Guild Wars 2

So thats how long it took me to get my elite spec fully unlocked ( i had 100 hero points before hot). So i dont see why people are complaining I played fairly casually and did most of the events for fun. What i liked mostly about the process of getting hero points is dragon stand’s map-wide event which is a really good example of how playing the game events gets you the hero points u need. So in conclusion thanks anet for making the process of getting my reaper seem rewarding and fun

Awesome.

Now go do it again on ten other characters. From the exact same hero points every single time.

Tapioca.9062:

Awesome.

Now go do it again on ten other characters. From the exact same hero points every single time.

actually im planning on doing it and what makes it fun to get the hero points is that some of the fight are pretty challenging and take skill and coordination to finish ex. (mushroom queen hero point) . Btw why would u do it on 10 other characters? O_O there are 9 elite specs

arakkune.1429:

So thats how long it took me to get my elite spec fully unlocked ( i had 100 hero points before hot). So i dont see why people are complaining I played fairly casually and did most of the events for fun. What i liked mostly about the process of getting hero points is dragon stand’s map-wide event which is a really good example of how playing the game events gets you the hero points u need. So in conclusion thanks anet for making the process of getting my reaper seem rewarding and fun

Congratulations for moving with the herd though the HoT content from launch to finish so quickly. Just to be clear, no you are not a casual player if you’ve gotten as far as you have within 5 days of the game going live. You may believe you are relative to someone who plays literally non-stop and were among the first to finish the HoT content Sunday evening, but the reality is you’re all hard core compared to the player base GW2 core game was designed for as by the tenants of it’s manifesto which preached the philosphy of the design team and why more causal players we should pick GW2 over other MMOS. The company has turned their back on players who bought into their core vision. What a disgrace.

Tapioca.9062:

Awesome.

Now go do it again on ten other characters. From the exact same hero points every single time.

It is actually a lot easier the second, third, etc times through since you have many of the masteries needed to get the easier ones first.

System actually makes a lot of sense – even from an alt perspective.

Because being able to finish something once during optimal conditions, the maps are full of people looking to do the same thing that you are, is not indicative of its long term viability, nor does it factor in scale due to people having multiple characters.

20 – 40 hero points isn’t great, across my alts I’ll be looking at well over 300 hero points that I’ll need to tag. And I can only get them in HoT maps because both the value of HoT hero points and the elite spec costs have been bloated to devalue central tyrian hero points. But beyond even the fact that you’re forced to do the exact same content again and again and again on each individual character to actually access what you paid for, is the fact that most of these hero points are locked behind champs that cannot be soloed. So if you don’t like grind, and I don’t like grind, and you want to take a break, you’ll find it increasingly difficult to get all your characters access to their elite specs as maps either empty out or other people have no interest in breaking away from map meta-event chains to hare after far-flung hero points.

I understand that in the first five days this might seem like a reasonable system, but the problems in the design aren’t in the short term focus and that’s not what people have an issue with. There are problems with the way the system has been designed that limit its viability in the long term. And that’s completely ignoring that I have to choose between 19 HoT hero points and every single other hero point in Tyria or 99% of the exact same hero points in HoT again and again and again. I have zero desire to do that at least nine times.

Blaeys.3102:

Tapioca.9062:

Awesome.

Now go do it again on ten other characters. From the exact same hero points every single time.

It is actually a lot easier the second, third, etc times through since you have many of the masteries needed to get the easier ones first.

System actually makes a lot of sense – even from an alt perspective.

And you know this because you’ve already unlocked them on how many alts? How many hero points did you have on each of those alts going in? While there is logic in your assessment I don’t believe it comes from experience. You are making an inference. With the current kittened mega-server issues you probably won’t be bringing a alt up to full unlock anytime soon unless you have the 213 hero points coming in on a character and can pick and choose hero points to go after

Casual – you have all weekend to play, and maybe get 2 hours in because of other things needing done around the house.
THAT is a casual player.
If you spent 10 hours or so this weekend playing…you aren’t casual. You devoted quite a lot of hours to it if so.

Casual is a term for those that only play occasionally, if you are playing every day…or playing for long stretches at a time…you aren’t casual.

