Guild Wars 2

MrH.2591:

Behellagh.1468:

Ice.5162:

Bad decision, just bad. Sad when a company has to listen to a handful of whiners on forums.

The rest of the hero points won’t feel half as accomplished or important, if only for the map completion.

We live in an age of social media where a few upset people can spread falsehoods that can’t amplified by liked minds and soon those who don’t know better join in.

The result is in a few weeks the conversation will change to “HoT isn’t worth the cost because I unlocked everything to quickly”.

" A few ", that’s cute. Casual players are the majority in most MMOs, especially GW2 so you can bet your hide more people are for this change than against.

Nope – people like that like to think of qualified minorities (them) and unqualified majorities (the other 99,9%) and therefore only their point of view is valid and the rest can cough up the money and then go to a very warm place …

Very dissapointing, I was enjoying working towards something again. One less thing to do = less time playing I guess. And I am a casual player

Yeah , I agree with this, care bears start to whine and Anet run to make everything easy, Thank , I actually was having a great time working hard to get my elite, you killed any sense of reward.

Define casual. I’m “casual” and 400 didn’t bother me. Probably because I play PvE and map complete every character so I needed only 190 to unlock the Elite fully. Hard core WvW and PvPers who can’t be bothered to play the core PvE game as well as Alt speed levelers, they are the ones who are screaming bloody murder. OMG they have to go and rub shoulders with PvEers and do … content.

Eeewww! Wash it off, wash it off.

Behellagh.1468:

Define casual. I’m “casual” and 400 didn’t bother me. Probably because I play PvE and map complete every character so I needed only 190 to unlock the Elite fully. Hard core WvW and PvPers who can’t be bothered to play the core PvE game as well as Alt speed levelers, they are the ones who are screaming bloody murder. OMG they have to go and rub shoulders with PvEers and do … content.

Eeewww! Wash it off, wash it off.

So are you a hardcore casual PvE player?

SongOfDestruction.2984:

Bear in mind that there are only 400 hero points available in all of maguuma. If they left it at 400, a new character would literally have to map comp all of maguuma (the hero points at least) in order to unlock their elite spec.
You don’t think thats just a BIT excessive?

40 hero points technically, not 400. That’s not a lot and in a week there would have been detailed guides and an entire community dedicated towards getting them. This was an unneeded nerf and is turning the game into less of a game. I don’t want to play farming simulator, now I have less time to play explorer and more time to be farmer…

Behellagh.1468:

Lythoc.6307:

Behellagh.1468:

250 means one HoT HP Challenge on top of full HP complete from core Tyria. For those of us who have done that in core Tyria, I like it. For those who instalevel a new character, it would now take 7 HoT HP Challenges Vs 10 if they don’t go back to core Tyria.

It’s … fairish. This was becoming a thorn, so to speak, in the side of the expansion launch. But for the love of the six Gods don’t back off the Mastery system.

Actually, you have to spend all those hero points in everything else, BEFORE you even have the chance to unlock the elite spec and start training it. So, no, it doesn’t take 7 hp challenges.

No. You get enough HP from leveling to unlock everything on your character including the original 5 specializations. So you start with 0 going into HoT if you haven’t done any HP Challenges in core Tyria. HPCs in Hot are 40 points each so 250 divided by 10 is 25.

Edit: Fixed HoT HPC reward. Some reason I thought it was 40 (I know 400 divided by 10 is 40).

There are 213 hero challenges available in Central Tyria to everyone without any chance of having to find someone with a krait obelisk shard in their home instance.

That’s more than 1 hero challenge in Heart of Maguuma to fully unlock the elite spec.

At least 3 challenges.

Which means as long as there are 3 challenges that are both soloable and don’t require high level masteries, then this is probably the best compromise for all.

Those that prefer the challenge can get them all in the Heart of Maguuma areas and not have to worry about Central Tyria hero points or worry about one being bugged out. This change gives you enough buffer that as long as no more than 15 are buggy, then given the right skill and number of players, you should be able to avoid Central Tyria hero points all together.

Aguri.2896:

SongOfDestruction.2984:

Bear in mind that there are only 400 hero points available in all of maguuma. If they left it at 400, a new character would literally have to map comp all of maguuma (the hero points at least) in order to unlock their elite spec.
You don’t think thats just a BIT excessive?

