Guild Wars 2

Liewec.2896:

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…

Using hyperboles to boost your argument never works. People are not asking for all those things, people just want to have access to the elite specs and be able to play the new builds. Then they work on the legendaries, masteries, do dungeon runs, run raids, have fun in WvW, etc.. you know, the actual content part of the game.

Zenith.7301:

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.

good way to learn a class imo

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.

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

Not really. In this game, you character progression is from your own skill improvement. You play more and you get better. It is not by grinding hero challenges which are hardly challenges…

gavyne.6847:

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.

You get the all core traits unlocked by dinging 80. You get the ELITE traits unlocked by playing the game. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have to play the game to unlock elite traits on all my level 80s.

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’s unlocked in PvP automatically for HoT owners. You can unlock in WvW just by playing in WvW. So this part of your complaint is not valid.

DiogoSilva.7089:

A good videogame should be about the journey, not only about the destination.

It should be about the journey. A journey I planned on having trying something new instead of smashing my face into effectively the same content as the same character I’ve been playing for the past three years. I bought the expansion ONLY for the elite specializations. Literally, that is the ONLY reason I bought it. No other. I could care less about new maps, new skins, new story, new encounters… nothing. Just something new to actually experience the game in a different way.

Liewec.2896:

why are you in such a hurry to run out of content? XD
for once i’m happy that theres progression!

I’m not is the thing. Unlike people who rush to finish completion and collections, I’ve not even uncovered half of the map three years in and 2000 hours in of WvW on my main character alone. I’m not bored, and there’s still plenty of content in the vanilla game to do. I like to go at my own pace, not at a pace dictated to me by anyone else. To play the game in a fun and meaningful way, however, I have to play in a way dictated to me by another entity, and strictly speaking, I don’t find that fun, and it exhausts content much, much faster than I’d like to.

PopeUrban made a post a few pages back about this game being the most alt-friendly in history or somesuch claim… I’m sorry but I completely disagree. While I came from a ruthless, open-PK Korean “mob grind” game, players could take the level requirements off of any armor, and there was no such thing on armor and weapons as account or soul binding; you could take a literal endgame piece of gear, take out the level requirements down to starter levels and stats, equip all of it on a fresh noob, and go from the starter town right to the equivalent of level 60+ content, gaining full EXP per kill. In the starter levels, going to a high level zone would actually give like 5-6 levels per kill. Experienced players could max an alt with no instant-level effects in under a day given the budget to do so, which came with experience.

The amount of nonsense time-gating apparent for this system is completely absurd and ruins the entire purpose of the expansion for me; to play more of GW2 and explore new systems and ways of playing without feeling the need to be on a treadmill to do so first.

BobbyT.7192:

good way to learn a class imo

I have 5 Guardians. I was planning to turn 3 of them into Dragonhunters. Not sure how much learning there’s gonna be doing the same 40 HP a second and third time…

400 hero points is outrageous. The specs are hardly worth playing miserable pve for that long.

This news completely changes how I was going to experience the expansion. I am planning on maining a rev and assumed I could put points into herald right away and fill out the other lines over time.

I was all ready to do a ton of Halloween events without even touching the new zones. Now I have to blitz through the story/zones just to get my elite. Herald sold me on revanent, without it just doesn’t feel right.

Zenith.7301:

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.

Or they can get creative.

They get 398 HP from leveling to 80. This leaves another 122 HP that they need to unlock the other two specializations (including the final piece of the elite) for their particular build. That’s 12 HoT hero points. It’s 98 HP to unlock every utility so that leaves 22 HoT hero points that they need to farm assuming that they actually need every utility for their particular build.

They seem to be better off than already existing characters assuming they plan out their build before allocating hero points.

hurrado.2346:

400 hero points is outrageous. The specs are hardly worth playing miserable pve for that long.

To be honest, if it is 100 HP to unlock skill/traits and 300 to unlock skins, then I am fine with it.

But more likely they are making it like 350 to unlock skill/traits and 50 to unlock skins which is indeed outrageous.

I think the argument is that if they had raised the level cap by 20 and you unlocked the elite spec instantly at level 100 that it’s a very similar thing. ArenaNet tells you out of one side of its mouth that they aren’t raising the level cap and everyone claps, but this progression to unlock the elite spec is almost the exact same thing with a different name. I can understand some of the dismay.

People are right to be stoked that the progression is done like this. People are fine being upset that it’s like this.

I’d rather my progression be cosmetic. You may rather your progression be called an elite spec instead of a level cap increase. All sides of this are understandable. They went with Elite Specs. You can disagree with someone and still understand where they are coming from.

