Guild Wars 2

Kal Spiro.9745:

Seera.5916:

Halvorn.9831:

Seera.5916:

Halvorn.9831:

Tasao.4623:

Core gameplay should NOT be gated behind a grind.

What are you even talking about? In the core game, don’t you have to level to 80 in order to go to cursed shores? So cursed shores is gated behind a grind as well, isn’kitten

Nope, you can take a low level into Cursed Shore. The boundary doesn’t require you to be level 80.

…and be one-hit by rabbits running around there. Come on, you understand, what I want to say.

There are tomes one can use to bypass leveling if you’re a vet and don’t want to grind out to level 80.

There isn’t going to be anything like that for hero points.

Actually there is. It’s in WvW.

Lolololololol 400 ranks in WvW… you make it sound trivial. I know you are on TC and all but do you even WvW bruh? Lol

ColinJohanson.2394:

PlatinumMember.5274:

Unless I am mistaken just to unlock half of the training line, we need 212 hero points?

It’s 400 points total to unlock everything in an elite spec training line – I just can’t remember off hand how many points folks have currently if they have done all the existing ones, but it’s right around 200. The rest you’ll need to earn in jungle to unlock the deeper skills/traits/etc. in the training line.

You only need 60 hero points to begin using your elite spec, the points you spend after that continue to unlock more skills, traits, skins, etc.

Again, hero challenges are worth 10 points each in the jungle. So no you don’t need to go do 200-400 jungle challenges.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Runiir.6425:

Doesn’t matter what the rate is when you take into account you need every single point in the old maps as well. That x9 is too much.

Except you don’t! There are enough hero challenges in the jungle you don’t need to do any in the core tyrian world – those simply speed you up on day one if you already got them.

May we have a rough breakdown of the elite spec tracks, like at how many hero points will we have unlocked all the skills and traits with only the skins and the “etc” left

That would put a lot of minds at ease.

I do have to say though, not having to do the old pve maps to unlock the elite specs from scratch is a big plus that i am quite happy with.

Jim.4935:

Conner.5803:

Jim.4935:

Conner.5803:

Jim.4935:

This is what Colin said about unlocking the Elite Specs, Please read it before complaining about grind.

“It works just like any other training line – except all the skills, traits, skins, abilities, etc. are all inside one full training line that costs 400 points to get everything in the entire line. It costs 60 points to unlock and be able to play as the elite specialization itself.
Currently anyone who has done all the hero points in the world has about half of the entire elite spec line unlocked on day one. Hero challenges in the jungle are worth 10 points each, so you’ll only need to do about 20 hero challenges in the jungle [or via the new WvW system] to have everything related to your elite spec trained.
There are enough hero challenges in the jungle to train your entire elite spec and not do the challenges in core world if you wish – they simply speed you up if you’ve already got them.”

You can read that in 2 ways:

- You unlock all traits and skills with 60 heropoints and the skins with the remainder of heropoints.
- You unlock the very first minor thing in the training line, most likely a minor trait.

It was data mined that we would need 270 Hero Points to unlock the Elite Specs and now that they give us the base of the Elite Spec (traits and skills) for only 60 Hero Points people are crying on the forums asking for refunds.

You can keep claiming that you will unlock the traits and skills for 60 heropoints, but Colin didn’t confirm this at all. He said you need to have 60 heropoints to be able to play the elite spec. This could mean that it could only unlock the first minor trait which gives us the weapon and and the traitline. It makes us being able to play as the new elite spec, but it doesn’t mean we have all skills and traits unlocked.

So playing without your gyros is playing as an Elite Spec? I disagree with that.

Yes it is. You replaced one of the traitlines with a elite spec traitline turning you into that elite spec. You don’t need to be using any of the elite specs new skills or even their new weapon, but you will be using the elite spec.

