Guild Wars 2

progression did not work off of required “rewards”. Yes, as you state you get rewarded exp for doing things. GW2 at launch just didn’t have MANDATORY “rewards” you had to do. At launch gw2 you could do any pve content and progress, you didn’t even have to do the skill challenges because you received skill points each time you leveled past 80.

Perhaps if they would have an exp and mastery bar separate we could still get hero points for leveling past 80. I know it will never happen. I just think this was an idea that gw2 shouldn’t have parted with.

Why force players into tedium….. This isn’t about difficulty. I have at least 7 or 8 characters who have the elite specs fully traited. I’m all about player freedom and enjoyment.

Just because you had more choice doesn’t mean you weren’t required to do those activities to get progression. It was still very much mandatory to do rewards that gave you XP to progress.

Why force players into tedium? Lots of reasons; lots more work, it’s not necessary to do otherwise … it’s not hard to think of plausible reasons. Players always think a game developer needs to justify why they did something when they don’t. It’s cute. We are all about freedom and enjoyment, just some of us more reasonable folk realize those things are restricted by resources of the developer.

Of course you had to do activities but none of them were mandatory…. You got to choose which activities you wanted to do…. With the hero point system you MUSTdo hero points in pve to progress your character to full elite

They were mandatory if you wanted to level.

Choice has nothing to do with it. It was mandatory to choose and do at least one. <—Statement true for HP/MP/progression/any reward.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Of course you had to do activities but none of them were mandatory…. You got to choose which activities you wanted to do…. With the hero point system you MUSTdo hero points in pve to progress your character to full elite

**cough**WvW**cough**

I am talking about gw2 system at launch. There were no mandatory activities you had to do to level. Yes, you had to do things to gain experience and progress your character but you got to choose which activities.

All Anet would have to do to institute that system again would to have an experience bar and a mastery bar and when you leveled past 80 it would reward you a hero point just like the old skill point system. That way Hero challenges would not be mandatory content and players would have freedom to do content that didn’t bore the hell out of them.

Yes, I know wvw but I am referring strictly to pve and the system gw2 had at launch…..

You are wrong … just because you could choose, does not mean doing an activity to level was not mandatory. It has ALWAYS been mandatory to do something to get XP and level.

The bottom line here is simple: Anet makes stuff accessible to players. They make leveling VERY accessible to players; they also made getting Masteries and hero points accessible to players with changes and design decisions. Just because you didn’t get choice in HOW you get them (actually, you do have some choice there …) doesn’t mean they are unreasonable rewards to obtain; that’s the point of this thread.

Frankly, i don’t see how choice factors into accessible, reasonable rewards, so I think your whole argument is just one massive red herring. Nice to have, not necessary for players to access HP/MP’s.

Of course it is mandatory to do something….. You are missing the point(again)….. but in the case of HoT one particular activity(hero point challenge) is the only activity(mandatory) in pve you can choose to progress your elite………

Yes, Anet makes stuff accessible to players. At launch they were even more accessible and player freedom and choice was enabled by the after 80 leveling system.

OK, that’s NICE, but not everything in this game that’s a reward comes with the same freedom and choice to get it, HP’s and MP’s aren’t removed from that. I’ve went back and had a look at my post; I was implying the OP was rather clueless about expansions because it’s clear he doesn’t recognize the finite resources put into developing it. Somehow you managed to complain about choice and freedom to do things you want how you want, an unreasonable expectation due to same finite resources as a response to that (which really doesn’t make much sense to me unless you just want a soapbox to complain about choice and freedom for rewards)

So you’re whole argument against why I’m on the ‘wrong side of the fence’ than the OP … is that you want more choice and freedom to earn rewards how you want.

Now, I’m not a genius or anything (at least I’ve never been tested) but if you can’t see how your continued expression of freedom and choice for how you get rewards doesn’t directly conflict with the fact I have present to why the OP’s line of thinking is nonsense due to limited development resources, then I really can’t help you any more with that.

How is it unreasonable when gw2 launched with the system I am talking about… I guess the 1st year and a half Anet was being unreasonable.