I still don’t understand the rationale of making me play the vast majority of the content in the expansion just so I can BEGIN to play the class I paid for with its skills and traits unlocked.

All I want is to play my Herald in WvW, having to either do all of the PvE content or gain 200 ranks as a Revenant to do so makes so sense.

Nike.2631:

BobbyT.7192:

good way to learn a class imo

I have 5 Guardians. I was planning to turn 3 of them into Dragonhunters. Not sure how much learning there’s gonna be doing the same 40 HP a second and third time…

I never really got the reason why people would have more then one of a single profession, (seriously…5? like on one account?) but what ever floats your boat.

‘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?’

They so missed a trick here – changing to elite specs should be an individual process for each class – I did the Warlock class spec in WOW before they simplified it and it was Epic…

Okay, one thing. Can we not call folks who did map completion on several characters within the space of a few weeks “lazy”?
There’s obviously grind and a half in that alone. The issue is that we’ve BEEN the industrious little mmo players. Many players have been preparing any way we could for release, only to find out that the grind from a week ago is massively devalued and we’ll have to grind some more IN ZERG CONTENT in order to actually have the full specs at our fingertips.

I can’t stand zerg content. I tolerate it for brief stretches like Tequatl or Triple Trouble, even for some of the silverwastes. But I hate the prolonged zerging that this type of railroading will force players into. It will just be everyone on the map rushing from hero point to hero point, meta events be kitten ed. That gameplay very quickly puts me to sleep. Before this news, we knew there’d be SOME zerging, simply because anet cannot resist huge fustercluck events. But we assumed there’d be options for those of us who wanted a different experience.

I wanted to explore the jungle, take my time with masteries and learning lore, but that’s moot now. Gotta go on autopilot and join the hero point train which will dominate map chat for months. Then do it again… and again… and again… and again… and again. Then do it fully one more time for my brand spanking new revenant, even though people who’ve tried revenant during all the betas know how incomplete the class is as a whole without the so-called elite spec.

Someone asked earlier in the thread, how is a party going to know that a member actually has their elite spec fully unlocked, anyway? At the very least, I’d like to know the answer to that. I don’t think it’s so lazy and entitled to want to ensure that the party you put together to tackle the hard content actually has all the content accessible on that particular character. The raids will be hard enough and strain people’s patience regardless, as that’s the nature of raids that are difficult. Adding to that fact that a player can’t reasonably expect the other max level characters in their party to fully have their classes is a bit insulting.

Looking at the progression tree, when I spend 60 hero points on Herald, I’ll be able to equip the Legend and a shield if I want, and the Legend will have no Heal, Utility or Elite skills as well as only 1 of 6 traits? What an awful decision.

hurrado.2346:

400 hero points is outrageous. The specs are hardly worth playing miserable pve for that long.

From a practical standpoint its 40 points (since the new locations are worth 10 points each)… they just delivered a “divide by ten” kick in the junk to all of the effort people have made to prepare for HoT.

The real question is round two of Especs… I plan to skip Berserker so when the second Warrior Espec comes out I’m gonna be sitting on 600 points. How much is the second one gonna cost? 2,000 with each hero challenge on the new map being worth 50? Or will I have to buy all of the Berserker spec I DO NOT WANT before I can spend points on the second warrior Espec? Is that how you’re gonna stop “first day completion” when the subject comes up next time?

The precedent being set is TERRIBLE.

Quite a short notice on this not so un-important aspect of the game. Can only guess that this means that ANet has been tweaking or breaking their minds on this matter till the very last moment as they are probably very well aware that a lot of people wanted and expected elite specializations to be readily and fully playable from minute 0. Which clearly isn’t ANet’s goal for elite specializations. That they postponed this till now is, for me, an indication that they searched for an appropriate balance till the very last moment, while not deviating to far from their original intent. Hehe, for all we know the plan originally was to require all of our current maximum possible unlocked Hero Points plus 400 HoT Hero Points…….. imagine that! :/

Having said that, would for sure have been preferential if it had been communicated a bit more in advance that unleashing the full power (and looks) of the elite specializations is supposed to be a journey which we embark on with the release of HoT and that we should expect to unlock the full capability of each elite specialization as we venture deeper into the jungle.

Personally I can appreciate the goal to make unleashing the full power of the elite specialization a journey which we embark on at release.

Xernth.8561:

Looking at the progression tree, when I spend 60 hero points on Herald, I’ll be able to equip the Legend and a shield if I want, and the Legend will have no Heal, Utility or Elite skills as well as only 1 of 6 traits? What an awful decision.

Plan your build out before you allocation points and you’ll only need to farm 120-220 hero points (12-22 HoT hero points).