Khenzy.9348:

Neva Eilhart.5347:

Khenzy.9348:

Jeez! It’s just 20 HP if you already have world completion. Or just (maybe) 40 if you don’t. You’re most likely going to get all of them in a single day, or in two to three days at most if you’re the “rushing” type.
You’re not going to get your elite spec instantly, and that’s totally fine, deal with it! And then you’re the same people that complain about lack of progression!

This community is so incredibly spoiled beyond belief.

Yeah, and now we’ll see huge zergs rushing through HP without caring about anything the new maps bring, just to unlock this spec, as you said, two or three days later. As if two or three days of HP farm-fest is going to provide players with a progression feeling.

This decision is a lazy one. You either gate content behind heavy-content stuff, or you give it to the players for “free” (considering players have to buy the xpac first). But you don’t lock it behind a system players will rush through in 24 hours. I mean, it isn’t hard to go to a point and hit “F” on your keyboard 40 times. It just annoys everyone who has tons of rerolls, newcomers who bought the xpac, and players who were expecting to play Revenant. And trust me, they won’t care about this “progression feeling” at all.

Most of you are throwing nonsensical hyperboles such as “just going to a point and press F”. A lazy decision? What/how do you even know how are these hero points going to be obtained? If you don’t like some of the hero challenges, or you don’t find them fun, you’re welcomed to come here to the forums and suggest alternatives, but these flat statements (before relase even!) have little to no contribution

—>

Neva Eilhart.5347:

But to me, you went the lazy way about it by tying it to Hero Points. You could have tied it to the personal story-line, so players could unlock their new powers as the story unfolds and Destiny’s Edge 1.0/2.0 unlocks it too. That would have been a nice addition to content.

There you go. You’re welcome.

14 pages of complaints because people don’t want to do a few hero challenges to get new skills… I’m perplexed.

It doesn’t take years to do 40 hero challenges, not months, not weeks, maybe a couple days.

Alukah.2063:

14 pages of complaint because people don’t want to do a few hero challenges to get new skills… I’m perplexed.

It doesn’t take years to do 40 hero challenges, not months, not weeks, maybe a couple days.

Try 320 hero challenges if you want to try out all of the specs and see where people are having some issue if they had been expecting to do so on or near day 1.

Not wanting to do it is only part of the complaints, read the entire 15 pages, there are a lot of good reasons for people to be upset besides not wanting to do them.

as long as I can unlock my chronomancer, gain the ability to use a shield, get the +25% perm run speed, I have nothing to complain about. As we progress into HoT, we will get the required unlocks to complete the classes.

its not THAT huge of a problem. Stocking 60pts for the initial Spec unlock is not that hard, then just start working for the rest.

And for those that do not want to bother with PvE, you can just WvW till your eyes bleed to gain all the unlocks.

So, to sum up this thread so far…

VerucaSalt.4753

I want it now!

Alukah.2063:

14 pages of complaints because people don’t want to do a few hero challenges to get new skills… I’m perplexed.

It doesn’t take years to do 40 hero challenges, not months, not weeks, maybe a couple days.

If you gave people everything day 1 they would complain, all that and that’s all we got? It’s amazing. Have 14 toons and map completion done on only 1. Not seeing this as that big of deal. But I admit I like to have goals to work towards. Actually prefer we don’t get bombed by everyone converting to elite specs since it will allow time for bugs and balance as we go. Now time will tell how closely packed the HPs are but it sounds like we have plenty of them. Add in the existing HPs from the existing areas and however they are going to work the WvW if they are recursive and it will add up fast. But on the forums, the sky is falling every day! Could be wrong as well, but this close to go date, lets see what we think in 3 days.

Edit: hit a kitten somehow.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Tasao.4623:

This is just flat out terrible. Core gameplay should NOT be gated behind a grind. Some of us play 9+ characters. You want to shut cosmetics behind grinds? You want to shut toys and vanity items behind grinds? You want to shut proportionate rewards behind grinds? Sure. Cool.
But it’s just plain bad design to shut core gameplay for the expansion specs out behind a long grind.