40 hero points technically, not 400. That’s not a lot and in a week there would have been detailed guides and an entire community dedicated towards getting them. This was an unneeded nerf and is turning the game into less of a game. I don’t want to play farming simulator, now I have less time to play explorer and more time to be farmer…

No, SongofDestruction is right. 400 hero points originally. 40 hero challenges is what you thought they were referring to.

I don’t see how reducing the number of hero points needed to fully unlock the elite spec reduces the time you have available to play explorer.

Behellagh.1468:

Define casual. I’m “casual” and 400 didn’t bother me. Probably because I play PvE and map complete every character so I needed only 190 to unlock the Elite fully. Hard core WvW and PvPers who can’t be bothered to play the core PvE game as well as Alt speed levelers, they are the ones who are screaming bloody murder. OMG they have to go and rub shoulders with PvEers and do … content.

Eeewww! Wash it off, wash it off.

You are not casual. Someone who map completes every character is by definition not casual.

Aguri.2896:

SongOfDestruction.2984:

Bear in mind that there are only 400 hero points available in all of maguuma. If they left it at 400, a new character would literally have to map comp all of maguuma (the hero points at least) in order to unlock their elite spec.
You don’t think thats just a BIT excessive?

40 hero points technically, not 400. That’s not a lot and in a week there would have been detailed guides and an entire community dedicated towards getting them. This was an unneeded nerf and is turning the game into less of a game. I don’t want to play farming simulator, now I have less time to play explorer and more time to be farmer…

Wait what?

Because you need to farm less hero points… you need to farm more? You do realise that you can just set your own goals and explore for the sake of exploring, rather than because you’re forced to.

You know when a release is going on, and the days coming afterwards. The most people is enjoying the game. Do you know who spends most time on the forums? The one who’s not pleased. I believe waay more felt the original design of elit specs was good already.

And now arenanet took away the pride of their achievment.

Behellagh.1468:

Ice.5162:

Bad decision, just bad. Sad when a company has to listen to a handful of whiners on forums.

The rest of the hero points won’t feel half as accomplished or important, if only for the map completion.

We live in an age of social media where a few upset people can spread falsehoods that can’t amplified by liked minds and soon those who don’t know better join in.

The result is in a few weeks the conversation will change to “HoT isn’t worth the cost because I unlocked everything to quickly”.

Really? Because you still have the entire set of masteries, fractals 51-100, eventually raids, achievements, the new legendaries (including a backpack that requires a high ranking in PvP thus, unless there’s huge amount of rank turnover, literally prevents everyone from unlocking it quickly due to ranks involving one team losing points when another team gains them.) everything in the guild hall, etc to work towards.

TexY.2350:

You know when a release is going on, and the days coming afterwards. The most people is enjoying the game. Do you know who spends most time on the forums? The one who’s not pleased. I believe waay more felt the original design of elit specs was good already.

And now arenanet took away the pride of their achievment.

Playing 10 hours a day isn’t anything to be proud of though, and ANet can’t balance systems around people with that much free time as most people don’t. Grinding easy content isn’t an achievement, killing a raid boss world first, one takes unemployment and one takes skill and practise.

TexY.2350:

And now arenanet took away the pride of their achievment.

“I have logged into the game more than some other people over the last few days,” isn’t really much of an achievement is it ?

Considering you have to unlock all previous specs before touching your Elite, 250 is a godsend, granted still annoyed we have to unlock all the specs to touch the elite.

It’s always amazing to me that some people value things only when they have them and others don’t, so that they can brag and feel all smug and elite. If you want hard content, it’s coming. You’ll get your elite bragging rights from raids, lv. 100 fractals, legendary crafting, etc. Don’t worry, everyone will still be able to see how superior you are.

I am very happy with this change because I have 19 characters, and 400 HP on each was really taking the wind out of my sails, especially because I am a WvW player primarily.

I scarcely care now. Honestly there were valid points on the HP issue. And given that any HoT Legendary hunter will still need to get each one of them to do a HoT Legendary, we can now put that past us.

With the requirement for Elite Specializations drastically reduced, there should be no real complaints about spending time in the jungle leveling masteries right? Least we got some long term goals set now.

First this from a thread I read before this:

El Psy Congroo.7965

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.