Rococo.8347:

‘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?’

They so missed a trick here – changing to elite specs should be an individual process for each class – I did the Warlock class spec in WOW before they simplified it and it was Epic…

We could have gone through a mini-dungeon, and brought back a rat’s tail.

Come on, ANet! Squaresoft figured this out a couple decades ago!

Knowing that there’s enough HP in the expansion to cover the elite spec all by themselves does help, I guess. But I’ve been looking at it another way… If it really takes that much more to learn this spec than it does any other, then why isn’t it more powerful? We’re talking an effort multiple times greater than any other spec/skill combo, shouldn’t that result in an equally enhanced payoff?

I know it shouldn’t, for the game’s sake, but I think looking at it that way does help to show one of the problems with this. Simply put, the price is too high for what it is.

I think its ok, 400 are many points but 50-100 point are for the new sigill and runes, i think. When you have done world completition, finishing the 10 heropoints can be very fast and we don’t know exactly the numbers, maybe wait til release before complaining.

But i have a suggestion for wvw. maybe give them 5-10 point for the heropoint on the wvwmap?

Ayrilana.1396:

Xernth.8561:

Looking at the progression tree, when I spend 60 hero points on Herald, I’ll be able to equip the Legend and a shield if I want, and the Legend will have no Heal, Utility or Elite skills as well as only 1 of 6 traits? What an awful decision.

Plan your build out before you allocation points and you’ll only need to farm 120-220 hero points (12-22 HoT hero points).

Hopefully you can pick them in any order, if so, then yes that will help. When picking traits, at any given level can you just buy one of the three that you’re going to use, skipping the other two and getting the next tier?

(I haven’t leveled a toon without Tomes since they changed everything)

It’s amazingly ridiculous how dense some people here are.
No, people don’t want things “on a silver platter”, no people don’t want to do nothing for everything.
What people want is to play the new content with the new spec’s, not with the same build that they’ve used for the past several years in PVE. You can count on most hp’s being locked behind masteries for sure which means by the time you have all your traits/utilities unlocked , you’ll have explored most or if not, a lot of HOT already. Exactly how is that supposed to be fun? If “progression” is supposed to be fun, exactly how is running around with an unfinished traitline fun?
Just make the traits/utilities require ~100hp’s and lock all the skins behind 1000hp’s or whatever.

Menadena.7482:

What about those of us who want to carry on the ‘good fight’ and help the community? IE, be mentors, which means being in central Tyria most of the time. I was already struggling with 170: by what I have seen about 140 they would be ones that soloing would mean dying many times to get the challenge done, especially on characters who have to fight in tight quarters but wear light armor (ie, they can not do the usual staying as far back as possible).

1) Mentors are awesome :) Thanks for being awesome.

2) You bought the expansion, yeah? If you plan to do the story and if we assume it’s a similar “run to the green star and start an instance” format, chances are you’ll earn a lot of the hero points along the way – and with so many people playing I very seriously doubt you’ll have to do anything alone. Let’s say, though, that the challenges are harder than Tyria’s faceroll ones and you’re alone – do what you, as a mentor, would want a good newbie to do: Ask for help! :) Map chat is usually pretty helpful. If truly no one is around, feel free to give me a poke in-game cause I’d love to lend a hand.

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.

60 HP to unlock, so I think you mean 340 after that? In any case, as Colin said earlier up-thread: HoT HPs give 10HPs each. If you focus your efforts on Heart of Thorns exploration, the most you’re looking at is 34 HoT hero challenges (40 including unlock). That’s like ten per new map. Sure, you can go grind 200 Tyria challenges, but you’ll still have to go find 20 in HoT for the last stretch. In that case, the most it would be is ~220. (200 + 20*10 = 400).

So, you can’t get the entire elite spec on day 1. You won’t have every mastery on day 1 so you also can’t get to 100% of the map on day one, or likely finish story on day 1. People can say that they want it fully unlocked on day 1 as much as they like, but it doesn’t change that day 1 unlock-it-all was never stated to be the plan for Elite Specializations.

This system is actually a little more generous for launch than I’d expected; I thought we were told at some point that Elite Spec unlock was tied into a story step, which would have completely ruled out even playing the spec on day 1. While now, it seems like everyone has at least 60 points for the initial unlock, and no one has mentioned the Elite Spec being locked behind the story. So I admit I’m coming into this with the perspective that it’s a better front-end deal than we could have otherwise gotten.

BobbyT.7192:

I never really got the reason why people would have more then one of a single profession, (seriously…5? like on one account?) but what ever floats your boat.