The reason I bring up the freedom and choice angle is I keep seeing players complain about hero points and mastery points……. Obviously, some players don’t enjoy this type of content…… I am harkening back to a system that would let these players have an alternate way of progressing

Those same players ALSO don’t understand what finite resources are. Also, complaining about HP/MP isn’t necessarily and issue of having choice … so you’re soapboxing.

You can harken back to whatever you want; I don’t see how it’s relevant. Being able to XP doing different kinds of tasks set no precedent for future rewards ingame. Obviously Anet didn’t feel it was necessary to implement the same progression approach for HP/MP.

You’re right Anet didn’t. In fact, it seems that they seem to be trying to copy every other stale mmo out there when they used to try to be different.

/shrug. Whether it’s different enough for players to patronize GW2 instead of something else is debatable.

Bottomline is that even though there is no choice in activities to earn HP/MP, the OP is still exaggerating and demonstrating is misunderstanding of how expansion is developed.

I think perhaps Anet had a misunderstanding of how an expansion is developed….. HoT has garnered much criticism and has not really reached the expectations the company was looking for.

I think people need to stop feeling so entitled to demand so much drastic change, people are literally trying to change this from an mmorpg into an mmorpg lite, its like you wanna play with development tools then the actual game itself, and what is this freedom stuff? No other mmorpg currently has the same amount of freedom, maybe eso to an extent but not really, this isn’t meant to be an elder scrolls or fallout game anyways.

Look you all knew exactly what hot would bring, you spent money on the expansion and you come here and yell its bad game design when you knew very well what the game was going to be like, stop trying to ruin it for everyone else the game doesn’t revolve around a minority. It iant healthy to be this against rpg elements and continue playing and focusing on it, you do have the choice go move on and stop playing, im sorry if this offends you and it shouldn’t, no one is making you stay with a game design you clearlg disagree with.

Actually, I am asking for what I originally paid for…… The system I have described is what GW2 had at launch…….. so any drastic change is after the fact

If people moved on every time they had a complaint about the game, the population would be very small. The hero/mastery point thing isn’t a dealbreaker for me. I just think the original gw2 system was better.

If anyone knew exactly what HoT was going to bring before it launched than they were psychic. We knew what parts of it were going to be like(what guild halls looked like, elite spec weapons and abilities, multi-tiered maps, tougher opponents)……

Many were surprised at the level of “farming” that much of HoT required, the gated content, the super expensive costs of different things (guild halls, scribing, original elite spec cost), nobody new the repackaging of core material that was going to happen(guild boons, fractal rewards, etc.)

So when you say we all new exactly what HoT was going to bring I think you are exaggerating.

Dashingsteel.3410:

If anyone knew exactly what HoT was going to bring before it launched than they were psychic. We knew what parts of it were going to be like(what guild halls looked like, elite spec weapons and abilities, multi-tiered maps, tougher opponents)……

Many were surprised at the level of “farming” that much of HoT required, the gated content, the super expensive costs of different things (guild halls, scribing, original elite spec cost), nobody new the repackaging of core material that was going to happen(guild boons, fractal rewards, etc.)

So when you say we all new exactly what HoT was going to bring I think you are exaggerating.

You could of waited for reviews no one is forced to pre order, I learned my lesson ages ago pre ordering any game that’s the risk you take wheb you ore order its on you.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Actually, I am asking for what I originally paid for…… The system I have described is what GW2 had at launch…….. so any drastic change is after the fact

If people moved on every time they had a complaint about the game, the population would be very small. The hero/mastery point thing isn’t a dealbreaker for me. I just think the original gw2 system was better.

Mmorpgs can change, its in the user agreement, I’ve never seen an mmorpg stay the same and I moved on from designs I dont agree with, and it hasn’t even changed that much, in fact nothing in the core game really changed, all they did was add content you dont agree with, you still got exactly what you paid for originally.

Yes, you are right I have learned my lesson on pre-ordering. I was so happy with vanilla gw2 that I pre-ordered HoT the very first night it was offered. Unfortunately, I was not very happy with the direction Anet took the game. I realize that they can change it up anytime they want. I am just voicing my concerns over certain aspects of the game. I may be in the minority…. who knows? Just adding my two cents.

