Guild Wars 2

10 per HOT hero points….it’s not gonna be hard you all just complaining about nothing. That’s like 20 hero challenges if u have completed map comp til now and like 40 if not, that’s really nothing.

So, from scratch, is the number 250 HP or is the number 400 HP?

I’m not too worried on my two mains, whom each have nearly 400HP extra after my skills and specialization have been fleshed out to where I want them. I figured the points would become more useful at some point so have sat on them a long time.

Unfortunately, HP seems to be character bound, as they should be, I suppose. So, for a new alt, I have enough scrolls to start a new 80 with 26HP, so I’m more concerned in this case, what the cost is from scratch. Is it more time effective to level to 80, then use my 76 scrolls for HP. I’m thinking probably. Opinions?

The 170 points needed will be to unlock EVERYTHING.
I assume to unlock all the traits/skills it’s gonna be the normal 75-125.
And anyway, getting hero points will make you go through the map, and get you waypoints, nobody can complain about unlocking waypoints. plus you don’t have to do hearts, which is the only reason map completion takes so long.

Hey Colin thanks for the info been wondering about this for a while. Glad to hear that my elite spec won’t just be handed to me and I’ll actually be able to progressively unlock it as I travel through the jungle. Really cool. Keep up the good work and can’t wait for launch this Friday.

Leamas.5803:

So, from scratch, is the number 250 HP or is the number 400 HP?

I’m not too worried on my two mains, whom each have nearly 400HP extra after my skills and specialization have been fleshed out to where I want them. I figured the points would become more useful at some point so have sat on them a long time.

Unfortunately, HP seems to be character bound, as they should be, I suppose. So, for a new alt, I have enough scrolls to start a new 80 with 26HP, so I’m more concerned in this case, what the cost is from scratch. Is it more time effective to level to 80, then use my 76 scrolls for HP. I’m thinking probably. Opinions?

You don’t get HP from items.

Leamas.5803:

So, from scratch, is the number 250 HP or is the number 400 HP?

I’m not too worried on my two mains, whom each have nearly 400HP extra after my skills and specialization have been fleshed out to where I want them. I figured the points would become more useful at some point so have sat on them a long time.

Unfortunately, HP seems to be character bound, as they should be, I suppose. So, for a new alt, I have enough scrolls to start a new 80 with 26HP, so I’m more concerned in this case, what the cost is from scratch. Is it more time effective to level to 80, then use my 76 scrolls for HP. I’m thinking probably. Opinions?

The number is 400 after you unlock all your current traits and skills. So, get to level 80 and fully unlock, then get 400 more points. Scrolls won’t get you HP either, they’ll get you spirit shards. Your mains will have to buy everything with their points, not just 3 trait lines and 2 skill types (eg), before they can open the elite.

You will have to do in-map hero challenges, or rank up in WvW.

Narrrz.7532:

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

Yes, you need 400 to fully unlock all traits, skills, skins, etc. However challenges in the jungle will give you 10 hero points.

Alukah.2063:

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.

So you found it ok that for that past several weeks, ANet has not answered the how many hero points will it take question despite people asking explicitly and people posting how they wanted to test multiple elite specs out on day one then 3 days from launch when people have developed the expectation of being able to test them out fully unlocked on day one telling people that that’s not possible? And then when people ask for more details going silent on the issue again? Which gets the already wary players on edge as they think they’re being quiet because it’s the opposite of what ANet knows will make people happy.

And we have no way of knowing if HoT hero challenges will be as easy as the ones we currently have. They could be more difficult.

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

I totally agree with this.

The main reason why I and many, many others love the RPG genre is because, among other things, there’s a very strong sense of gradual progression. That is half of a RPG’s gameplay experience. Instant gratification goes away as fast as it comes, while earned gratification is lasting feeling.