Runiir.6425:

Casual – you have all weekend to play, and maybe get 2 hours in because of other things needing done around the house.
THAT is a casual player.
If you spent 10 hours or so this weekend playing…you aren’t casual. You devoted quite a lot of hours to it if so.

Casual is a term for those that only play occasionally, if you are playing every day…or playing for long stretches at a time…you aren’t casual.

well said.

cracks me up how many people say they are “casual”

Got a guildy who was hot mastery level 10 by Sunday afternoon, that is NOT casual!

Runiir.6425:

Casual – you have all weekend to play, and maybe get 2 hours in because of other things needing done around the house.
THAT is a casual player.
If you spent 10 hours or so this weekend playing…you aren’t casual. You devoted quite a lot of hours to it if so.

Casual is a term for those that only play occasionally, if you are playing every day…or playing for long stretches at a time…you aren’t casual.

Right, as a casual player who works I generally can play 2 hours a day tops. I took a vacation this week to play herald. Only half way to herald and half way done unlocking it with spending a ton of time on it. It’s frustrating

Sylent.3165:

Runiir.6425:

Casual – you have all weekend to play, and maybe get 2 hours in because of other things needing done around the house.
THAT is a casual player.
If you spent 10 hours or so this weekend playing…you aren’t casual. You devoted quite a lot of hours to it if so.

Casual is a term for those that only play occasionally, if you are playing every day…or playing for long stretches at a time…you aren’t casual.

Right, as a casual player who works I generally can play 2 hours a day tops. I took a vacation this week to play herald. Only half way to herald and half way done unlocking it with spending a ton of time on it. It’s frustrating

It is so much worse for Herald than any other elite too, you need ALL of it to really use it thanks to locked utilities. It drives me crazy seeing as Herald made me want to switch my mains.

Tapioca.9062:

Awesome.

Now go do it again on ten other characters. From the exact same hero points every single time.

Ok, so that’s 50 days if you really need to unlock a specialization on 10 characters.

GW2, base game, has been out for 3 years. If you really need to burn through everything new on every single character on your account in less than 2 months, you have pretty unrealistic expectations.

Runiir.6425:

Casual – you have all weekend to play, and maybe get 2 hours in because of other things needing done around the house.
THAT is a casual player.
If you spent 10 hours or so this weekend playing…you aren’t casual. You devoted quite a lot of hours to it if so.

Casual is a term for those that only play occasionally, if you are playing every day…or playing for long stretches at a time…you aren’t casual.

+1

I have a full time job, I’m out of the house at 7am every weekday, leave work anywhere between 5pm and 7:30pm depending on overtime required. I get MAX 1 hour per night to play GW2 after I’ve done all my housekeeping stuff, shopping, financials, other commitments etc. At the weekend it’s not much different as, like most people, I leave my biggest real-life commitments until the weekend.

I am an entirely casual player and feel utterly robbed by this 400HP requirement. That’s NOT to say I think we should be given everything on a plate right at the start though. If the requirement was 200-250HP for example, it would have been far more reasonable but would still required a fair bit of work from the majority of the playerbase to achieve their Espec. I DO think the Espec is something that needs to be ‘achieved’ but NOT through this disgusting, mind-numbing grind. A point that a lot of people are making on the forums is that they wanted to be able to at least play some of the new HoT content with their shiny new fully-kitted out Espec.

Tapioca.9062:

Because being able to finish something once during optimal conditions, the maps are full of people looking to do the same thing that you are, is not indicative of its long term viability, nor does it factor in scale due to people having multiple characters.

20 – 40 hero points isn’t great, across my alts I’ll be looking at well over 300 hero points that I’ll need to tag. And I can only get them in HoT maps because both the value of HoT hero points and the elite spec costs have been bloated to devalue central tyrian hero points. But beyond even the fact that you’re forced to do the exact same content again and again and again on each individual character to actually access what you paid for, is the fact that most of these hero points are locked behind champs that cannot be soloed. So if you don’t like grind, and I don’t like grind, and you want to take a break, you’ll find it increasingly difficult to get all your characters access to their elite specs as maps either empty out or other people have no interest in breaking away from map meta-event chains to hare after far-flung hero points.