Dashingsteel.3410:

Yes, you are right I have learned my lesson on pre-ordering. I was so happy with vanilla gw2 that I pre-ordered HoT the very first night it was offered. Unfortunately, I was not very happy with the direction Anet took the game. I realize that they can change it up anytime they want. I am just voicing my concerns over certain aspects of the game. I may be in the minority…. who knows? Just adding my two cents.

Yea I get that but people need to keep a better open mind when it comes to this stuff, stripping rpg elements is not the answer, every MMO that has done this lately died quickly.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I think perhaps Anet had a misunderstanding of how an expansion is developed….. HoT has garnered much criticism and has not really reached the expectations the company was looking for.

/moreshrug People complain about successful MMO’s too so I don’t see how you come to that conclusion. Most of your arguments are based on speculation and your statements use things out of context anyways so … at this point, I guess you will just say anything to demonstrate how unhappy you are.

I feel like I’m one of the only people who actually really enjoyed HoT…

I wish everyone could be as cheery as I am

The only thing out of context, Obtena, are your misrepresentation of other player’s posts. I don’t think it is speculation to say that HoT didn’t meet Anet’s expectations. They are putting HoT content on hold to rush the next expansion while saying that they have learned their lesson from HoT. That doesn’t sound like a glowing endorsement of HoT.

Razor.9872:

I feel like I’m one of the only people who actually really enjoyed HoT…

You are not alone in this. I am still enjoying HoT very much, Adventures notwithstanding, and have not yet completed all the content from the expansion.

However on a different note, I would like to commend IndigoSundown on their well thought out and well written post regarding MMO progression a couple days ago. While I think that to be one of the best explanations for progression in GW2, I thought I might perhaps still add a small bit to the conversation without repeating what has already been said so well.

First is that the horizontal progression systems are not solely the work of ArenaNet’s developers. Rather, they are the result of the Collaborative Development Initiatives (CDIs for short) that Anet initiated a few years ago as they were preparing for HoT. Much of what was included in HoT can be found in nascent form in those discussions as suggestions from players on what they wanted to see as kinds of meaningful progression. There is no question that Anet put their own interpretive stamp on the implementation of those suggestions, but at its core, HoT is what the active forum users at that time who were involved in the CDIs requested.

Secondly, there seems to be a focused dispute regarding “mandatory PvE content” and player freedom. Ironically, this discussion has echoes of the long running philosophical argument about determinism and free will, but I will leave those correlations aside for now. Within that discussion, one aspect that has yet remained without comment is the need for game design structure. Put at is most simple, the developers need to have SOME system to follow for progression. Progression is antithetical to wholly unstructured freeform playing. So too players need to have some idea what is expected of them and what they need to do in order for their characters (and/or accounts now) to develop and progress.

While leveling from 1-80 there is more of a sense of that freeform play because so many activities provide Experience Points (XP). Especially from within the perspective of Anet’s design choice to refrain from increasing character level cap, continuing solely with XP as the mode of character development simply does not make sense, especially since Anet decided to take several simultaneous modes of horizontal progression (Masteries, Elite Specs, added to already existing Fractal levels, WvW levels, etc).

Yet wholly abandoning XP did not either. The mastery point/experience point combination permits some of the benefit of the freeform playing that is so highly valued by one of the posters here while also requiring the player focus at least some of that play time within the new region doing specific tasks.

Finally, since there has been an appeal to initial game design at release, I will note that progression through specific, targeted tasks are not wholly without precedent even at game launch. The crafting system is wholly parallel to the regular XP system. One has to specifically focus effort on crafting to progress in crafting, and it is largely repetitive. Yet there are benefits for having taken the time to achieve those higher crafting levels. Appealing to initial game design as the pinnacle that must be regained neglects that Anet has designed gameplay this way from the beginning.

Cheers!

TLDR
- HoT progression came from player suggestions in CDIs
- Games require some form of structure for progression both for developers to make and players to know what to do
- An appeal to initial game release as the ideal design of freeform play neglects the entire crafting system present at release as a model for structured gameplay for progression.