I can understand why people with alts might find repetitive progression annoying. For that, there’s always a solution that Anet can do: make the hero point scrolls from wvw also obtainable/ purchasable by characters that have completed the new magumma maps, so that players can use them on their alts.

But outside of that? Outside of players with a lot of alts, this “content gating” is not only expected by any RPG, but also desirable to create a sense of personal growth. Masteries are cool, legendary collectibles are cool, but they’re not everything, and not all players who love progression might find them enough to satisfy their playing experience. Elite spec progression fills an important hole.

yep you need 400

DiogoSilva.7089:

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

I totally agree with this.

The main reason why I and many, many others love the RPG genre is because, among other things, there’s a very strong sense of gradual progression. That is half of a RPG’s gameplay experience.

I can understand why people with alts might find repetitive progression annoying. For that, there’s always a solution that Anet can do: make the hero point scrolls from wvw also obtainable/ purchasable by characters that have completed the new magumma maps, so that players can use them on their alts.

But outside of that? Outside of players with a lot of alts, this “content gating” is not only expected by any RPG, but also desirable to create a sense of personal growth. Masteries are cool, legendary collectibles are cool, but they’re not everything, and not all players who love progression might find them enough to satisfy their playing experience. Elite spec progression is also needed.

I don’t have any issue with the number of points needed. None what so ever.

I’m highly sympathetic to the ones who aren’t too happy because ANet decided to wait until 3 days before launch to let people know how many points despite players asking for weeks.

Warscythes.9307:

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

No, it’s much easier, people only have to run to the specific hero points in each map and that’s it.

Alukah.2063:

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.

LOL

This would be like making me do 10 pushups at the cinema before they hand me a pair of 3D glasses – cause I have to work for seeing a movie in 3D (new mechanic).

Of course it’s a game – entertainment that I paid for. That’s why I’m lazy and would like to have my class mechanics on day 1 please. Content – I am excited to spend the time to uncover it and be awed with every mastery.

How I play my class… Not so much – I just feel locked out of the entertainment I paid for.

PS: this is really bad for developers because they are effectively forcing tons of players to run around with empty traits – ineffectively, and are declaring the core game obsolete (hot is worth 10:1 core HP and you can get everything you need in hot skipping all core content). Bad bad. :/

Narrrz.7532:

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

ColinJohanson.2394:

Unlocking your elite spec is a training line in your training panel that costs hero points. You do need to have trained all the existing training lines before you’re allowed to put hero points into your elite spec.

If you’ve got all the hero points in the existing game you’ll have enough to train about half the elite specialization training line on launch day. The rest you’ll need to earn in the jungle or via the new system Tyler outlined yesterday from WvW. The number of points to fully train your elite spec is higher than other training lines – but hero challenges in the jungle are worth 10 points each, so it’s not actually as big as it appears.

ColinJohanson.2394:

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.

I seriously don’t understand the rationale behind this. It’s almost like you guys want people to rush through the content as quickly as they can just to unlock the build they want, and then complain about not having anything to do with the new build because all of the content is already done by the time they got to use it.

This just screams poor design choice to me. The people who would want to grind their way up could just do so voluntarily, and the rest of us could actually enjoy ALL of the content at a pace and sequence of our choice.

Furthermore, the shifting of weight so heavily in favor of Maguuma challenges over that of the base game completely devalues everything we currently have. Why would anyone want to bother playing vanilla map content anymore when they can just boost to 80 and then unlock everything they need much more efficiently by going to the jungle?

I haven’t heard one good reason why we were only told 3 days before launch. This indicates that they knew it wouldn’t go down well and were happy to let people believe they would have access to elite spec on launch. Maybe they thought it would affect HoT sales, who knows. They could have mentioned this at any time before now but choose not to. I call skulduggery and shenanigans of the highest order.

Let’s see … I already got all the traits so far unlocked just from getting to level 80, then I got all those other points from getting map completion … I may only need 1 or 2 more hero points to get the elites …. Not bad ANet … Like it a lot.