If you can unlock all the traits and skills in short order, that’s fine. It’s ok for the special skins to then take another 200+ points to unlock. But people are going to despise running around for the first week with a half-finished traitline and missing abilities.

Feeling forced to dash off into the jungle and skip content and rush hero points so I can fill out my trait line is going to directly reduce my desire to play GW2. When I think “I feel like playing my Mesmer now that Chronomancer is available” and then remember I need 100+ more points to unlock Chronomancer abilities and traits and the only way to get those points is to grind WvW or to skip jungle content in favor of focusing on hero challenges, I may well just not bother. Because this issue won’t just come up for Chronomancer. It’ll come up for Reaper, and Daredevil, and Berserker, and Tempest. It’ll come up for every single spec.

This is an incredibly alt-unfriendly design decision.

Considering the number of people who have told me I am a terrible forum specialist because I disagree with ANet’s choice to make elite specializations so expensive, I am just going to quote, +1, and emphasize this post here. This post perfectly reflects how I feel in the matter.

It reflects how I feel too!

skeeman.3140:

So, to sum up this thread so far…

VerucaSalt.4753

I want it to be reasonable and not see everyone blow through the content as fast as possible.

Fixed that for you.

Random.4691:

skeeman.3140:

So, to sum up this thread so far…

VerucaSalt.4753

I want it to be reasonable and not see everyone blow through the content as fast as possible.

Fixed that for you.

Oh come on Random, we are still going to have people do that regardless. There are going to be those people that are going to stay up straight for days on end so that they can say I am done! And then they are going to say, what’s next? Happens regardless.

edit: The quote of the quote shows in editting but doesn’t appear when posted….go figure.

I was worried when I saw 400 was required, as I only have 212 after doing everything. Then saw that we get 10 points per hero challenge and then there is core challenges as well and took a nice relieved breath.

Not so bad now. I have 8 characters (will be 9 with Revenant) all 80 who don’t all have that much hero points, but I’m not too worried. Gives me something to work towards now. And seeing as I don’t play them all 24/7, I can easily prioritize who to work on the most.

All in all, I’m looking forward to it. It’s not too high, but still high enough that it will require a bit of work. Good job.

Zypher.7609:

All I am reading is a few people upset about the change that keep posting every few post trying to say how bad this will be.

I understand this is a casual game, but logging on and getting everything for every character is just not going to happen. There is nothing wrong with having to play the game on each character to get the elite specs.

The issue being this decision forces players to NOT play the game they want to play. This decision forces players to go play content they might not want to play or replay in order to just access the base functionality of elite specs.
Imagine you’ve gotten Maguuma Map Mastery on one, two, or even three characters. Maybe you have all 3 new legendaries. Now imagine you have 6 more characters you WANT to play but you’re sick of grinding the jungle and don’t like WvW.

You have no choice. Your only option is to grind out a lot of content you’ve already completed or that you just don’t like in order to play your Elite specs in raids, against world bosses, in dungeons, etc.

I don’t understand why they’re doing this. It’s bad for players and bad for developers.

For instance, I main an ele but at this point I won’t even bother unlocking tempest to try it as I think it will be a waste of time given the info we have so far. So I am better off switching my main to something I really want to play since it takes such an investment for alts / changing main.

Alpha.1308:

DeWolfe.2174:

Tigerlily.3765:

I am very sad about this. In my view, elite specs are not content, they are a way to enjoy the content. I was really looking forward to trying out the specs in Halloween and new HoT content. Now I will be largely incentivized to rush through as many hero points as possible and then finish up in WvW first, just so I can get my spec. I really wanted to take my time through the jungle, but I want to play the elite specs while doing it…

Wait… wait…. wait…. you and many others are thinking about this all wrong. In a role playing sense, we (our characters) are entering new lands. The new land has unexpected challenges which we must evolve and adapt to. The Masteries and Specializations are the result of the time spent in the jungle adapting to it. We’re not supposed to have a magic ^poof^ you’re super now at the beginning.