So far, it feels like the only way I’d be able to get the XP bars up on my Masteries (core Tyria and HoT) is by:

1.) Gobble up any XP-boosting items you can get your hands on.
2.) Proceed to replay dynamic events, dungeons, etc. over and over until you get your XP bars up, one Mastery at a time.

It seems counter-intuitive. Look at levels 1 through 80 – you can get there by doing your PS, LS, and world map completion; you don’t even need to redo dynamic events or dungeons multiple times to get to 80; you do what is the next logical step. But at some point, there’s going to be an XP drought, and you’ll need to replay events and dungeons yet again to get XP for Masteries. That’s the issue I am seeing, and it’s making me feel unmotivated to keep playing my HoT 80.

Dashingsteel.3410:

The only thing out of context, Obtena, are your misrepresentation of other player’s posts. I don’t think it is speculation to say that HoT didn’t meet Anet’s expectations. They are putting HoT content on hold to rush the next expansion while saying that they have learned their lesson from HoT. That doesn’t sound like a glowing endorsement of HoT.

I didn’t debate HoT didn’t meet their expectations, I said I didn’t know how you come to the conclusion that Anet doesn’t know how to make an expansions because players complained about HoT. Reading Comp 4TW.

okay, I agree that Anet knows how to make expansions that garner many player complaints…… Do they know how to make a successful expansion?

I know in their past with gw1 they certainly did know how to do this but a lot of the people associated with gw1 aren’t there anymore.

Perhaps the CDI wasn’t such a good thing

Razor.9872:

I feel like I’m one of the only people who actually really enjoyed HoT…

I wish everyone could be as cheery as I am

I enjoy it too!

Dashingsteel.3410:

okay, I agree that Anet knows how to make expansions that garner many player complaints…… Do they know how to make a successful expansion?

Again, people complain even when things are good. Complaints aren’t limited to good and bad … they are also when things don’t work as players expect. Success … of course you’re going to say it isn’t because that makes your point, but Anet didn’t crash and burn, they are continuing development of the game … I guess I would say it was successful enough.

Dashingsteel.3410:

I know in their past with gw1 they certainly did know how to do this but a lot of the people associated with gw1 aren’t there anymore.

Perhaps the CDI wasn’t such a good thing

and perhaps it was. Anything is just speculation if you don’t have data to support your opinion.

“rpgs are opnly supposed to last an hour or two”

troll or kitten ?

Seriously?

You should have seen what the cost was at launch, if you picked up all of the skill points in the older maps you would need only a handful of skill points in Verdant Brink, plus they made the new areas way less punishing with most skill points soloable.

The price is too high but only because of perspective.

During BETA it was said buying expansion would UNLOCK elite specialisations, not be UNLOCKABLE.

It was at 400 points and only way to earn elites was to play HoT PvE… As a WvW player it did not sit well, especially with over 20 toons who were already level 80 and fully geared.

It was only just recently, some of us were given our privileges back (play how you want) by adding the option to unlock elites through other game modes.

Now as someone with over 20 toons, it’s easier to delete all except 1 of every class, strip all gear and just focus on those 9 toons left. No need to buy toon slots anymore at 800 gems each unless you’re keen on grinding, but again it’s a perspective thing.

HoT perspective is that Content = Grind.

My perspective is that Content = fun and playable.

To me, grinding is not enjoyable at all, but to others and the playerbase HoT aimed itself at, grinding for achievements is the ONLY game.

There wouldn’t be much of HoT if we didn’t have class mechanics to grind either, I think like a few legendaries and a couple of raid wings that are still getting released 6 months later?

It’s not that bad lol. Just grind wvw for a bit. Also if you’re trying to get reaper, necro is pretty good by itself if you spec blood magic and use dagger. I’m not saying that it is the be all end all but I found that adding reaper actually nerfed a build I had made. Just have some patience. Remember how in wow you had to get to level 50 in order to unlock deathknight class so gw2 is giving us all “hero classes” in the form of elite specs so look at it that way.