And then from this thread:

El Psy Congroo.7965

Totally agree with OP, there’s just no reason for me to play the new maps.

This puts the lie to the arguments against having elite specs unlocked at the beginning of the expansion. To all the 10 of 10 reviews on metacritic praising the sound, the graphics, the layout of the new areas on offer etc.

In effect what you, and many other folks arguing against the shift from 400 to 250 are saying is that you aren’t so different from the casuals.

The tacit truth in your statements -the truth you won’t voice(not wittingly) due to your contrarian stances- is that you hate the new jungle layout and the mastery gating as much as the players who’ve said as much til now.

And further implied -that given the choice- if given the elite spec from the beginning you wouldn’t set foot in the jungle and would instead go back to ‘playing the way you want to.’

So let’s recap- there isn’t truly that much content on offer in HoT. What is is rife with gating and grinding to get past those gates in an effort to extend said contents. If you didn’t have to play through them to get what you want(read: elite specs) you wouldn’t bother. Right.

Thanks again for that bit of truth.

You robbed me of the progression feeling ANET…
Now after 1 zone i have the spec maxed and nothing to look forward too.
Whining solves everything. That is dissapointing

I think its great they reduced the cost to unlock the Elite Specializations, you should just be happy for everyone else who didn’t have the time to unlock theirs yet.

Also, the new zone is awesome visually and very interactive, its an adventure. Sadly I have to catch up on my Fractals, explore WvW. start making Twilight and do Holloween at the same time. Otherwise, I’d have more time to appreciate the beauty of it all.

Also, I’m one of those people who worked hard exploring the new area for the past 4-5 days to get my elite specialization unlocked (Even if my elite specialization being Berserker.. but a Warrior’s gotta do what a warrior’s gotta do. ~____~).

Lol I knew this would happen. People will complaint regardless of what Anet do. There is no win for them. Can’t please everybody.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Who is “crying” today? Karma. Not just a game currency.

Just a thought from an elite spec whiner… The other side of the debate seems to know a thing or two about whining as well. I am sorry that your self-deluded dream of being a special snowflake was ruined by this reduction of hero points, but you still have raids, adventure leaderboards, and pvp tournaments to consider yourselves elite. For a cooperative mmo there sure are a lot of people who want to turn everything into a competition.

dude I ran all the hero points in new world 9 times this weekend. I have all my elites unlocked and now.. yea

but it is what it is, im happy people are having fun

Dear OP,

Please keep in mind some of us cannot play 9 characters like this.

WvW players cannot fully unlock multiple alts’ traits/skills (9 classes) very easily without going to PvE. Unless they make it so that all your elite specs are unlocked and the PvE unlocking of elite spec gives the items or whatever , then I don’t see how a reduction of HP is bad.

Someone in another thread stated that they have 20+ alts or something like that, many of them with less than 100 hero points.

Elite specializations are a game mechanic , your PvE masteries can be grindy as you want.

I’m okay with the hero point change but i was pretty close to unlocking glint anyway. So now i have a hundred-and-a-few hero points left over.

Are we gonna be given a use for them?

Here’s something to consider, my main had just under 200 HP waiting for HoT, and I knew that wasn’t enough to unlock more than half of the Elite Spec. before the total amount needed was announced, was I the only one that really paid attention to what A.net was saying leading up to the HoT going live?!?

Second, for those that are saying now they can play through the jungle with the Elite Spec, did you not consider that after you played through it once on your Core Spec and you unlocked the Elite that you could/should go back and play it again with the Elite Spec? I think that was the real intent but it appears most players can’t think for themselves anymore, they have to be spoon fed all of the information in tiny little tidbits.

Third, someone said that a player who had Word Completion on all of his characters was not a casual player…let me point you to the definition of casual: “irregular; occasional” . I took an entire year off and still did World Completion on 4 of my 7 characters, all including WvW. To say a casual player is one that only plays sometimes is not necessarily true, you can still be a casual player and play the game daily…whom ever came up with this definition: “Usually Disparaging. a person who plays video games that do not require much skill or time commitment.” should be…harmed…that is just a lazy player, imo(and don’t tell me it’s only for younger or able bodied people, anyone can develop skill unless you’re completely uncoordinated, unless you have a debilitating medical condition[I’m sorry, getting old does not count].