Donari.5237:

Leamas.5803:

So, from scratch, is the number 250 HP or is the number 400 HP?

I’m not too worried on my two mains, whom each have nearly 400HP extra after my skills and specialization have been fleshed out to where I want them. I figured the points would become more useful at some point so have sat on them a long time.

Unfortunately, HP seems to be character bound, as they should be, I suppose. So, for a new alt, I have enough scrolls to start a new 80 with 26HP, so I’m more concerned in this case, what the cost is from scratch. Is it more time effective to level to 80, then use my 76 scrolls for HP. I’m thinking probably. Opinions?

The number is 400 after you unlock all your current traits and skills. So, get to level 80 and fully unlock, then get 400 more points. Scrolls won’t get you HP either, they’ll get you spirit shards. Your mains will have to buy everything with their points, not just 3 trait lines and 2 skill types (eg), before they can open the elite.

You will have to do in-map hero challenges, or rank up in WvW.

My mistake. The scrolls used to give you skill points, which were converted to HP, but the scrolls were converted to give spirit shards (Not skillpoints/HP) past level 80. I missed the subtlety when looking at my characters. So, I’m looking at 400…ouch.

May I pay another 50 dollars to unlock all the elite specialization?
50 dollars is worth less than the time I would waste on the HP train for my 9 characters

Exciton.8942:

May I pay another 50 dollars to unlock all the elite specialization?
50 dollars is worth less than the time I would waste on the HP train for my 9 characters

This.

Seera.5916:

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.

I totally agree on the bad information part, they always seem to have this great idea but totally screw up on the PR department for some reason eh.

If you just want to test the specs? Hop to PvP, everything is unlocked and everything is rainbows and ponies.

Also is not 400 per line, that’s if you include skins/runes/sigils, traits/skills will be probably be half of that if not less. That’s fairly reasonable.

Seera.5916:

I don’t have any issue with the number of points needed. None what so ever.

I’m highly sympathetic to the ones who aren’t too happy because ANet decided to wait until 3 days before launch to let people know how many points despite players asking for weeks.

I can understand that, but it’s also possible that Anet’s final decision on those numbers was only done relatively recent.

Delius.1968:

How I play my class… Not so much – I just feel locked out of the entertainment I paid for.

But sense of progression IS entertaining. Have you never played any other RPG? The entire genre exists and is popular because people ARE entertained by progression (among other things too, of course). Even the entire facebook/ browser casual gaming fad relied on RPG progression mechanics to keep players addicted (regardless of how flawed those casual games may have been generally).

I mean, what do people expect when they decide to play a MMORPG?

GW2 promised a grind-free experience for vertical progression, but it did never promise a progression-free experience.

Drizzy.1268:

Exciton.8942:

May I pay another 50 dollars to unlock all the elite specialization?
50 dollars is worth less than the time I would waste on the HP train for my 9 characters

This.

Except that I already paid $100 :/

Delius.1968:

Alukah.2063:

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.

LOL

This would be like making me do 10 pushups at the cinema before they hand me a pair of 3D glasses – cause I have to work for seeing a movie in 3D (new mechanic).

Of course it’s a game – entertainment that I paid for. That’s why I’m lazy and would like to have my class mechanics on day 1 please. Content – I am excited to spend the time to uncover it and be awed with every mastery.

How I play my class… Not so much – I just feel locked out of the entertainment I paid for.

PS: this is really bad for developers because they are effectively forcing tons of players to run around with empty traits – ineffectively, and are declaring the core game obsolete (hot is worth 10:1 core HP and you can get everything you need in hot skipping all core content). Bad bad. :/

This must be your first MMORPG then, this is the standard for any game, actually no this is much easier than what is expected in other games, it doesn’t matter how much money you spent, you bought a product to play it the way the devs intended to, if you don’t like it you’re free to make your own game and play it yourself.