OriOri.8724:

Zorbakpants.5792:

I’d just like to say that HoT was a £30 expansion for the game, most DLC of this price point would add the following:
- more than 5 hours of content
- added features that aren’t walled behind 20+ hours of grind

HoT added neither. The story is a lost cause, and would take far too much work and money for ANet to fix, but the hero points would be one tweak of one number to fix the problem and stop gating the content behind unreasonably hard to solo content, which no-one who has done it before will join a group to complete, because there’s no incentive to. This would be solved if one of the following were true:
- there would be enough hero points in central Tyria to complete the elite specialization for a character
or
-the hero challenges in Heart of Thorns areas would be possible for most players to do without a group

EDIT: Grammar

There is nothing wrong with the amount of HP needed to fully unlock an elite spec. If you do all of the HP in central Tyria then you only need a handful of HoT hero points to finish the spec anyway, less than 5 iirc. And most of them are easy to solo, especially after the difficulty was nerfed.

This is true, the soloable ones are easy to solo. Getting to them though, that’s not so easy and has caused me to simply quit in frustration for a few days just so that I don’t start hating the game.

Zorbakpants.5792:

I’d just like to say that HoT was a £30 expansion for the game, most DLC of this price point would add the following:
- more than 5 hours of content
- added features that aren’t walled behind 20+ hours of grind

HoT added neither. The story is a lost cause, and would take far too much work and money for ANet to fix, but the hero points would be one tweak of one number to fix the problem and stop gating the content behind unreasonably hard to solo content, which no-one who has done it before will join a group to complete, because there’s no incentive to. This would be solved if one of the following were true:
- there would be enough hero points in central Tyria to complete the elite specialization for a character
or
-the hero challenges in Heart of Thorns areas would be possible for most players to do without a group

EDIT: Grammar

You can complete more than 20 HPs in HoT without ever having to ask for help, join a group, or solo a champion. That should be just about what you need to complete your elite spec.

Depending upon your skill level, you can complete a lot of the champion hero challenges solo as well.

Also, I dispute your comments on players not helping with hero challenges. First, there has been an obvious resurgence in interest in HoT since the April patch. There are tons of established players new to HoT buying the expansion when they wouldn’t at launch. There are also tons of players like myself who go out of their way to help.

Seriously! I actually zone into VB and TD quite frequently to ask if anyone needs help with hero challenges. I also make the offer on the forums quite often and have seen several others who do so as well. And when I’m in VB, I often hear calls for help and see other players respond.

It’s far from the ghost town you’re making it out to be.

Dashingsteel.3410:

The only thing out of context, Obtena, are your misrepresentation of other player’s posts. I don’t think it is speculation to say that HoT didn’t meet Anet’s expectations. They are putting HoT content on hold to rush the next expansion while saying that they have learned their lesson from HoT. That doesn’t sound like a glowing endorsement of HoT.

Huh? What are the ley line and bandit current events, then?

I think its sort of OK – but that’s only because ive just taken 4 characters through VB AB and TD ONLY to get enough Hero points to get their Elite in the past couple of weeks and ive almost got it down to a routine now.

I avoid most Meta’s unless im right in the middle of an event, Wallows and high level Gliding makes it all less annoying – I use Dulfy’s guides to pick off the ones I can solo then make sure to do the others prime time just after a map has completed but people are still hanging around, or look for HP runs being advertised. If you complete all of the HP in VB and AB you only need a few from TD and DS to finish your Elite.

Its the Masteries im having issues with – I gain XP far too fast to keep up enough Mastery points to use, I don’t want to do adventures so im pretty much stuck at the mid levels for each line.

“I payed 50$ so I deserve handouts”
I’ve paid more than 50$ and I still have to work for my stuff, so why shouldn’t you? If you were given something immediately there wouldn’t be much else to do if you couldn’t work for it.

It used to be alot more, but it was lowered, so its good now.

there should be an elite spec unlock in the gemshop for 5-15 bucks or so.

zaced.7948:

there should be an elite spec unlock in the gemshop for 5-15 bucks or so.

I have a feeling the PR fire storm that would accompany that would hurt the game a lot.

But even if that were implemented, think about it. You can buy all of HoT for 50 bucks from ANet, thirty-five bucks has been reported as a sale price from legit retailers. For that 50 bucks, or 35, you get nine elites (one of them in a profession you don’t get without HoT) as well as all the other things HoT offers. So unless you only want to buy one or two elites and never decide you want more, you’re not getting any kind of bargain at your ten dollar price point — no way would a full elite spec, one offered as an inducement to buy HoT and to play HoT, no way would that be at five bucks when mere outfits are closer to ten.