Different races, different themes, different stories, and different builds. An Asura Guardian and a Charr Guardian have a totally different look and feel and rationale for what they do. With Ascended gear being account bound I can move it around if I change my mind which one I want to use for heavy lifting. That aspect of having alts is actually pretty forgiving. If unlocking the Especs where an account wide process managed through Masteries, that would be alt friendly too. Instead we get this grind-fest they were too embarrassed to reveal until moments before launch.

Iason Evan.3806:

I think the argument is that if they had raised the level cap by 20 and you unlocked the elite spec instantly at level 100 that it’s a very similar thing. ArenaNet tells you out of one side of its mouth that they aren’t raising the level cap and everyone claps, but this progression to unlock the elite spec is almost the exact same thing with a different name. I can understand some of the dismay.

People are right to be stoked that the progression is done like this. People are fine being upset that it’s like this.

I’d rather my progression be cosmetic. You may rather your progression be called an elite spec instead of a level cap increase. All sides of this are understandable. They went with Elite Specs. You can disagree with someone and still understand where they are coming from.

I agree with you, I understand where people are coming from, I really do. But, I do think people are forgetting that this has all been put in so people, oh I don’t know, have things to do in HoT. Why is with people wanting to put in the smallest amount of effort possible when it comes to games.

People complained for years the game was too easy. ANet ramps up the difficulty, people they say it’s too hard because they are getting one shoted in zurker gear.

" I payed $50 to get elite specs!" No. You payed $50 to.play a game. Not to get instant gratification.

But I will say this, part of me thinks that this was done so ANet had more time to balance the new specs. But that’s just my tinfoil hat wearing part of me.

BobbyT.7192:

Nike.2631:

BobbyT.7192:

good way to learn a class imo

I have 5 Guardians. I was planning to turn 3 of them into Dragonhunters. Not sure how much learning there’s gonna be doing the same 40 HP a second and third time…

I never really got the reason why people would have more then one of a single profession, (seriously…5? like on one account?) but what ever floats your boat.

There are multiple reasons.

Some people, like in the RP’ing community, treat their characters as separate entities and have different builds and aesthetics, groups, etc.

Many people before the free/on-demand reset of traits made separate characters to swap between builds for WvW as it was/is faster than switching everything around on one. Instead, you just move to character creation -> click -> 5s later port to WvW, a total time of like 15s. When defending a keep, that time saved can matter.

Some people did it to save builds or experiment on other things.

Some people keep their older characters around to collect birthday loot but instead primarily use a secondary that they like the look or name of better, or got lucky on progress for something character-bound.

Some people just like different themes, thought of a funny name, or just got bored enough at one point to try the process again to see if new low-level system changes change the game in any meaningful way.

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.

Oh boy, I must be worse xD

Some folks around here are purporting a false dichotomy about being wanting to be handed everything and doing whatever the plan is. I don’t think it works that way. Personally, I wouldn’t mind getting 1000 points if it meant I would unlock all elite specs for all classes currently. If anything, I’d be more willing to accept this “challenge” over someone that just needs to grind out 400 over a single character and ignore 88% of the choices in this game.

Challenge is cool. Repetition, not so much. Nor is being made available a brand new way to play a class, expanding on the concept, and not being able to use it for said content unless you completed said content. This is like if I told you there was an enemy that was hard to beat unless you used a new technique that you learned by beating the stage. Actually, there’s some value to such a concept, but I think it should be used sparingly.

As played, I have to play as base Engineer and base (sigh…) Ranger and necro in the new content because my main (Guardian) would be wasting time earning points towards a spec that is no good anyways. I will admit there’s a WvW workaround which is fine, but still disappointing. Maybe only other guardian mains can understand this.

BrotherBelial.3094:

No. You payed $50 to.play a game.

Apparently I actually paid $50 to do the same hero points 14 times.

Xernth.8561:

Ayrilana.1396:

Xernth.8561:

Looking at the progression tree, when I spend 60 hero points on Herald, I’ll be able to equip the Legend and a shield if I want, and the Legend will have no Heal, Utility or Elite skills as well as only 1 of 6 traits? What an awful decision.

Plan your build out before you allocation points and you’ll only need to farm 120-220 hero points (12-22 HoT hero points).

Hopefully you can pick them in any order, if so, then yes that will help. When picking traits, at any given level can you just buy one of the three that you’re going to use, skipping the other two and getting the next tier?

(I haven’t leveled a toon without Tomes since they changed everything)

No. You have to buy traits in order but you can skip the last two of the grandmaster tier if the one you need is 1st.