PS: Your analogy sucks since you already got to 80 and went through a bigger grind for content you paid for.

DiogoSilva.7089:

…

GW2 promised a grind-free experience for vertical progression, but it did never promise a progression-free experience.

You’re confusing masteries (progression that I am looking forward to) with class mechanics (that I paid for as part of an expansion).

Yes, and that sucks. They should change that before launch.

Pezz.4758:

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.

To be fair, there where to be the “new progression” along with masteries. Wouldn’t be much progression if we had them almost immediately would it?

A good videogame should be about the journey, not only about the destination. As long as the journey to horizontal progression/ elite spec unlocking is enjoyable, then it fulfills the basic need of what a video game should fulfill: being enjoyable.

Honestly I could care less about how many HP we need to unlock the elite specs. What ticks me off is how short of notice we got.

Sure am looking forward to doing this 9 times for each class.

For a game that’s historically been so alt-friendly, this is basically outright hostility towards altaholics.

Delius.1968:

You’re confusing masteries (progression that I am looking forward to) with class mechanics (that I paid for as part of an expansion).

Unlocking new abilities and new classes has always been a form of progression in video games. It has been the case for this very game, it has been the case for GW1, it has been the case for pretty much every RPG, and I could go on.

It also happens to be a more exciting form of progression than unlocking any skin that you’ll know you’ll never use. Even masteries are, in some way, a way to unlock new abilities. (HoT) Masteries just happen to be map abilities, while elite specs offer more personal character abilities.

I’m personally glad that I can enjoy a paced and gradual sense of character progression with elite specs. I want my characters to feel strong because they worked to be strong.

Again, I understand that this may be annoying for players that have a lot of alts. But that’s pretty much it.

TerminalMontage.5693:

I think what GW2 did is totally fair. Practically having a new class available right away would cheapen it. As you play the game you’ll unlock your new spec naturally.

Just like having a level 80 revenant on HOT launch will cheapen it?

TerminalMontage.5693:

But for alts, it will be a big task. Unless getting those new items in WvW is pretty fast.

I do agree it will be huge for alts. Once I can roll a revenant it will be 9 times I will need to do the HP train (which it will become as soon as someone sees where they are and puts it on a LFG). None of my characters has more than 120 HPs either as, unlike what some people are assuming, I actually stay to FIGHT the vet guarding it rather than stealth past.

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.

Well.. the devs misunderstood.

→ Players: “Too easy”

• Easy = not hard
• Players: “Hard = challenging!”
• Devs “Hard = timeconsuming!”
• But: timeconsuming =/= hard!
• Timeconsuming = grindy
  → Players: “Too much grind”

Sirendor.1394:

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.

Well.. the devs misunderstood.

-> Players: “Too easy”

• Easy = not hard
• Players: “Hard = challenging!”
• Devs “Hard = timeconsuming!”
• But: timeconsuming =/= hard!
• Timeconsuming = grindy
  -> Players: “Too much grind”

There’s always going to be people who see effort as grind. Not much one can do about those kinds of people except laugh at them derisively, and then go on to play the game. -Sid

Woaw… nice to learn that 3 days before the release…
OMG, so disapointed

ColinJohanson.2394:

Unlocking your elite spec is a training line in your training panel that costs hero points. You do need to have trained all the existing training lines before you’re allowed to put hero points into your elite spec.

If you’ve got all the hero points in the existing game you’ll have enough to train about half the elite specialization training line on launch day. The rest you’ll need to earn in the jungle or via the new system Tyler outlined yesterday from WvW. The number of points to fully train your elite spec is higher than other training lines – but hero challenges in the jungle are worth 10 points each, so it’s not actually as big as it appears.

Yeah, this could have been mentioned sooner. Everyone had kind of gotten used to the idea that they probably had enough HP from completing their world completions to unlock their elite specs.

