Guild Wars 2

I am seeing gating, grinding and a whole bunch of what ANet said would never happen in GW2?

I am not seeing any of that. I am having a blast just playing and upping the masteries with no grinding or anything.

I think you summed it up kamikaze.

Thank you Sarky and Widow. Had I seen this on another thread, I would have been a Third.

I find myself doing things i have done before in the expansion, but i am also mastery 75 and have 100% on one map and 80-90 on 2 others, i have played A LOT. I have very few complaints about the expansion. Other than bugged rewards for 100% map completion -.-

Pyrate, thanks for the direct answer. A lot of what I have read really has been disheartening, though. I will investigate further. Now, that said, Pyrate, do you consider yourself casual or hardcore?

Akk (if I may), it is a shame that a lot of our community resorts to this behavior.

I agree. I have been saying the same thing. It goes against the whole design philosophy they’ve been pitching. It’s just a shame that mentioning it makes people defensive. I’ll keep playing the game, I just don’t like being lied to.

Thank you, Ran. This feedback is honestly helpful.

The reason I ask is because I am debating on buying this or not.

“Please leave this game and never return”

I hope this isn’t the outcome of the elite spec system. This one aspect of the expansion has completely turned off a lot of players. I hope they don’t leave and never return. I hope Anet fixes this. Why would anyone want the population to go down for this game. I am hoping that there are expansions in the future with enough of a customer base to support it.

Community: We want harder content and end-game!
Devs: Okay! Here you go!
Community: T-T Stop making us work for things, nerf now!

Psygo, that is what I had read. I just wanted confirmation either way.

That said, if ANet keeps their ears to the ground, they may find the backlash to be real and change some things.

However, I have seen ANet publically admit to wrong doings and admitting it AND attemted to rectify the situation in the past. Fingers Crossed thay it still is a thing for them

I think it’s a question of how you approach the game.

I’m enjoying hte expansion, exploring maps and working my way through the story. As I go along, the masteries and elite spec are ticking along nicely without me having to focus on them.

However, if your focus is ‘must unlock all the masteries, must unlock the elite specs’ I can see how you’d find it a frustrating grind, because neither is a small task.

kamikazecopilot.9801:

I am seeing gating, grinding and a whole bunch of what ANet said would never happen in GW2?

I’ll try and explain the best I can and how players are interpreting it.

Gating-people do not like the fact that to get some of the hero points, they need to have certain masteries. However, you can get a few mastery levels fairly quickly, and you mainly just need the first level of gliding and mushroom jumping to comfortably navigate maguuma.

Grinding-People who’s primary reason to buy HoT for the elite specs, myself included, hate that it takes 400 hero points (40 hp in maguuma) to get the elite specs. However, masteries are account bound, meaning that you can enter the maguuma on any character later down the line, and get the HP far easier and faster.

Difficulty-this one I 100% disagree with so will just summarize and leave out my opinion. People are not liking that some mobs can do huge amounts of damage to you, as well as the fact that some of the HP spawn champs that are hard to tackle alone. Pretty much, they don’t like they can’t solo all of the content.

MHCerberus, the argument isn’t difficulty, it is soloability along with easy to find players when needed && no grinding to get what you want (within reason).

I play pretty much every day. Some days are only an hour and some are 4 to 8 hours. All depends on what else we are doing in real life.
Like this past weekend we had an appt. on Friday at the dentist and then a stage combat workshop to do. (got about 3 hours in)
Then on Saturday another stage combat workshop for a different group of people and then a slate filming and then a show at 2pm to preform (Winnie the Pooh) and then a bday party to go to (got in about an hour)
Then on Sunday we had a dance class for my other half and then helping and teaching some quick stage combat too for a run way show for some models and some scenes to film for an audition and then another performance at 6pm for the show (Winnie the Pooh) (got in about 2 hours)
And then today I have gotten in about 3 hours so far, we will play more tonite after we have a meeting with another director about another show coming up (Peter Pan)

kamikazecopilot.9801:

MHCerberus, the argument isn’t difficulty, it is soloability along with easy to find players when needed && no grinding to get what you want (within reason).

It’s not easy to solo HoT, but that is exactly what I am doing. Problem?