Edit: looks like I was wrong.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/elite-specializations-how-many-hero-points/page/6#post5627999

Why is any of this a surprise? We’ve known since before the skill point split that all core and elite specs would be unlocked by hero points. We’ve known since the trait revamp that elite specs would probably cost a lot of hero points, given what core specs cost.

I spent 3-4 weeks casually getting all hero points on all 8 of my characters and finished a couple weeks ago. Plan ahead better.

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 feel like this deserves either a full news article laying out all the information, or it just should have been left quiet until launch when we’ll be able to see it in game. Since elite specs are one of the big new shiny things people want to get their hands on, giving the information piece-wise leads to misunderstandings and speculation on disappointment.

For instance, it’s “400 to unlock everything”. Ok, but that everything includes both things critical to gameplay and also cosmetics.

I think what a lot of people really want to know is:
A) How many points needed to start using the elite spec. – Well at least we got that in a second post: 60.
B) How many points needed to get all the skills and traits for an elite spec. – In other words, how many to make the gameplay complete?

I think lumping in the rest of the points beyond those amounts as “fully training your elite spec” easily gives people the wrong impression about when they can actually play it effectively.

Pezz.4758:

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.

You have to play the expansion’s content in order to unlock the expansion’s mechanics. Is that too hard to understand?

Sirendor.1394:

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”

gavyne.6847:

You do know how to read right? I clearly stated hero points, and you do have to grind hero points for each and every character you want to unlock elite specs for. Masteries aside.

Grind is not “time consuming”. Grind is not “playing through the game’s content multiple times.”

Grind in the context of video games refers to the repetitious act of repeating the same singular activity over and over.

Doing 40 different hero challenges? Not grind.

Doing 40 different hero challenges on multiple characters? Not grind.

Doing the same singular hero challenge over and over? Grind.

Doing the same singular event in hopes of getting that RNG drop called Sam? Grind.

Please people, get your dictionaries out and know what the words you are using actually mean!

I just realized why they aren’t releasing raids until much later.

And you fools thought it was so we had time to unlock masteries. Hahah.

Cute.

400 points!!? sigh. . . ):

I would be even more scared if some of the hero challenges require the highest level of masteries.

e.g. the gliding mastery
Ley Line Gliding Ley Line Gliding: Learn to enter ley-line energy flows while gliding to be moved along with the flow, gaining access to otherwise inaccessible places.

This one would require 16million exp to unlock. To put it into perspective, you need 200k exp to level up for level 80 character. That is equivalent leveling up 800 levels!

If that is the case, I probably won’t fully unlock my elite specs until next year.

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.

Those are COSMETIC accomplishments. You don’t need to complete the world or make a Legendary to play your class. They actually originally said “Legendaries will be a big deal that few people will have the guts to grind through and we’re ok with that. They also don’t change the game. Their stats aren’t any better than standard gear.”

Now imagine if you had to do world completion to unlock all of your utilities, or all of your trait lines. That’s closer to the current situation with Elite specs. Basic gameplay functionality for your elite spec is now gated behind a grind. Nothing has been communicated to us as to how quick you’ll actually unlock the core function of the specs and how much is just fluff like weapon skins.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Iason Evan.3806:

I think the argument is that if they had raised the level cap by 20 and you unlocked the elite spec instantly at level 100 that it’s a very similar thing. ArenaNet tells you out of one side of its mouth that they aren’t raising the level cap and everyone claps, but this progression to unlock the elite spec is almost the exact same thing with a different name. I can understand some of the dismay.

People are right to be stoked that the progression is done like this. People are fine being upset that it’s like this.

I’d rather my progression be cosmetic. You may rather your progression be called an elite spec instead of a level cap increase. All sides of this are understandable. They went with Elite Specs. You can disagree with someone and still understand where they are coming from.

I agree with you, I understand where people are coming from, I really do. But, I do think people are forgetting that this has all been put in so people, oh I don’t know, have things to do in HoT. Why is with people wanting to put in the smallest amount of effort possible when it comes to games.

People complained for years the game was too easy. ANet ramps up the difficulty, people they say it’s too hard because they are getting one shoted in zurker gear.

" I payed $50 to get elite specs!" No. You payed $50 to.play a game. Not to get instant gratification.

But I will say this, part of me thinks that this was done so ANet had more time to balance the new specs. But that’s just my tinfoil hat wearing part of me.

I would have rather they had a story for each Elite spec near the beginning of HoT. Instead they changed the name of skill points to hero points. I think it would have had more impact that way. Show how Rytlock became a Revenant. Show how your character becomes a Druid. Or a Daredevil. There are ways to do progression rather than it being “go out and earn these hero points that have nothing to do with how your class works.” Play a story instead that explains how your character learned the skills to become what the elite profession is. I hope that explains my stance a little better.