“magic poof”
you can throw fireballs from your fingertips when shaemoor is under attack, but you can’t jump into a jungle and learn new spells
what even is this argument

Because we’re adults and those are our chosen professions as adults.

Jim.4935:

Seera.5916:

TheDaiBish.9735:

Is that 400 points in total or 400 points just for the skills and traits?

The reason I ask is because I think someone said before that the weapon and armour skins were at the end of the track to be unlocked so all the functional stuff could be gotten first (I think it was a PoI, but not too sure), in which case it wouldn’t be 400 points to unlock the track, skills and traits.

400 with everything, but everything’s in the same line and we only know that the weapon skin is the final unlock. We don’t know where the other skin and non-trait/skill items are located or how many points those are worth.

The traits and skills are in the first 60 Hero Points. “Such a grind”

No, that is not what was said. If that is all it is, we wouldn’t have an issue at all.

That is 60 hero points just to unlock essentially the first minor trait in the elite spec.

The number of people who are now going to do is going to much much higher. While I’m sure some people want it just handed to them, I’m seeing a lot of people saying they don’t mind working for it but the current number Anet has come up with is to high.

Here’s another example of what is troubling for one set of players, the only reason for a WvW player to even buy the Xpac is the elites, anything else they need is being implemented for free. The 200 WvW ranks people will need will take weeks not days, and that’s for the hard core WvW players.

Great decision ArenaNet.

Most people that play RPGs like a sense of character progression.
Since now our character progression is horizontal progression with elite specializations, I am very happy to see that I won’t get my full elite spec on the first 5 minutes of the expansion.
I hope no amount of QQ and backlash is enough to make you guys change course.

For a future expansion, a suggestion I would make is to include the new skill points during the beta and make people need them to unlock the elite specs (even if it is at a accelerated pace), so people don’t get the unrealistic expectation that everything will be handed out to them on a silver platter.

please dont take this as rage or hate or anything but i gotta vent im a little ….meh.

So i main necro, followed the scrapper hype all through the info releases. After trying it on the beta weekend i was hooked. I had a partially leveled engy, so i finished it, grinded out all his skills, all his exotics, some ascended, crafting , bought skins went HAM.

now i find out, to even play the elite spec, i have to grind ANOTHER at least 170 points.

So doing the math, thats either basically doing map complete now in 3 days to find enough to unlock it. OR waiting till HoT, where they are 10 points each. BUT assuming 5-10 per map like currents maps, i will be half way through HoT open world content BEFORE even being able to use the spec properly.

Like i said im not raging but i cant lie, kinda killed the hype for release when i know its just going to be a grind to even START playing.

“Play how you want” ha, ya right.

Have fun farming literally hundreds of hero point challenges if you like playing more than a few characters regularly. :-) RNGesus save the altaholics.

/sigh

(Silver platter) here yah go. The whole game unlocked for you. Enjoy.

DDCarvalho.2071:

Great decision ArenaNet.

Most people that play RPGs like a sense of character progression.
Since now our character progression is horizontal progression with elite specializations, I am very happy to see that I won’t get my full elite spec on the first 5 minutes of the expansion.
I hope no amount of QQ and backlash is enough to make you guys change course.

For a future expansion, a suggestion I would make is to include the new skill points during the beta and make people need them to unlock the elite specs (even if it is at a accelerated pace), so people don’t get the unrealistic expectation that everything will be handed out to them on a silver platter.

That will surely help them test the future elite specs …

Progression and accomplishment is good but there’s a fine line between good and overboard.

Blame all the anti fun ppl at anet

… So in order to play the new content with the specializations, I need to play and likely complete most of the new content?

That’s really disappointing, oh well on the plus side I can delete my engineer.