I understand that in the first five days this might seem like a reasonable system, but the problems in the design aren’t in the short term focus and that’s not what people have an issue with. There are problems with the way the system has been designed that limit its viability in the long term. And that’s completely ignoring that I have to choose between 19 HoT hero points and every single other hero point in Tyria or 99% of the exact same hero points in HoT again and again and again. I have zero desire to do that at least nine times.

Well if you have 9 alts then I guess you had a desire to go through all of the core content, or even EOTM farming, or even sPvP farming for tomes 9 different times. What makes getting Hero Points through the core world plus the HoT content to unlock the Elite Specializations any different than the other 9 times you leveled alts? How does that limit viability in the long term? Wouldn’t that stimulate long term goals especially seeing as you did go to the trouble of getting 9 alts, which I assume are 80, to 80?

Quite a complex contradiction you’ve got for yourself.

Dahkeus.8243:

Tapioca.9062:

Awesome.

Now go do it again on ten other characters. From the exact same hero points every single time.

Ok, so that’s 50 days if you really need to unlock a specialization on 10 characters.

GW2, base game, has been out for 3 years. If you really need to burn through everything new on every single character on your account in less than 2 months, you have pretty unrealistic expectations.

Without wanting to create a Strawman argument, what you’re essentially saying is that there is a grind required that is at least 2 months of hardcore playing (the WoW episode of Southpark springs to mind) for people to fully enjoy their profession content. This is entirely against ArenaNet’s anti-grind policy that they’ve emphasised from day 1.

Dahkeus.8243:

Tapioca.9062:

Awesome.

Now go do it again on ten other characters. From the exact same hero points every single time.

Ok, so that’s 50 days if you really need to unlock a specialization on 10 characters.

GW2, base game, has been out for 3 years. If you really need to burn through everything new on every single character on your account in less than 2 months, you have pretty unrealistic expectations.

Yes. Because of course it would progress into the future as a direct linear scale as maps empty and other people stop needing hero points themselves.

But even if we assumed, completely erroneously, that the effort required to complete elite specs will remain constant as time passes rather than become more difficult due to the drop in help from other players, then you still need to factor in that people who have fully unlocked their elite spec in under a week from launch aren’t the average player. If it would take that player two months to actually get their elite specs on their characters, how long is it going to take the average player? Six months? Nine months?

Again, presuming erroneously that the ease of access to help remains a constant. Is that an ideal situation to you? “Oh hey, average player, in nine months from now you might actually be able to play content with elite specs on any of your professions. Did you want to play through your personal story the first time with your elite spec? Too bad, buddy.”

KryTiKaL.3125:

Tapioca.9062:

Because being able to finish something once during optimal conditions, the maps are full of people looking to do the same thing that you are, is not indicative of its long term viability, nor does it factor in scale due to people having multiple characters.

20 – 40 hero points isn’t great, across my alts I’ll be looking at well over 300 hero points that I’ll need to tag. And I can only get them in HoT maps because both the value of HoT hero points and the elite spec costs have been bloated to devalue central tyrian hero points. But beyond even the fact that you’re forced to do the exact same content again and again and again on each individual character to actually access what you paid for, is the fact that most of these hero points are locked behind champs that cannot be soloed. So if you don’t like grind, and I don’t like grind, and you want to take a break, you’ll find it increasingly difficult to get all your characters access to their elite specs as maps either empty out or other people have no interest in breaking away from map meta-event chains to hare after far-flung hero points.

I understand that in the first five days this might seem like a reasonable system, but the problems in the design aren’t in the short term focus and that’s not what people have an issue with. There are problems with the way the system has been designed that limit its viability in the long term. And that’s completely ignoring that I have to choose between 19 HoT hero points and every single other hero point in Tyria or 99% of the exact same hero points in HoT again and again and again. I have zero desire to do that at least nine times.

Well if you have 9 alts then I guess you had a desire to go through all of the core content, or even EOTM farming, or even sPvP farming for tomes 9 different times. What makes getting Hero Points through the core world plus the HoT content to unlock the Elite Specializations any different than the other 9 times you leveled alts? How does that limit viability in the long term? Wouldn’t that stimulate long term goals especially seeing as you did go to the trouble of getting 9 alts, which I assume are 80, to 80?