DeceiverX.8361:

DiogoSilva.7089:

A good videogame should be about the journey, not only about the destination.

It should be about the journey. A journey I planned on having trying something new instead of smashing my face into effectively the same content as the same character I’ve been playing for the past three years. I bought the expansion ONLY for the elite specializations. Literally, that is the ONLY reason I bought it. No other. I could care less about new maps, new skins, new story, new encounters… nothing. Just something new to actually experience the game in a different way.

Liewec.2896:

why are you in such a hurry to run out of content? XD
for once i’m happy that theres progression!

I’m not is the thing. Unlike people who rush to finish completion and collections, I’ve not even uncovered half of the map three years in and 2000 hours in of WvW on my main character alone. I’m not bored, and there’s still plenty of content in the vanilla game to do. I like to go at my own pace, not at a pace dictated to me by anyone else. To play the game in a fun and meaningful way, however, I have to play in a way dictated to me by another entity, and strictly speaking, I don’t find that fun, and it exhausts content much, much faster than I’d like to.

PopeUrban made a post a few pages back about this game being the most alt-friendly in history or somesuch claim… I’m sorry but I completely disagree. While I came from a ruthless, open-PK Korean “mob grind” game, players could take the level requirements off of any armor, and there was no such thing on armor and weapons as account or soul binding; you could take a literal endgame piece of gear, take out the level requirements down to starter levels and stats, equip all of it on a fresh noob, and go from the starter town right to the equivalent of level 60+ content, gaining full EXP per kill. In the starter levels, going to a high level zone would actually give like 5-6 levels per kill. Experienced players could max an alt with no instant-level effects in under a day given the budget to do so, which came with experience.

The amount of nonsense time-gating apparent for this system is completely absurd and ruins the entire purpose of the expansion for me; to play more of GW2 and explore new systems and ways of playing without feeling the need to be on a treadmill to do so first.

Couldn’t agree more. The simplest way to explain it is like this:

HoT Story = New book
New Maps = New play area
Masteries = New playpen
Legendaries = Decorations
Precursor Crafting = Busywork
New Specs = New Toys

I want new toys. I don’t want to have to read a book, drive to a new play area and climb a mountain of monkey bars just to get my new toys.

kimeekat.2548:

Menadena.7482:

What about those of us who want to carry on the ‘good fight’ and help the community? IE, be mentors, which means being in central Tyria most of the time. I was already struggling with 170: by what I have seen about 140 they would be ones that soloing would mean dying many times to get the challenge done, especially on characters who have to fight in tight quarters but wear light armor (ie, they can not do the usual staying as far back as possible).

1) Mentors are awesome Thanks for being awesome.

2) You bought the expansion, yeah? If you plan to do the story and if we assume it’s a similar “run to the green star and start an instance” format, chances are you’ll earn a lot of the hero points along the way – and with so many people playing I very seriously doubt you’ll have to do anything alone. Let’s say, though, that the challenges are harder than Tyria’s faceroll ones and you’re alone – do what you, as a mentor, would want a good newbie to do: Ask for help! Map chat is usually pretty helpful. If truly no one is around, feel free to give me a poke in-game cause I’d love to lend a hand.

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.

60 HP to unlock, so I think you mean 340 after that? In any case, as Colin said earlier up-thread: HoT HPs give 10HPs each. If you focus your efforts on Heart of Thorns exploration, the most you’re looking at is 34 HoT hero challenges (40 including unlock). That’s like ten per new map. Sure, you can go grind 200 Tyria challenges, but you’ll still have to go find 20 in HoT for the last stretch. In that case, the most it would be is ~220. (200 + 20*10 = 400).

So, you can’t get the entire elite spec on day 1. You won’t have every mastery on day 1 so you also can’t get to 100% of the map on day one, or likely finish story on day 1. People can say that they want it fully unlocked on day 1 as much as they like, but it doesn’t change that day 1 unlock-it-all was never stated to be the plan for Elite Specializations.

This system is actually a little more generous for launch than I’d expected; I thought we were told at some point that Elite Spec unlock was tied into a story step, which would have completely ruled out even playing the spec on day 1. While now, it seems like everyone has at least 60 points for the initial unlock, and no one has mentioned the Elite Spec being locked behind the story. So I admit I’m coming into this with the perspective that it’s a better front-end deal than we could have otherwise gotten.