I created it thinking I could lvl it using my Elite Specialization since the kit system was so awful and the hammer was cool, now I know I would need to complete all other Specializations and the new map to get to play the character the way I want to.

Seriously, the Elite Specialization is supposed to be a whole new way to play the profession, not a straight up upgrade so why treat as such? And why wall it behind not only the other specializations but also the new content? What, the devs think we’ll get our elite specs then not play the new content or sothing!?

Thank God SWTOR released their expansion, so I’ll have something to play this weekend, I kinda lost the will to play HOT now, the new content I was looking forward to now feels like, well grind…

DDCarvalho.2071:

Great decision ArenaNet.

Most people that play RPGs like a sense of character progression.
Since now our character progression is horizontal progression with elite specializations, I am very happy to see that I won’t get my full elite spec on the first 5 minutes of the expansion.
I hope no amount of QQ and backlash is enough to make you guys change course.

For a future expansion, a suggestion I would make is to include the new skill points during the beta and make people need them to unlock the elite specs (even if it is at a accelerated pace), so people don’t get the unrealistic expectation that everything will be handed out to them on a silver platter.

I’m going to state it again. The number of people not understanding that we are not complaining about working for it. We are complaining about the high point cost for every character, that many will in essence be grinding the maps over and over, not by choice, but by necessity to get the elite specs.

Isn’t this just like lvling up like in the other game expansions? Why is this a problem now?

Hexalot.8194:

The thing is, those people who are looking at the 10 hero points per hero challenge in the HOT jungle and figuring this should get you to 400 quickly are forgetting one thing… chances are a lot of the challenge locations are going to be unreachable unless you first unlock and level up the requisite masteries (gliding, mushroom jumping, etc…). So don’t be surprised if you first have to grind mastery levels before you can complete the jungle hero challenges.

They also have not specified how hard the new challenges will be. Are they comparable to in core tyria (so anywhere from ‘just walk right up to something with no obstacles or threats’ to ‘fight off a dozen vets’) or is a typical new one like taking on a VW champ single-handedly?

Also how many HPs are in the jungle would be nice to know. In the open world I figure the threshold of ones I can solo with reasonable odds is 140-150. So there is no reason to expect that ratio would not be about the same in the jungle.

Its less than 3 days till release. Just have some patience.

Gating core game mechanics like that is really bad. How will we test / know a player joining our fractal party / dungeon / raid / etc even has the elite line unlocked vs just got the first trait with 60 points and runs around with empty traits?

How is this making things any better?

lmfao everyone so kitten

Warscythes.9307:

Isn’t this just like lvling up like in the other game expansions? Why is this a problem now?

This isn’t another game, and no it’s not like leveling up, the new spec are suppose to be in line with the old, they are not more powerful according to Anet. Also we already have the pre-requisite that we need to have all the core specs first so why is there a ridiculously high point cost after that ?

Gold for notarized scrolls would be a perfect option

Warscythes.9307:

Isn’t this just like lvling up like in the other game expansions? Why is this a problem now?

Because this isn’t just any other game, this is Guild Wars. GW2 isn’t supposed to make you grind your levels, it’s supposed to have horizontal progression where players play at their own will, in their own time, at their own pace, to enjoy the game. Now, in order to play the elite specializations that many bought the expansion for, people will not be taking their time to enjoy their game. They’ll be burning through and grinding for hero points and masteries just so they could unlock elite specs. Not for one character, but for every single frigging characters and many people by now have many many characters.

I’d much rather they let us have elite spec to play with right away, so we can work on cosmetic points and masteries at our own pace. Let us explore the map at our own pace without feeling like we need to rush through it just to unlock the elite specs.

Same with those WvW enthusiasts. I’d rather they let me play Reaper which I had a wonderful time playing over beta weekends. Now I’ll be stuck playing a base necro grinding and ktraining just so I can speed rank up to unlock the Reaper. That’s not fun, that’s a grind. It doesn’t fit GW2’s philosophy.