Quite a complex contradiction you’ve got for yourself.

You get more tomes than you will ever need simply from logging on every day. You get even more if you spend a short amount of time doing your spvp dailies, but it’s certainly not necessary. Beyond that, there are multiple ways to level characters. You can craft, tome, WvW or do traditional PvE or any combination of the above. The wide range of options mitigates grind because you’re not doing the same thing over and over again. Contrast this with gather 400 hero points. You can obtain these by either getting every single hero point in Tyria and 19 hero points in HoT or all the hero points in HoT again and again and again. There is no variety here. There is only the exact same act again and again and again.

You haven’t pointed out a contradiction here. You’ve only highlighted how the inflated cost of the elite spec and the inflated HoT hero point values have necessitated grind by decreasing player choice and gameplay options.

Tapioca.9062:

Awesome.

Now go do it again on ten other characters. From the exact same hero points every single time.

It will be a lot easier now that he/she has the masteries to get to them or access them a lot easier.

Amiron.1067:

Tapioca.9062:

Awesome.

Now go do it again on ten other characters. From the exact same hero points every single time.

It will be a lot easier now that he/she has the masteries to get to them or access them a lot easier.

How, exactly, do the masteries make them easier? Many hero points are gated behind masteries. If by easier, you mean “capable of being accessed” then that’s certainly a true, if unique, perspective. But unlocking updraft training doesn’t make acquiring hero points easier, it just means you can get to the HoT hero points you need that require updrafts to access. Most HoT masteries don’t make you stronger. They just remove roadblocks to otherwise inaccessible content.

The fact still remains that you’re calling this current system a grind, which I will admit it -can- be a time consuming thing, but it’s not any different than the other methods even for standard leveling. Hell that takes longer than it will to get elite specs unlocked per character. My Revenant is only 60 hours old and I have Herald 100% unlocked, yes I used tomes that I “grinded” saved up to level up the character but aside from that it wasn’t any more “grindy” than anything else in the game. It levels out in the end. Yes you did pay money for this expansion and yes I understand you wanted to experience the Elite Specializations on each of your characters, but you have to earn them and the time it takes now and the amount of Hero Points required seems reasonable to me. You actually have to -play- the game as opposed to hitting 80 prior to HoT is really just a wait game since you get all the tomes you need from login rewards, it just might take a number of months. I much prefer this method of progression. Effort expended equals time to completion.

KryTiKaL,
If they wanted it to not be a grind, they would have allowed us to select he mastery we wanted to work on, and then go out into ANY sectionof the game (HoT maps, Tyria, WvW, sPvP, crafting, etc) and any exp gained would go into that mastery. THAT would make it not a grind as people could do anything, anywhere, and enjoy the time.
As it stands you have to do the same events on the same map, over and over and over again…That is the very definition of grind. I cannot make progress by going somewhere else. Even a crafter getting mats has multiple places to choose from for just about anything/everything. Doing hearts in Tyria was NEVER a grind as you can complete them however you wanted mostly…human 1? The first heart I completed by doing the event at the barn. Human 2? I watered plants. Human 3? I killed thieves. You had options and could always push forward solo. Skip to HoT and if you have no zerg/large group nearby you aren’t really going to get a lot done. Even if you do, you have only one option…do the events ad infinitum to build mastery.

I miss the hearts.

You have 4 new zones each with 3 layers, one with 4, all with a variety of events that need completion on top of perpetual rewards just for participation as well as Story Missions. Yes you need to repeat them but I find the fun behind them is more related to the fact that the mobs aren’t just bugs on a windshield anymore, not to mention a number of events that actually require coordination between multiple lanes/sections. Bored of a particular area? Choose from the other three since each have their own event chains to complete with their own rewards that help you unlock masteries and earn a slew of achievements, including some very nice collection achievements.

Also yes, HoT mastery experience is limited to HoT areas…which makes sense. But you do still get mastery ranks from Central Tyria masteries which in their own right can be helpful since they actually unlock swiftness bonuses for you and your party members.