Not to mention, it would indeed be nice to use the elite spec while playing through the jungle.

its honestly like people are expecting to dive in day 1 with a full elite spec, full set of legendary armour and dualwielding the new legendaries…
honestly folks stop complaining so much that it might take you a couple of days to unlock your elite spec…
why are you in such a hurry to run out of content? XD

for once i’m happy that theres progression!
i can’t just pull out my 200 tomes and instantly 1-80 and then instantly buy my characters exotic armour and unlock every skill i could want.
theres actually a game to play to progress your character!

CandyHearts.6025:

Honestly I could care less about how many HP we need to unlock the elite specs. What ticks me off is how short of notice we got.

Maybe next time Anet will seek your approval on when to release information.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

/sigh

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

Would you call having access to a lvl 80 character “the whole game unlocked”? No? Then I wouldn’t consider gaining access to the elite specs that we paid for “the whole game unlocked” either.

The actual game is playing for masteries, raiding, dungeon running, WvWing, PvPing, farming for mats, and map exploration which was always an optional thing not a requirement.

I would rather have access to the elite specs that I paid for, so I can go ahead and enjoy the rest of the game at my own pace, on my own time, when I want to. You know, the Guild Wars way. To the OP, yes today’s news is a buzzkill to many. People who enjoy PvE and map exploration of course are ok with the news. But for the rest of us that prefer other parts of this fine game, it was a buzzkill. It soured my mood 3 days before expansion launch…and here I was hyping and getting excited about it before we were slapped with this info.

Which by the way, the same info players have been asking clarification for weeks and months ago. People already had expectations that they could play their elite specs on day 1. And bang, 3 days before launch we’re slapped with this awful news. Buzzkill indeed. My hype & excitement now is filled with dread. Because frankly, running around unlocking hero points is not what I consider fun. Nor is it having to do it 11 times for my 11 characters.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I’m personally glad that I can enjoy a paced and gradual sense of character progression with elite specs. I want my characters to feel strong because they worked to be strong.

I’d like for there to be new content LEFT to see for the first time after unlocking my Espec, rather than being the final reward. I’d been looking forward to doing new things AS the Espec.

After some serious thinking I’m a little torn here, to be honest.

Previously, I was in support of no more than 150 HP for Elite Specs, but now I feel that the high number is actually rather welcome so as to ensure that players don’t have the Elite Specs day one with minimal effort.

We need to have things to work toward and the high HP cost of Elite Specs is giving us a reason to keep playing. For our first trip through Maguuma I don’t think this will be grindy. For alts, yes, it will be a grind, but no more so than the current map completion is.

That being said, I am frankly really disappointed that Elite Specs are just hidden behind artificially inflated numbers. It just seems uninspired to me and I feel like the Devs are setting a rather boring precedent for the future. Having us use HP to unlock the Elite Specs is just fine, but couldn’t we at least have had a lower required number (say 200-250?) with a quest/collection/task or some sort that’s relevant to the Elite Spec?

I for one would have preferred a meaningful exploration of the lore and world to a numbers game. :/ Perhaps I’m wrong, and the Hero Challenges in Maguuma will be dripping with lore and excitement, but that would require them to be far more intricately developed than those in the current core game. I don’t mean to be a pessimist, but I’m not sure I have much hope for that.

CandyHearts.6025:

Honestly I could care less about how many HP we need to unlock the elite specs. What ticks me off is how short of notice we got.

Because they knew the instagratification types would rail about it on the forums, reddit, twitter, anyplace they could complain about it and thus nerf early sales.

So much for insta-leveling a Revenant and immediately elite.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Seera.5916:

I don’t have any issue with the number of points needed. None what so ever.

I’m highly sympathetic to the ones who aren’t too happy because ANet decided to wait until 3 days before launch to let people know how many points despite players asking for weeks.

I can understand that, but it’s also possible that Anet’s final decision on those numbers was only done relatively recent.