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

I’m going to state it again. The number of people not understanding that we are not complaining about working for it. We are complaining about the high point cost for every character, that many will in essence be grinding the maps over and over, not by choice, but by necessity to get the elite specs.

We don’t even know how many of the points are skill/trait unlocks and how many are cosmetic skins. So we don’t have information enough to complain about the " high point cost".

Even though that information would be nice, I choose to trust ArenaNet before starting to cry “oh no! I will have to play 10 hours on my revenant to play the elite spec skills”.

By the way 10 hours per character to unlock skills and traits would be fine by me . I fear that in WvW this time may be a bit higher than that. Get on it Anet!

Random.4691:

Warscythes.9307:

Isn’t this just like lvling up like in the other game expansions? Why is this a problem now?

This isn’t another game, and no it’s not like leveling up, the new spec are suppose to be in line with the old, they are not more powerful according to Anet. Also we already have the pre-requisite that we need to have all the core specs first so why is there a ridiculously high point cost after that ?

Leveling in up as in playing the content I suppose, I mean your character is learning something new and different is the point no? The 400 point cost is only if you want skins/runes/sigils right? Trait+skills is probably half of that. 200 points or 20 HoT challenges sounds simple enough. If you have multiple characters, then well expect to spend more time than usual to get the spec.

Preecha Paradigm.2948:

DO NOT CHANGE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE ELITE SPEC.

DO CHANGE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE ELITE SPEC.

Even forgetting everything about grinding and what not you are missing something pretty crucial. Almost all of what they have talked of about HOT since day 1 has been how awesome each specs was. People were then playing with them all through the BWEs so took them for granted. So you are shocked people actually assumed they could, oh, use them by buying HOT?

I have to say I don’t understand the forums.

Previously: Everything is too easy! We have nothing to do! Give us something, anything to do!

Now: OMG! You want us to do stuff??? This is uncalled for! Way too much to do!

Poor Devs.

170 points, absolutely fine … it was a bit of a chore but I was up for it. In fact the past few days I’ve been running my various alts around the maps grinding out Hero points in preparation.
400 though? No. Too much.
10 points per HoT hero challenge? No. Reduce it to 1 point per challenge and reduce the total required to something more sensible.

I think I’m going to take a bit of a break for a bit … this has just made me too angry.

gavyne.6847:

Warscythes.9307:

Isn’t this just like lvling up like in the other game expansions? Why is this a problem now?

Because this isn’t just any other game, this is Guild Wars. GW2 isn’t supposed to make you grind your levels, it’s supposed to have horizontal progression where players play at their own will, in their own time, at their own pace, to enjoy the game. Now, in order to play the elite specializations that many bought the expansion for, people will not be taking their time to enjoy their game. They’ll be burning through and grinding for hero points and masteries just so they could unlock elite specs. Not for one character, but for every single frigging characters and many people by now have many many characters.

I’d much rather they let us have elite spec to play with right away, so we can work on cosmetic points and masteries at our own pace. Let us explore the map at our own pace without feeling like we need to rush through it just to unlock the elite specs.

Same with those WvW enthusiasts. I’d rather they let me play Reaper which I had a wonderful time playing over beta weekends. Now I’ll be stuck playing a base necro grinding and ktraining just so I can speed rank up to unlock the Reaper. That’s not fun, that’s a grind. It doesn’t fit GW2’s philosophy.

But is not a grind though, hero challenges assuming they follow the same setup is pretty much asking you to explore the map. That’s called playing the game. As for people pressured to rush through content to get their specs, I mean didn’t people do that in the first place before when they are below level 80? Some chose to take their time, some chose to rush no? Did you feel pressured to rush to lvl 80 so you can play your complete spec? If no, then why now?

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I have to say I don’t understand the forums.

Previously: Everything is too easy! We have nothing to do! Give us something, anything to do!

Now: OMG! You want us to do stuff??? This is uncalled for! Way too much to do!