Donari.5237:

zaced.7948:

there should be an elite spec unlock in the gemshop for 5-15 bucks or so.

I have a feeling the PR fire storm that would accompany that would hurt the game a lot.

But even if that were implemented, think about it. You can buy all of HoT for 50 bucks from ANet, thirty-five bucks has been reported as a sale price from legit retailers. For that 50 bucks, or 35, you get nine elites (one of them in a profession you don’t get without HoT) as well as all the other things HoT offers. So unless you only want to buy one or two elites and never decide you want more, you’re not getting any kind of bargain at your ten dollar price point — no way would a full elite spec, one offered as an inducement to buy HoT and to play HoT, no way would that be at five bucks when mere outfits are closer to ten.

then let it be 15, i wouldn’t care. 20 might be a bit too much but i’d even pay that in the end i guess.
obviously you would need to buy hot in order to unlock the possibility for elite specs. the elite spec unlock would only be purchasable if you always have hot.

zaced.7948:

then let it be 15, i wouldn’t care. 20 might be a bit too much but i’d even pay that in the end i guess.
obviously you would need to buy hot in order to unlock the possibility for elite specs. the elite spec unlock would only be purchasable if you always have hot.

Now you have utterly confused me. I thought you meant people should be able to buy the elite spec without buying HoT. If you buy HoT, you have the unlock!

Unless you mean paying to avoid having to go collect the HP either in the HoT maps or in WvW. And there’s the PR firestorm again, as the gem store is philosophically meant for convenience and cosmetics, not actual character advancement; ANet would get blasted both for P2W and for greed. Are you looking for a way to get the elite spec fully trained without ever leaving the PVP lobby and matches? Then maybe you should be asking for a reward track (suitably long to require equal time and effort compared to the other two ways) that gives the tokens for HP exploration unlocks like happens in WvW.

Donari.5237:

zaced.7948:

then let it be 15, i wouldn’t care. 20 might be a bit too much but i’d even pay that in the end i guess.
obviously you would need to buy hot in order to unlock the possibility for elite specs. the elite spec unlock would only be purchasable if you always have hot.

Now you have utterly confused me. I thought you meant people should be able to buy the elite spec without buying HoT. If you buy HoT, you have the unlock!

Unless you mean paying to avoid having to go collect the HP either in the HoT maps or in WvW. And there’s the PR firestorm again, as the gem store is philosophically meant for convenience and cosmetics, not actual character advancement; ANet would get blasted both for P2W and for greed. Are you looking for a way to get the elite spec fully trained without ever leaving the PVP lobby and matches? Then maybe you should be asking for a reward track (suitably long to require equal time and effort compared to the other two ways) that gives the tokens for HP exploration unlocks like happens in WvW.

to clarify: i want to be able to buy elite spec unlock so i don’t have to farm hero points. or a pack of enough hero points to completely unlock the elite spec. or anything that gives me a complete elite spec without the necessity of doing boring “content”.

=> unlock in a sense that everything on that elite spec wheel in the training tab is “unlocked”.

how is such a thing not convenience? exp boost does something similar for masteries f.e.
the possibility of buying gold and using that to get endgame gear alone makes it pointless to talk about convenience vs “character advancement”.

Boosters to speed things up a little have been generally accepted by the community, though I’m not sure very many people spend actual cash directly on them given how they tend to pile up and the lack of wisdom inherent in draining cash into temporary benefits.

You’re asking not for convenience, ie for an easing of gameplay, but to outright skip it. If the game content is boring enough to you for you to put it in sarcastic quotes, and you don’t want to play, why in the world would you want to sink even more cash into a game you don’t enjoy?

Buying gold for gear isn’t quite the same thing. Unless you happen to enjoy the journey of crafting end game gear as some do, the gear is just your stat stick, as it were, needed to play (sorta needed. A lot of the game doesn’t need any remarkable, perfect armor and weapons).

