ransom is requiring 400 hero points or else she eats a bullet? Is giving everybody what they want in a more open and convenient way a sin? Are elite specs really supposed to be a thing that is divided among the haves and have nots? Is there some hidden economic stat somewhere that says that unless you requiring doing literally everything currently in HoT to get the elite specs, that stocks will go into the toilet?

I’m going to reiterate my suggestion: Make elite specs cost 175-200 points. Make the hero points in HoT worth 5 instead of 10. Because then, nobody loses.

And this is why we have complaint threads on the subject.

The reasons for the gating are arbitrary and at no real benefit except to force more people to play the new maps for longer periods of time.

You’re looking at it the wrong way. To understand their decisions you have to put yourself in their place. If you’re Anet, you’re not analyzing which system is better for the player. You’re analyzing which system is better for you.

And in this case, they realize they haven’t created enough new content. So they need to artificially stretch it out as much as possible in order to give the illusion of more content than there actually is.

DeceiverX.8361:

And this is why we have complaint threads on the subject.

The reasons for the gating are arbitrary and at no real benefit except to force more people to play the new maps for longer periods of time.

Actually you don’t know that the reasons for gating are arbitrary. You only know that reasons have not been offered, which is a completely different thing. You may believe they’re arbitrary but I guarantee you Anet discussed this long and hard. I know this company for a long time and they have reasons for everything they do, even if they don’t share those reasons.

My kids used to think I made arbitrary decisions because they didn’t understand my reasoning, and sometimes, I didn’t explain it. But my reasons are virtually never arbitrary no matter what they thought.

Lord Kuru.3685:

You’re looking at it the wrong way. To understand their decisions you have to put yourself in their place. If you’re Anet, you’re not analyzing which system is better for the player. You’re analyzing which system is better for you.

And in this case, they realize they haven’t created enough new content. So they need to artificially stretch it out as much as possible in order to give the illusion of more content than there actually is.

This sounds correct at first glance, but the more I think about it the more it doesn’t make sense.

#1: What is good for me is a happy customer with a happy reception. Higher praises means more sales and more retention. The give-then-take-away that happened with elite specs does more than just generate rants on the forums.

#2: The gating of elite specializations only adds more “grind” in one way. In order to get the masteries you have to scour over the new HoT maps and do the stories, which also will put you next to all of the hero points that you would need for those elite specializations. Once you’ve obtained the sufficient mastery ranks, then you pretty much have your elite specialization already.

The extra grind comes from having to take alts through the map. Since masteries are account bound, this only adds a relatively small amount of time for each alt. So depending on how alt heavy you are, putting the elite specs behind masteries adds anywhere from “no extra time at all” to “insurmountable amounts of time” (given that some players have upwards of 18+ characters). The alt grind might be moot, though, because you already have access to at least one elite specialization of your choosing, so the absolute gate of when you receive an elite spec adds little to no time.

This is what is so infuriating about this change. It doesn’t make sense. Someone has shown me an awesome new toy, then taken it away just because they felt like it, and have refused to give a sufficient reason as to why. Everybody gets hurt for seemingly no benefit.

1. In order to get the masteries you have to do the story.

I did first 2 parts of story then hit a wall. So you have to do story, grind to do more story and etc etc etc

Vayne.8563:

DeceiverX.8361:

And this is why we have complaint threads on the subject.

The reasons for the gating are arbitrary and at no real benefit except to force more people to play the new maps for longer periods of time.

Actually you don’t know that the reasons for gating are arbitrary. You only know that reasons have not been offered, which is a completely different thing. You may believe they’re arbitrary but I guarantee you Anet discussed this long and hard. I know this company for a long time and they have reasons for everything they do, even if they don’t share those reasons.

My kids used to think I made arbitrary decisions because they didn’t understand my reasoning, and sometimes, I didn’t explain it. But my reasons are virtually never arbitrary no matter what they thought.

Arbitrary, per Merriam-Webster:

: not planned or chosen for a particular reason : not based on reason or evidence

: done without concern for what is fair or right

They did this before with the map completion for trait unlocks, elite skills at level 40, changing/increasing the trait acquisition levels, etc.

And then they proceeded to revert because they recognized their decisions had no legitimate context or evidence for why it would be necessary outside of the belief they needed to make the changes on the basis that they wanted to simplify the game.

On what bases are these conclusions drawn? Why are they releasing content doing exactly the opposite of what they are advertising it/their game as? Why have we seen such dramatic shifting of numbers datamined in previous patches versus now with no testing?

Strictly speaking, I would completely argue their decisions are arbitrary because the only logical basis for implementing the systems this way would be to increase player-time spent in-game, which reasoning can then also be argued as arbitrary due to the massive shift of intentions of the game and their primary audience and subsequent income source not agreeing with this, for it is not a business requirement or shift necessary for the sustenance of the company or well-being of the game and company as a whole.

The latter definition is completely true for what has occurred based on how they marketed and sold the expansion and their intentions of the game as a whole since the manifesto that was released two years before the game was released.