Poor Devs.

they are different people is it that hard to understand?

im fairly new to the game, ive never made a too easy post or anything.
im just a little disappointed that i wont get to experience nearly 50% of the new maps without the spec i basically stayed around the game to get into.

im sorry i didnt mean to offend anyone im just saying how i feel.
and that is disappointed.

Oh this SUCKS! I don’t want to be a Necromancer. I’m only interested in playing as a Reaper. The current Necromancer base class feels very underwhelming and clunky and weak to me. It’s not enjoyable at all.

Now I gotta grind out a ton of hero points in a game that promises no grind just so I can play the way I want in a game that promises we can always play how we want? No thanks. This really has just completely reversed all the hype I had for HoT and makes me regret picking up this game again.

Also, wait a second, so let me get this straight. We go into Maguuma Jungle, and unlock the first half, at most, of our new spec. And then if we want to actually use that spec immediately, we have to use a trait line that isn’t finished? So we’re literally handicapping ourselves while we skip past all the other HoT content and head straight to all the hero challenges? That sounds like such a brilliant idea…

Seera.5916:

Alukah.2063:

14 pages of complaint because people don’t want to do a few hero challenges to get new skills… I’m perplexed.

It doesn’t take years to do 40 hero challenges, not months, not weeks, maybe a couple days.

Try 320 hero challenges if you want to try out all of the specs and see where people are having some issue if they had been expecting to do so on or near day 1.

Now that’s your problem, they cannot dumb down the game for everyone else because little john over there has dozens of alts and doesn’t want to put any effort into the game.

I mean, you guys act like this is a new situation, if you want another class you already have to do all that work leveling it, it’s not instant level 80, nor it comes with everything unlocked, same with waypoints, map completions, etc. Work on one spec at a time and you will have all the hero points in no time, there’s no need to have everything unlocked on day 1 after it’s released.

Delius.1968:

I don’t understand why they’re doing this. It’s bad for players and bad for developers.

For instance, I main an ele but at this point I won’t even bother unlocking tempest to try it as I think it will be a waste of time given the info we have so far. So I am better off switching my main to something I really want to play since it takes such an investment for alts / changing main.

It’s not bad for neither players nor developers, it’s not unheard of in the gaming industry that you have to play new content in order to access new abilities. You’re just plain lazy and want everything unlocked on day 1.

Tasao.4623:

Zypher.7609:

All I am reading is a few people upset about the change that keep posting every few post trying to say how bad this will be.

I understand this is a casual game, but logging on and getting everything for every character is just not going to happen. There is nothing wrong with having to play the game on each character to get the elite specs.

The issue being this decision forces players to NOT play the game they want to play. This decision forces players to go play content they might not want to play or replay in order to just access the base functionality of elite specs.
Imagine you’ve gotten Maguuma Map Mastery on one, two, or even three characters. Maybe you have all 3 new legendaries. Now imagine you have 6 more characters you WANT to play but you’re sick of grinding the jungle and don’t like WvW.

You have no choice. Your only option is to grind out a lot of content you’ve already completed or that you just don’t like in order to play your Elite specs in raids, against world bosses, in dungeons, etc.

Again, hero points don’t take that long to get, you’re blowing this way out of proportion.

They have always made decisions that force people to try out different parts of the game, this is nothing new, and honestly this is mild compared to the old requirement to have WvW for world completion, or legendaries requiring you to literally play everything the game has to offer, even things you might dislike.

Reminder that this isn’t a sandbox game, this is a themepark and you are still playing in whatever way they want you to play.

have we actually had official word on how many hero points the unlock will require?

Um, why not simply play it normally while you eventually unlock stuff as you get used to it?
I personally prefer enjoying the game rather than rushing it to the part I want to experience the most.
Its far more fun if you treat it like an adventure.