Like I’ve been saying: their lack of communication on the issue led people to expect to be able to play the elites fully unlocked on day 1. Now they’re being told the game won’t live up to their expectations and are rightfully dissatisfied. Now some will be able to readjust their expectations and be totally fine with the news come launch. Some won’t be able to and they’ll continue to be dissatisfied. Where most will fall is unknown. A lot of it will likely depend on how many exact points it takes to go from nothing put into the elite to having all traits and skills unlocked and how easy it is or not to get the points needed.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

Honestly… if you can’t spend 2 hours getting the hero challenges unlocked then you don’t really have enough time to play MMO’s. You should consider a different hobby. The MAIN form of progression in this expansion is elite specs and masteries. Why should you just be able to fully complete the main portion of the expansion instantly upon downloading it?

Because most of the expansion means zero to me. I don’t particularly care for the PvE in this game, and WvW, while watered down compared to how it was 3 years ago is much more meaningful to me.

Yes they introduced a system to unlock elites in WvW, but if it is how it reads then it will take far, FAR longer to unlock a single elite spec in WvW than all of them in PvE. If they allowed us to use the hundreds of rank points going unused then I would be good with everything, but as it stands WvW players are sitting far behind the curve.

If I have to grind it out in PvE to have the elites in a reasonable time I will, however I don’t have to be happy about it, and neither does anyone else.

Wow this topic exploded within a day, it was only like 6 pages before. It’s really not that bad guys, all arena needs to do is slightly lower the cost for skills and traits and giving the remaining cost to the extras. I’m fine with it either way.

Mala.3861:

Julischka Bean.7491:

Noooooo….Colin…..difficulty wise the expansion is only for the top notch players….players like me, players like me who are clutzes… will never get a chance at the Elite specs…I am seriously about to cry here.

I bought the expansion, I did the Betas, I fell in love with Reaper, and Berzserker, and scrapper….I, I, I have been farming Hero Points on all my 33 plus characters like a mad thing….I learned to Jump up to Vistas well enough to get Map Complete on one of my characters, and now…..now I am told that the door to the elites have been slammed shut in my face.

Look at my account and you will see all the work I have done. Look at my buying History, I have been a..what do you call it?..a whale? I have played almost every day for three years….

I, I, I am sorry I am old enough to your Grandma and have lousy coordination…Darn, I am crying now…seriously. I was looking forward to this so much……

Lisa.

I could have written this. I am exactly like you. I love this game. I play almost every day. I have lousy coordination and many facets of the game are not available to me through my own limitations. I am not even sure I will be able to play in the Jungle due to the motion sickness that hit me every beta weekend after only a few hours in those tight quarters.

But, even if I couldn’t make through the jungle content I was so looking forward to the new specs… the scrapper.. the tempest.. etc. Which I found out today won’t be available to me.

How disappointing.

Same here, due to RL things I can not fully participate in everything but have found what I can do and am on practically every minute I am not working or sleeping. If most of something can be reached I will try to do so but if not it is just like a cruel joke. The fact that some people are ‘oh, it is EASY’ or ‘only the 1337 people should have the specs anet has been talking about since day 1’, well …

Telling us so soon to launch so we can not emotionally grieve over this and work out what we will do was not the way to handle it.

I am sure it will not be pretty the first time I see someone with elite specs.

Some players are regarding this game the same as diablo3 in which grinding is indeed entirely its journey.

This game is not. The progression here is more about personal skill improvement. I am much better mesmer than I was 10 months ago? Was that from gear grinding? No. Was that from getting more skills and traits? No. Was that from grinding hero point challenges? Hell No. I become better because I have better understanding of the class. I have better mechanical skills of the class. I know how to handle different situations with the class in dungeons, PvP and WvW.

That’s what I call a journey in video game. Grinding hero points is way too shallow for me to call a journey. I know some players truly like grinding as their journey. But we already have it. That is legendary weapons and other rare cosmetics.

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.

Not equivalent things, OP is bemoaning having to retread ground to gather resources to access new content, it in fact exacerbates the lack of new content because they have to wait even longer to experience it. Given they’ve been spruiking HoT for the entire kitten year surely a little impatience from the hyped is understandable? After this is somethin Anet has engineered with their constant hype-machine, they can’t complain that people are getting antsy this close to drop.

Arena should have announced this earlier so people could ease into it. I have a feeling they were still finalizing everything that’s why we are only knowing this now.

DeceiverX.8361:

BobbyT.7192:

Nike.2631:

BobbyT.7192:

good way to learn a class imo

I have 5 Guardians. I was planning to turn 3 of them into Dragonhunters. Not sure how much learning there’s gonna be doing the same 40 HP a second and third time…

I never really got the reason why people would have more then one of a single profession, (seriously…5? like on one account?) but what ever floats your boat.

There are multiple reasons.