Delius.1968:

How I play my class… Not so much – I just feel locked out of the entertainment I paid for.

But sense of progression IS entertaining. Have you never played any other RPG? The entire genre exists and is popular because people ARE entertained by progression (among other things too, of course). Even the entire facebook/ browser casual gaming fad relied on RPG progression mechanics to keep players addicted (regardless of how flawed those casual games may have been generally).

I mean, what do people expect when they decide to play a MMORPG?

GW2 promised a grind-free experience for vertical progression, but it did never promise a progression-free experience.

If they hadn’t decided the number of hero points needed to unlock the elite specs until today, then the game has more problems than bad communication.

I highly doubt it was so recent that they had to wait until 3 days before launch to tell us. Number of points needed definitely seems like something I would want to know when I was designing where hero points were going to go. Which I would hope has already been done. Don’t want to have too few, but also not too many.

I wouldn’t really care if it was just some skin or something. I wouldn’t care if it was just the old skill point system. Even now it’s just a nuisance. But still, why should you have to go do open world grind to unlock part of your class or WvW? My suggestion would be to add more ways to unlock skill points like they are doing with WvW. So there should be a way to unlock skill points by doing dungeons or fractals. That way people who want to do WvW can get there elite specs, people who do PvP already have there’s, and people who want them who mainly do PvE can either do open world or dungeons/fractals depending on which they like.

Celtic Lady.3729:

Not to mention, it would indeed be nice to use the elite spec while playing through the jungle.

Yeah I thought that was the point, being able to build your elite specs and run through the new expansion with them. I wasn’t expecting to wait all this time for a new expansion just so I could spend more time playing my base characters while grinding WvW ranks and PvE map exploration.

DiogoSilva.7089:

Delius.1968:

You’re confusing masteries (progression that I am looking forward to) with class mechanics (that I paid for as part of an expansion).

Unlocking new abilities and new classes has always been a form of progression in video games. It has been the case for this very game, it has been the case for GW1, it has been the case for pretty much every RPG, and I could go on.

It also happens to be a more exciting form of progression than unlocking any skin that you’ll know you’ll never use. Even masteries are, in some way, a way to unlock new abilities. (HoT) Masteries just happen to be map abilities, while elite specs offer more personal character abilities.

I’m personally glad that I can enjoy a paced and gradual sense of character progression with elite specs. I want my characters to feel strong because they worked to be strong.

Again, I understand that this may be annoying for players that have a lot of alts. But that’s pretty much it.

Not a lot of alts. One of each class.

I truly pity the new revenant players who now are looking at 40+ hero challenges on top of some tyria content.

Now that I think I understand what’s going on, they’re just looking for ways to “lengthen” the character progression. Once was a time, and probably still (I haven’t leveled a character in a long time though), you could have your base level 80 in a few hours, another couple hours to unlock all the WPs for all the dragons, dungeons, temples, and world bosses. If one rushed it, with 398 points as leveling rewards and 213 points via hero challenges, you could have a fully speced 80, with full availability to all the dragons, dungeons, temples, and world bosses in not much more than a couple days. Previously leveling a character was a joke if you chose to use shortcuts. Elite specializations and masteries extend that progression by forcing you to work on your character. No boring shortcuts, like leveling via crafting.

The progression argument seems a bit strange to me since elite specs were meant to be side grades. So if the content has a decent difficulty it should be very hard to progress with an incomplete build. In other words the feeling of progression is basically the same as giving all the elite skills/traits at launch, the only difference is the timing.

It’s made me reconsider whether I want to even bother unlocking every spec on all my alts.

I was hoping to play through the expansion from the start as a full on reaper with a chronomancer and maybe herald on the side, so it looks like now I’m gonna try to rush those out as quickly as I can.

Stuff like Dragon Hunter, Tempest, and Daredevil, I dunno. Don’t think I’m going to care repeating the same process 9 times for each class, so the rest might just be skipped.