So no, claiming their decisions are not arbitrary is not accurate based on the very definition of arbitrary.

I dont think the elite spec grind can be considered a grind at all. Grinding involves repeating the same task many times and you dont have that here. Also, its expected that the players complete the content thats being thrown at them, which naturally leads to people leveling their elite.

The problem?

Many rush the content skipping parts, and then complain about lack of content. I imagine the new cost of the elites is anet making sure peopleactually play the content before complaining of the lack of it?

I would call the decision arbitrary in the sense that it is wholly their ideal. From what I’ve seen, Anet is driven by ideal and fantasy first and foremost. The actual logistics behind their decisions aren’t well thought out. Chances are, elite specs are the same way: they pictured it in their head as this cheery super-cool thing where really dedicated players show off their cool moves and all the newbs look on in awe. And in this fantasy they missed the reality: inexplicable gates that make players angry, and a refusal to go with alternatives which are clearly superior.

Aenesthesia.1697:

I dont think the elite spec grind can be considered a grind at all. Grinding involves repeating the same task many times and you dont have that here. Also, its expected that the players complete the content thats being thrown at them, which naturally leads to people leveling their elite.

The problem?

Many rush the content skipping parts, and then complain about lack of content. I imagine the new cost of the elites is anet making sure peopleactually play the content before complaining of the lack of it?

This is a problem that is wholly manufactured by Anet. If we didn’t have elite specializations inexplicably behind the gate of “everything”, then people wouldn’t be compelled to rush through content they might like to get to what they actually want to do.

It is, indeed, grind. You need to do events in these areas over and over again, to get experience to use mastery points. You have to do story steps over and over again to get mastery points. You need the experience and mastery points to get more story steps and mastery points. Continue the cycle for awhile, and then you can finally get the elite specialization. That is a lot of things that many players don’t want to be forced in to.

If we get the elite specs early, we do HoT content at our leisure. When it isn’t forced on us, then HoT isn’t grind. It is content. Everybody wins. Or, more importantly, nobody loses. When given the choice, nobody loses.

My personal opinion. I think they had a conflict between a wish that people not unlock at launch and the people who had 200+ hero points already. There were things they could have tried.

One is remove excess hero points and make everyone unlock a lower number from a combination of redoing the vanilla hero challenges and/or the heart of thorn hero challenges. (Bad because people would be very upset about losing their hero points and having to redo hero points in the core game they had already done, some right before the expansion for that very reason.)

Second. Make a new hero point type just for the elite specialization. (Bad, because it’s another currency and bad because, again, it invalidates the work people did getting hero points before the expansion).

I’m not sure how they could resolve the problem of some people having zero and some having over 200 and the wish to not have an automatic unlock. The hero points in the Maguuma are a nice 10 points, but seem overtuned and too difficult for most people. It is going to be a struggle to unlock later chars when the initial rush is over.

But is that a problem, though? Generally a problem is an injustice or a detriment, or a source of trouble of some kind. A wrong to be righted. If a player does map completion + extra to get 200+ hero points (note, current map completion is 189), and this player can unlock their elite specializations immediately… who is wronged? If a player has little to no hero points, and is given the option to either unlock the elite specialization with legacy points or HoT content… how are they wronged if given this choice?

The elite-spec problem is an issue that Anet have invented for themselves. To demonstrate this, lets give a counter-example. The Revenant, the new class, is available immediately. What was to stop Anet from deciding that the Revenant was some kind of end-game reward like E-specs, and make it locked behind a series of story steps and mastery tiers? They could just as easily say “It is a problem that players will play the Revenant without unlocking it first”, even though not a single person is wronged for having Revs for free.

I believe the rationale behind various decisions that went into HoT to be a many-headed beast. I think there’s some:

1. Try to appeal to everyone (including exclusivity players)
2. Internal systems at Anet make designing content and rewards too lengthy a process. Likely, this also means too expensive a process.
3. Too many attempts to kill two birds with one stone. This may be related to both 1 and 2.
4. Unrealistic anticipation of player reactions. Too much, “They’ll think this will be cool.” and not enough, “Who will be negatively impacted and how, and what will their reaction be.” Couple this with a history of poor understanding of player psychology and the result is what we have with reactions to HoT.

As to who stands to lose? ANet must have believed they stood to lose. If you look at the MMO industry, you see that some players tend to burn through new content at a high rate. No matter how extensive expansions have been, players are back too soon demanding more to do. Remember the GW2 launch, and players complaining about having gotten their dungeon set and having nothing to do very soon after launch? I do.

So, I believe that ANet knows the expansion is light on content. I believe they were/are looking for ways to extend the longevity of the content. Also, they either failed to predict player reaction or felt they had no choice.

Not that it’s a huge factor here, but it doesn’t take very long to do a Hero-Point Rush through the HoT maps, and it doesn’t make the maps feel repetitive. If anything, it reveals some new and exciting areas in which the player will want to explore and engage in later. This ends up being almost enough to get all of the e-specs with only level 4 mastery really required to access most of the points.