Some people, like in the RP’ing community, treat their characters as separate entities and have different builds and aesthetics, groups, etc.

Many people before the free/on-demand reset of traits made separate characters to swap between builds for WvW as it was/is faster than switching everything around on one. Instead, you just move to character creation -> click -> 5s later port to WvW, a total time of like 15s. When defending a keep, that time saved can matter.

Some people did it to save builds or experiment on other things.

Some people keep their older characters around to collect birthday loot but instead primarily use a secondary that they like the look or name of better, or got lucky on progress for something character-bound.

Some people just like different themes, thought of a funny name, or just got bored enough at one point to try the process again to see if new low-level system changes change the game in any meaningful way.

I doubt many people here that are upset about about this are RP’er, (i also never really understood the whole RP community anyways, so there’s some disconnect there :\)

In terms of wvw, (usually in the high tiers,) swapping to another character usually meant waiting in Qs. Even then, i don’t know how fast is your computer is, but it definitely take more than 5 seconds switch character and jump back into wvw.

Either way, i don’t have much sympathy for those guys anyways, I have all 8 professions, leveled them all up mostly in the open world. Map completion on 3 of them, 2 have above 75%, and the rest is hovering over 50%. During HoT, i will take 3-4 through the maps (main ones i play), and other get the others through when ever im bored.
Don’t do the crime if you dont want to do the grind

So, we’ve just seen ANet give the new hero challenges a x10 multiplier so they can inflate the cost of unlocking the new Elite specs (400 points) and massively devalue gameplay and preparation accumulated on the core Tyria maps.

Some think this is to stop people from unlocking their Espec day one through accumulated effort (because playing the new content with your new tools would just be so wrong). Fine. Say that’s the reason. What happens next time, when the second round of Elite specs become available?

Will we have to completely buy the first Elite spec before we can start progress on the next one for that profession? If not we can have at least 600 hero points banked. Will we see more escalating multipliers to try and stop people from spending those 600 points to have the new spec day one?

Iason Evan.3806:

BrotherBelial.3094:

Iason Evan.3806:

I think the argument is that if they had raised the level cap by 20 and you unlocked the elite spec instantly at level 100 that it’s a very similar thing. ArenaNet tells you out of one side of its mouth that they aren’t raising the level cap and everyone claps, but this progression to unlock the elite spec is almost the exact same thing with a different name. I can understand some of the dismay.

People are right to be stoked that the progression is done like this. People are fine being upset that it’s like this.

I’d rather my progression be cosmetic. You may rather your progression be called an elite spec instead of a level cap increase. All sides of this are understandable. They went with Elite Specs. You can disagree with someone and still understand where they are coming from.

I agree with you, I understand where people are coming from, I really do. But, I do think people are forgetting that this has all been put in so people, oh I don’t know, have things to do in HoT. Why is with people wanting to put in the smallest amount of effort possible when it comes to games.

People complained for years the game was too easy. ANet ramps up the difficulty, people they say it’s too hard because they are getting one shoted in zurker gear.

" I payed $50 to get elite specs!" No. You payed $50 to.play a game. Not to get instant gratification.

But I will say this, part of me thinks that this was done so ANet had more time to balance the new specs. But that’s just my tinfoil hat wearing part of me.

I would have rather they had a story for each Elite spec near the beginning of HoT. Instead they changed the name of skill points to hero points. I think it would have had more impact that way. Show how Rytlock became a Revenant. Show how your character becomes a Druid. Or a Daredevil. There are ways to do progression rather than it being “go out and earn these hero points that have nothing to do with how your class works.” Play a story instead that explains how your character learned the skills to become what the elite profession is. I hope that explains my stance a little better.

I agree, working them.into the story would have been much better. But then would people rush the story to get them, then complain the story makes no sense because they rushed through?

Coldtart.4785:

BrotherBelial.3094:

No. You payed $50 to.play a game.

Apparently I actually paid $50 to do the same hero points 14 times.

The same could be said for the core game, you payed $50 to do the same dungeons for 3 years. To do the same world completion.

But I’m sure you didn’t spend $50 just to play the elite specs in the core game. You must have wanted to do something else in HoT too.

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.

Thanks Colin for finally clearing this thing up. I’m not super thrilled about the amount of points needed, but I am glad that you are able to get enough points exploring the jungle alone. That was a huge concern of mine. Imagine leveling my Revenant with tomes and instead of running to the jungle to explore the new maps and level my maguuma mastery I’m stuck running around old tyria so I can unlock my Herald. That would have been very lame. This will at least allow me to level my masteries as I earn my hps. Plus the WvW hero point change will be good for my alts later on.