Now there’s really no reason to do the Hero Challenges in the HoT maps, unless you’re that interested in getting the map completion rewards or stocking up your HP points for the next Elite Spec. Personally I’ll probably do the easy ones, those that only require communing and ignore all the battle ones….I really don’t need that many points on any of my characters to unlock the Elites now…there is no challenge in growing my characters, which is exactly one of the things that those Elites represent.

Hope so, the idea behind specializations was to create a pipeline so that ANet could more regularly expand profession content.

If getting the only spec currently available took practically all the hero points in the entire game, what were we going to earn any new specs with? Only answer is that we probably weren’t going to get another specialization until after the game space was again expanded sufficiently for another 400 hero points. Most likely not until another expansion, which I think is just ludicrously slow.

New content doesn’t have to mean new areas as often as ANet can pump them out. New specs can be a great way to expand content without the huge development time of having to create a ton of new assets, the existing content is new again when you play it through with a whole new set of abilities.

You had 214 left over from before HOT, eventually there will be another elite spec.

Azure.8670:

dude I ran all the hero points in new world 9 times this weekend. I have all my elites unlocked and now.. yea

but it is what it is, im happy people are having fun

Out of interest, how long did that take?

Today I learned that a lot of people here likes the carrot on a stick approach.

I just wanted to add my voice in support of this idea. It’s not bad, it breaking the feeling of achievement.

In my opinion it’s worst than bad.

Yesterday I unlocked the tenth skill in my reaper line. Today, without playing at all, I was at the end. It completely invalidated the effort I made ti get there, And ruined the feeling of adventure, discovery and entitlement I had toward this.

Because some people wanted to have their elite specialization sooner. Because they had it in the beta. You gave them a gift, and they complained that the next wasn’t enough. And Arenanet gave in. After five days. FIVE. DAYS. Those things are suppose to take time, it’s new content. The biggest new mechanic of a complete expansion. And it couldn’t wait more than five days to be nerfed.

I don’t want it to change back (although I’d like that), but please, stop there. Don’t do the same thing you did in the last thing to the core game, for a “greater experience” of the new player.

250 Hero Points is way too easy. Because people have already complained about Hero Challenges being required to unlock some of the base-profession skills/traits, there are now a ridiculous amount of leftover Hero Points from the completion of the central Tyria map. I already have the central Tyrian map completed 100%, so with the reduction to 250 Hero Points I only have to complete FOUR Hero Challenges in Heart of Thorns to unlock my elite specialization.

This is RIDICULOUS. All of the satisfaction of finding and completing new Hero Challenges is gone, and I’ve barely even started on the second map. What happened to elite specializations as a form of character progression? I was having a blast completing Hero Challenges and now that I ALREADY have my elite specialization (along with 73 extra Hero Points) it doesn’t even feel like an accomplishment.

Please at least partially revert this change. Either unlocking the elite specialization should require more Hero Points (320-350 total), or at least some of the Hero Points (80-100) in the base game should be required to unlock the base-skills/traits of a profession. I never asked to be handed my Elite Specialization for free and now thanks to senseless whining Anet has gone back on their word.

All that was ever required to unlock the Elite Specializations was to play the game and and since it was possible to unlock each elite specialization piece by piece people got to play their elite specialization while exploring the new Magumma zones. I can understand making the elite specialization cost maybe 350 Hero Points so people without map completion could quickly unlock enough of their elite specializations skills/traits to start trying it out, but 250 Hero Points is ridiculous. Playing the game you purchased to unlock your elite specialization IS NOT GRIND.

No.

/15charsblabla

No.

/15chars

It’s not a grind for maybe the first 2 or 3 characters for the average player.

After that it becomes so. And that’s just for the players who don’t mind or like PvE.

For the players who play WvW and hate PvE or just barely tolerate small does of PvE for things like Living Story, the original amount was a grind for more than one character if not just one character for the average WvW player.

No.

/15 hero points

no lol

How quickly and easily the “friendliest MMO community” on Earth cannibalizes each other.

Incoming infraction… 3… 2… 1…

I was able to play the core game and gradually unlock all my core skills doing stuff I enjoyed doing. Now with the HP system I am forced into hunting down content that I have no interest in just to unlock game mechanics that should have never been locked behind specific content.