Warscythes.9307:

gavyne.6847:

Warscythes.9307:

Isn’t this just like lvling up like in the other game expansions? Why is this a problem now?

Because this isn’t just any other game, this is Guild Wars. GW2 isn’t supposed to make you grind your levels, it’s supposed to have horizontal progression where players play at their own will, in their own time, at their own pace, to enjoy the game. Now, in order to play the elite specializations that many bought the expansion for, people will not be taking their time to enjoy their game. They’ll be burning through and grinding for hero points and masteries just so they could unlock elite specs. Not for one character, but for every single frigging characters and many people by now have many many characters.

I’d much rather they let us have elite spec to play with right away, so we can work on cosmetic points and masteries at our own pace. Let us explore the map at our own pace without feeling like we need to rush through it just to unlock the elite specs.

Same with those WvW enthusiasts. I’d rather they let me play Reaper which I had a wonderful time playing over beta weekends. Now I’ll be stuck playing a base necro grinding and ktraining just so I can speed rank up to unlock the Reaper. That’s not fun, that’s a grind. It doesn’t fit GW2’s philosophy.

But is not a grind though, hero challenges assuming they follow the same setup is pretty much asking you to explore the map. That’s called playing the game. As for people pressured to rush through content to get their specs, I mean didn’t people do that in the first place before when they are below level 80? Some chose to take their time, some chose to rush no? Did you feel pressured to rush to lvl 80 so you can play your complete spec? If no, then why now?

Because through ANet hyping the elite specs and not giving out information on the number of hero points, people got an expectation that they would be able to play the elite with all traits and skills on or near day 1. ANet had to have seen those threads yet chose to remain silent. Then 3 days before launch tells players that that may not actually be possible. Especially for those wanting to test out more than one or two elite specs on or near launch.

And some were planning on testing out all 9 elite specs. That’s 3600 hero points needed. 360 hero challenges in the jungle if they don’t have any extra hero points after maxing out all of their core traits and skills. Now tell me you wouldn’t feel a bit miffed that in order to do what you had planned, you were going to have either grind or give up your desire to test them all out in a few days.

binidj.5734:

170 points, absolutely fine … it was a bit of a chore but I was up for it. In fact the past few days I’ve been running my various alts around the maps grinding out Hero points in preparation.
400 though? No. Too much.
10 points per HoT hero challenge? No. Reduce it to 1 point per challenge and reduce the total required to something more sensible.

I think I’m going to take a bit of a break for a bit … this has just made me too angry.

How about 170 Tyria hero points and about 20 HoT hero points for a total of 190. Or better yet, just 40 HoT hero points. This of course all assuming that HoT hero challenge award just a single point. You said that 190 was absolutely fine so why not another 20 or just 40 that are completely from the new region.

I see people calling for elite account bound. Have people in the past wanted the core skill the same way before? I known it goes through a few changes since the start, and I arrived before this final way it been, but I never seen people wanting character skill to be account bound before.

Malachi Draven.2865:

Oh this SUCKS! I don’t want to be a Necromancer. I’m only interested in playing as a Reaper. The current Necromancer base class feels very underwhelming and clunky and weak to me. It’s not enjoyable at all.

Now I gotta grind out a ton of hero points in a game that promises no grind just so I can play the way I want in a game that promises we can always play how we want? No thanks. This really has just completely reversed all the hype I had for HoT and makes me regret picking up this game again.

Also, wait a second, so let me get this straight. We go into Maguuma Jungle, and unlock the first half, at most, of our new spec. And then if we want to actually use that spec immediately, we have to use a trait line that isn’t finished? So we’re literally handicapping ourselves while we skip past all the other HoT content and head straight to all the hero challenges? That sounds like such a brilliant idea…

Yep, just like when you started the game you had to grind all those 80 levels in a game that promises no grind, just so you can play the way you want in a game that the devs have always decided how you should play (they control this through material or gold output, or flat out removing content).

It’s a completely new scenario that has never been seen in this game.