Story time:

About 2 years ago (maybe less) Anet hosted a thread on these forums for the community to collaborate directly with developers to improve “long term character progression” in the game. The consensus of that discussion was to come up with the elite specialization system (and masteries). Key words here: “long term”. They basically wanted to give you something to work on after you hit 80 that would take some time and make your character feel like it is still getting stronger.

Fast forward to today:

We have HoT with elite specs and masteries. They take a long time to complete, and some people are unhappy about it. Can’t please everyone I suppose. Is it grind? Technically yes, but what did you expect? It’s an MMO, and the whole point of elite specs originally was to have some kind of progression after level 80 that would take longer than 1 afternoon. Worst case Anet just needs to tone it down a little bit.

Again, the argument isn’t difficulty. I respect that you are willing and capable of soloing it. But please address the rest of my points, Cerberus.

Fair point Xenon. Thank you.

kamikazecopilot.9801:

Again, the argument isn’t difficulty. I respect that you are willing and capable of soloing it. But please address the rest of my points, Cerberus.

NOU (pout face) But seriously, I would be kitten if they changed a thing.

The mastery system is progression and I love that system.

Elite specs are not improvements over your previous profession. This is not character progression. These specs only offer alternate playstyles. There is nothing “elite” about them. This is fake progression. Tagging on the word elite to justify 400 hero points just isn’t thoughtful design.

TheLastNobody.8319:

kamikazecopilot.9801:

I am seeing gating, grinding and a whole bunch of what ANet said would never happen in GW2?

I’ll try and explain the best I can and how players are interpreting it.

Gating-people do not like the fact that to get some of the hero points, they need to have certain masteries. However, you can get a few mastery levels fairly quickly, and you mainly just need the first level of gliding and mushroom jumping to comfortably navigate maguuma.

Grinding-People who’s primary reason to buy HoT for the elite specs, myself included, hate that it takes 400 hero points (40 hp in maguuma) to get the elite specs. However, masteries are account bound, meaning that you can enter the maguuma on any character later down the line, and get the HP far easier and faster.

Difficulty-this one I 100% disagree with so will just summarize and leave out my opinion. People are not liking that some mobs can do huge amounts of damage to you, as well as the fact that some of the HP spawn champs that are hard to tackle alone. Pretty much, they don’t like they can’t solo all of the content.

Thank you for your feedback.

Everyone who has responded, thank you for your responses. This has helped me a lot.

MHCerberus.1385:

kamikazecopilot.9801:

Again, the argument isn’t difficulty. I respect that you are willing and capable of soloing it. But please address the rest of my points, Cerberus.

NOU (pout face) But seriously, I would be kitten if they changed a thing.

LoL. Fair enough on your point.

Gating has been in since launch(dungeons), and other areas post-launch; new player experience changes to storyline and features, and Fractals later and now again recently with free accounts.

I’m not saying that there is no merit in discussing gating. Just saying it’s old news.

As for grinding, there’s not a remotely objective criteria for it. It seems to have become shorthand for “repetitive stuff which I don’t happen to enjoy”.

MHCerberus.1385:

Community: We want harder content and end-game!
Devs: Okay! Here you go!
Community: T-T Stop making us work for things, nerf now!

I like the new fights, and I don’t mind that we have to work for masteries either. What I am most upset about is that I currently have a choice between hoping I can find an instance with players in it or grinding EotM for my elite spec. And that is only on one of my characters. If I were to grind EotM for all 9 of my characters I would still not have them all unlocked by the time the next Xpac comes out.

I have spend 3 years thusfar playing this game through the good and the bad. But without another avenue of getting my elite, I may as well just play something else.

Here’s the thread if anyone’s curious. It’s actually kinda funny reading back on that stuff. The summary basically sounds like an exact description of HoT. And people say Anet doesn’t listen to it’s fans…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/CDI-Character-Progression-Horizontal

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/cdi/CDI-Character-Progression-Vertical

kamikazecopilot.9801:

MHCerberus.1385:

kamikazecopilot.9801:

Again, the argument isn’t difficulty. I respect that you are willing and capable of soloing it. But please address the rest of my points, Cerberus.

NOU (pout face) But seriously, I would be kitten if they changed a thing.

LoL. Fair enough on your point.

I am glad to see someone actually responding to points made by people. I see the content like sparring in martial arts. It takes a good long while to get anywhere and when you do, someone beats you easily anyway. It will always challenge you to be better. HoT mobs are like taking a punch to the face, they make me grit my teeth and want more. I will fight my way through the jungle and unlock elite specs, but I will take my time doing so.