Only 1 of my 8 characters has 100% map completion because I paid my wife to complete it for me. 400 HP for me is an insufferable grind. 250 points seems like a reasonable compromise, I will still have to work for it but at least I get to enjoy the new specs before I get tired of playing the xpac.

The game has plenty of progression in the game with masteries, legendaries, and fractals. The elite spec does not need to be a long term goal.

So? What’s with the “I have more currency than I can spend this instant I need a sink!!1”
There’ll be more elite specs, and I imagine the “leftover” HP will be factored into that process somewhere and we’ll be back to complaining we don’t have enough.

No thank you.

/15charrs

ScribeTheMad.7614:

So? What’s with the “I have more currency than I can spend this instant I need a sink!!1”
There’ll be more elite specs, and I imagine the “leftover” HP will be factored into that process somewhere and we’ll be back to complaining we don’t have enough.

And the new content which provides them will offer enough hero points to get them.

What will i do with the extra hero points when that content gets scaled back as well?

I find it hard to believe we’ll get more specializations BEFORE the next expansion. Just by looking at the history of promises.

Back when they first changed it to give you all the points you needed from simply leveling, they mentioned a hero point vendor for the excess. That sounds like a bad idea however because points are limited. Personally, I’d never waste points and would rather always be ahead with excess.

Pokora.2053:

I find it hard to believe we’ll get more specializations BEFORE the next expansion. Just by looking at the history of promises.

The original plan was to regularly add new skills and the new system was to help with that. It’s somewhat easier to balance due to only allowing 1 elite spec, but adding them regularly will end up creating a big mess. One per year (living story season) is likely the best you could hope for however, with an expansion every other year.

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.

Any company that refuses to address legitimate feedback/criticism (by the way: constructive feedback =/= whining) is doomed to fail.

I see it quite the opposite. It takes balls to admit when certain aspects of your plan didn’t go quite as well as one would have hoped. They earn respect by acknowledging player feedback and doing their best to compromise and find a solution that benefits all players.

Healix.5819:

The original plan was to

release small content packs every 2 weeks! Yay! /sarcasm

You would still have to finish the maps eventually so you would still have to get those HPs regardless of the elites needing 400 or 250 HPs. Lol. I finished chronomancer and was almost done with tempest before this nerf but ehh since I’m going to do map completion anyway it doesn’t bother me.

One of the biggest problems ArenaNet has, is they use known terms from gaming without considering the implications.

They called it Elite, and wanted people to grind for it.
Elitists see the term “elite” and latch onto it “Oh Em Gee guyz it’s an elite spek onee 5 peecent of popuulation shud eevr be able to urn it!!!!11!oneone”

You think I’m exaggerating, or just mocking people.
I’m not.
I’ve had several people straight up tell me that most players should never be able to unlock it because “it’s an elite spec”

It’s just a word, used to describe a new traitline and weapon unlock.
And somehow being able to zerg enough hero points makes it special?
No, not really, just really time consuming

They used the term (imo) more to be able to justify limiting you to only one of the new spec lines for balance reasons (yay esports) than any sense of it truly being “elite”.

Because if it were truly elite it would need to be more powerful, and if more power is directly gated behind the expack then the expack is pay to win.
(because buying it gives you a numerical advantage over someone who has not)

People need to take a step back and stop applying other games definitions of terms to every other game that uses it.
Why aren’t elite specs only for the elite players
Why aren’t rares rare
Why aren’t exotics exotic
etc

morrolan.9608:

Copestetic.5174:

Tommyknocker.6089:

According to the wiki in base Tyria:

“There are 214 points available if you have the Krait Obelisk Shard in your home instance”

This means you still have to do some of the jungle to unlock your specialization. Sorry but I see no problem with this AT ALL.

My Warrior and Guardian both had over 200 HP’s left prior to HoT ( World Completion ). It’s pathetic that to max out an ELITE specialization I have to do what? 5 Hero Challenges? lol

ArenaNet, you need to stop caving in.

No they don’t they need to remember that the vast majority of players are casual. 1%ers are called that for a reason.

Its not pathetic that you only have to do 5 hero challenges in HOT on toons that you’ve got world completion because you’ve done a lot of work to get that far and this is where you get rewarded for it. What about revenants though and other alts without world completion?

There were people able to get Herald at the time when it cost 400. How you ask? They didn’t whine on forums, they just went and got it.