I did suggest that PvP could use an HP acquisition method. Though maybe you have the full elite available in PvP lands if you have HoT and thus it’s moot? PvE one merely needs to hit up a few HoT HP, gaining loot from the combat ones and from any events tagged on the way. WvW apparently one gets random drops while playing WvW that turn into HP unlocks. Either way, you just need to play the game for a very short time to get the unlock.

The PR storm I’ve referenced isn’t my response, I’ll point out. I don’t mind people spending more money on this game, and elites are easy enough to unlock (I’ve done it 19 times, all via HoT HP) that I don’t personally think it would be ptw. I simply don’t think it’s worth how it would tarnish ANet’s image, or that it makes any sense for ANet to promote people extracting themselves from the maps. The more around the less the doomsayers cry “ghost town! The game is dead!”

Dashingsteel.3410:

The whole mastery point/hero point system defeats the “play as you want” aspect of the game that was so strong at launch. Experience and skill points were fine. You could choose to do the content you wanted to do. Nothing was handed to you in that system. It just didn’t force you to do the same content over and over with each character you make.

HoT just furthered the monstrosity that was the NPE.

Actually – forcing you to do the same content over and over with each character you make is exactly what the experience and hero point system did at launch. With masteries, once you get a mastery point, or train a mastery track, you never have to do it again on that account. You can play how you want within the zones to fill out the mastery tracks – I spent several days just leading and running the VB metas for fun to fill out my bar. Though getting the points themselves can be a hassle, there are more than enough to go around.

Donari.5237:

You’re asking not for convenience, ie for an easing of gameplay, but to outright skip it. If the game content is boring enough to you for you to put it in sarcastic quotes, and you don’t want to play, why in the world would you want to sink even more cash into a game you don’t enjoy?

why are you assuming i don’t enjoy 99% of the game (pvp, raids, dungeons, metas, world bosses, fractals, …) when i say i don’t enjoy channeling hero points for hours?
also i don’t have to watch my budget very tightly so “sinking” a few hundred into a game every now and then doesn’t hurt me much.

Donari.5237:

Buying gold for gear isn’t quite the same thing. Unless you happen to enjoy the journey of crafting end game gear as some do, the gear is just your stat stick, as it were, needed to play (sorta needed. A lot of the game doesn’t need any remarkable, perfect armor and weapons).

that’s complete bullkitten. you need gear as much as you often need the elite spec. if you wanna play raids or high level fractals you need your ascended gear as well as the elite spec in most cases. i can just outright buy the gear, why not the elite spec? it’s not about enjoying or not enjoying, it’s about the fact what you can or can not. i can buy 95% of what i need for the ascended gear on the tp with gold i got from gems. i merely suggest that the same should be possible for hero points.
if a person wants to skip to the “endgame” why not let them and make a buck or two with it? we have lvlup tomes and even a thing that instantly gives you max level. you can buy gold with gems to skip all the grind you need for the armor you need. why not just add the hero points which are less of a time investment than f.e. asc gear to the list? we’re already 90% there, let’s just take the last step and be done with it.
i did the journey with my first character. i leveled him properly, i played for my gear and i gathered the hero points. i acknowledge that this content exists but i have no enjoyment in playing it to the point that none other character has his elite spec because i’d rather swallow glass than farm hero points. you don’t have to understand or even accept it but i find that content so boring, i’d rather close the game than do it. that doesn’t mean i don’t enjoy the other 95% of the game, that’s just your premature assumption or a cheap pseudo-argument to cement your invalid point. what i want to play are lvl 90+ fractals, raids, dungeons and so on. i think i should have the option to skip stuff i don’t enjoy in return for financially supporting the game.
there is no reputation to tarnish. that would have went down the drain with gem -> gold exchange alone. it didn’t so people seem to be fine with it. why people would revolt when i can buy hero points when i already can buy 95% of everything else with cash is beyond me. how is skipping under 10 hours of channeling worse than skipping hundreds of hours of grinding? it seems to me skipping unwanted things is pretty well received in this game. from both sides, players and devs.

I personally think that the current amount is fine. It’s the amount of mastery XP needed with only one option of obtaining it I have a beef with.