I would consider myself a casual. I didn’t get to play that much this weekend, and did have one other person with me to play, and there were usually other people around to do the different events. I did die a few times, but I would expect that. I’m not in a rush to get through the content. And I don’t expect the elite spec to not take some sort of time to achieve. I’m not even sure I want or need to use Tempest. I >do< see the argument that initially they said people with map completion would unlock the elite right away… but I kind of like this option better. I had map completion on my ele, so I had 200 points to spend and unlocked half of the tempest elite. I’m an explorer, so the minute I unlocked even the first mastery for gliding I kind of used that to move around on the map and unlock the waypoints and see quite a bit of verdant brink. I don’t find it grindy myself, as I want to experience the content. The WvWers who want the elite spec can do that 100% through WvW, they don’t have to PVE. I dunno. I’m not a super hardcore player, I’ve learned my class fairly well though, I’m ok with dying in a hard battle, or a battle taking a long time. I like feeling like the fight took some sort of skill and determination. I’ve played for part of one day, and I’ve liked what I’ve experienced so far. The only real drawback for >me< is that I get lost in the levels, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

Those are just my thoughts. No buyers remorse here.

(And… I’m so casual I only had one character at 80 with map completion… And I’ve been playing since launch. I just got map completion this year. My second alt, a mesmer I used levelling tomes and some world completion and I have chronomancer unlocked and that was spending about 3 weeks levelling him, and not every day.)

Xenon.4537:

Is it grind? Technically yes, but what did you expect? It’s an MMO

“We just don’t want players to grind in Guild Wars 2. No one enjoys that. No one finds it fun”.

“Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward”.

Xenon.4537:

and the whole point of elite specs originally was to have some kind of progression after level 80 that would take longer than 1 afternoon

“The Mastery system is a new approach to endgame progression. It represents a new way to grow your characters once they’ve hit level 80”.

Mastery system. Not the specialization system. That’s what ArenaNet said would be the “kind of progression after level 80 that would take longer than 1 afternoon”.

It was a massive mistake to gate the specializations behind a grind wall. It’s obvious that, after 3 years of a very stale game, people would like to explore the new content with the new skills and traits. If unlocking the specializations didn’t require such a grind, we would have significantly less complaining here.

i like gw2 core idea play what you want and other things is only bonus . hero challenges is very bad if you finnaly find them you dont have mastery when you have mastery some challenges is bugged and if you start it it repawn champion what need another people to complete. most hot mastery level you absolutly dont need it. its not fun play game like in old maps its pain because im forced to stay in this zones where is nothing to do.

Test.8734:

…snip “The Mastery system is a new approach to endgame progression. It represents a new way to grow your characters once they’ve hit level 80”.

Mastery system. Not the specialization system. That’s what ArenaNet said would be the “kind of progression after level 80 that would take longer than 1 afternoon”.

It was a massive mistake to gate the specializations behind a grind wall. It’s obvious that, after 3 years of a very stale game, people would like to explore the new content with the new skills and traits. If unlocking the specializations didn’t require such a grind, we would have significantly less complaining here.

This X 1000. I am more than happy having to unlock all the new masteries whilst discovering all the jungle has to offer. But even though I have 21000 AP, map completion on all of my 9 characters, I am forced to find others to get my full elite spec.

If they were to reduce the amount to 200 or so for all the trait lines it would have shown you to have actually put in some effort either in Tyria or the new maps, but when they gate it, not only behind group events, but also masteries it becomes a chore.

Why is rewarding your veterans such a bad thing?

Tommyknocker.6089:

Test.8734:

…snip “The Mastery system is a new approach to endgame progression. It represents a new way to grow your characters once they’ve hit level 80”.

Mastery system. Not the specialization system. That’s what ArenaNet said would be the “kind of progression after level 80 that would take longer than 1 afternoon”.

It was a massive mistake to gate the specializations behind a grind wall. It’s obvious that, after 3 years of a very stale game, people would like to explore the new content with the new skills and traits. If unlocking the specializations didn’t require such a grind, we would have significantly less complaining here.

This X 1000. I am more than happy having to unlock all the new masteries whilst discovering all the jungle has to offer. But even though I have 21000 AP, map completion on all of my 9 characters, I am forced to find others to get my full elite spec.

If they were to reduce the amount to 200 or so for all the trait lines it would have shown you to have actually put in some effort either in Tyria or the new maps, but when they gate it, not only behind group events, but also masteries it becomes a chore.

Why is rewarding your veterans such a bad thing?

This X1000 too!

Tommyknocker.6089:

Test.8734:

…snip “The Mastery system is a new approach to endgame progression. It represents a new way to grow your characters once they’ve hit level 80”.

Mastery system. Not the specialization system. That’s what ArenaNet said would be the “kind of progression after level 80 that would take longer than 1 afternoon”.

It was a massive mistake to gate the specializations behind a grind wall. It’s obvious that, after 3 years of a very stale game, people would like to explore the new content with the new skills and traits. If unlocking the specializations didn’t require such a grind, we would have significantly less complaining here.

This X 1000. I am more than happy having to unlock all the new masteries whilst discovering all the jungle has to offer. But even though I have 21000 AP, map completion on all of my 9 characters, I am forced to find others to get my full elite spec.

If they were to reduce the amount to 200 or so for all the trait lines it would have shown you to have actually put in some effort either in Tyria or the new maps, but when they gate it, not only behind group events, but also masteries it becomes a chore.

Why is rewarding your veterans such a bad thing?

It’s really not hard to find 20 soloable hero points with basic mastery unlocked, take less than 2 hours to get 20 if you know what you are doing I would say.

20 soloable HP in the jungle?

According to dulphy in her guide I cannot post here due to spoilers there are only 6 (total 60 points) with basic mastery. I trust her as she has never steered me wrong in the past therefore getting 20 of them solo seems a tad far-fetched.

The question remains though, why not reward your vets?

MHCerberus.1385:

kamikazecopilot.9801:

MHCerberus, the argument isn’t difficulty, it is soloability along with easy to find players when needed && no grinding to get what you want (within reason).

It’s not easy to solo HoT, but that is exactly what I am doing. Problem?

How do you outskill a four minute cheese timer? And no I don’t want to mindlessly zerg it down when trying to immerse myself in the exploration.

A-net designs a core-game PvE-experience that requires next to zero skill, relatively to comparable games in the genre, and virtually no stat-grind.
Community responds with:
“This game is too easy, I can even solo the hardest bosses”
“I don’t see the PvE endgame”
“There is nothing to do but to farm for legendary skins, or skins locked behind insane RNG”

A-net then designs a expanson with difficult & engaging PvE-content and a solid unlock system that will keep most players busy for a couple of months.

Community responds with:
“What the heg, this game is brutal hard. I can’t even solo champs in my Zerker gear anymore.”
“Why do I have to do map-completion in order to unlock my specialization!? Give me everything from day 1!”
“WTF A-net, this mastery-”grind" will keep me busy for the comming months…"

…next time you maybe should be careful with your wishes. You got everything you asked for & so much more. I for my part have a blast playing this expansion.
And for those who whine about the game being too hard for them now, I only can cite the dark souls community on that topic:
Git gud or get out.

Here’s my take on things (like I’m important or something lol). I wasn’t happy with gating behind masteries. I wasn’t happy with how long it takes to aquire those masteries. The jungle is a scary place at first and I felt intimidated and lost. As I continue to play I unlock more of the masteries and I’m losing any fear I had of being in the jungle. I learned to drop my zerker gear for more tanky stats. There are still scary places of the jungle (poison at the moment to be specific) that I cant currently overcome. However, it is a great feeling being able to fight pretty much anything and if things go south Im not afraid to jump off of a cliff and ride the gusts of wind upward. I still hate not having my reaper fully unlocked and disagree with how they handled hero points but the mastery system really makes my character feel like I’ve adapted to the harsh conditions of the jungle. Almost like Robin Williams in jumangi rofl

Arantheal.7396:

…next time you maybe should be careful with your wishes. You got everything you asked for & so much more. I for my part have a blast playing this expansion.
And for those who whine about the game being too hard for them now, I only can cite the dark souls community on that topic:
Git gud or get out.

It’s unfair to assume that individuals are being hypocritical. It’s more likely a split fanbase.

But people should be aware that Anet are addressing people’s complaints, even if their decisions go against their personal preferences.