Guild Wars 2

Seed.5467:

Vayne.8563:

Making quests for each unlock though? Too time consuming. It’s not worth the cost. You may not like it but part of running a big project like this is cost analysis. Sure every single thing in the game would be much better accompanied by a full story. But who’s going to pay for that?

Not, for every unlock. Something like the start area when you create a new character, that in the end of the quest will grand you and you friends, the traits and skills for your specialisation. Beyond that, if you want the skins and cosmetics belonging to your specialisation you can add time gated content.

You do not have to reinvent the wheel. You just have to spread the resources you have effectively. And to tie the new specialisation to Hero-points is poor choice in my opinion.

Regards

Seed

It would have to be long enough to fill in the time. You guys still don’t get it. All an MMO ever was is a list of things to do. It’s never been anything else. I’ve never played any MMO, at least not any themepark MMO, that was anything but a list of things to do. Whether it was leveling, dailies, gearing up, achievements, farming, crafting or grinding, that’s all it ever is. A list of things to do.

One quest wouldn’t cover it, because I’d have to do that one quest on my 31 characters, which would be pretty monotonous. Nor would it keep me busy long.

This way shows progression step by step. Get 60 points, I can use my weapon. Get some more points I can use these skills. It gives players something directly to work for. And yes a lot of players say they don’t want that but then, I’m not sure a lot of players really think deeply about their gaming experience.

It’s like reward tracks in PvP. They’re popular because you’re always working on something. There’s always something to move forward. That’s what keeps a lot of people going. It’s required by theme park MMOs because without it there’s pretty much no game.

Ideally moving the story forward is the best way to hold attention but story takes a long time to produce, so you have to supplement it with other things…like collections and bad RNG, or lockouts. Every MMO does it and that means it’s done for a reason.

It’s also one of the biggest complaints people have had about GW 2. There was nothing to work for. So Anet is giving us stuff to work for.

And I still don’t think it’s going to be as bad as people say…and I have 31 80s.

Vague Memory.2817:

You save up to buy your dream car. You buy it primarily because it has features that are much better than your current car. Three days before you receive your spanking new joy ride the manufacturer contacts you by email (well after the refund date has expired) and tells you that several of its best features (the most desirable ones) will only become available once you have driven it for 20K miles. I would totally understand why those customers were not happy with the manufacturer, or indeed the car.

Ditto

Alukah.2063:

Chaba.5410:

ColinJohanson.2394:

PlatinumMember.5274:

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

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

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

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

A Portrait of the Player as a WvW Regular

- Two accounts (actually I have three but only purchased HoT for these two).
- Twelve level 80s
- Two above 60 hero points
- Only one with 100% map completion
- 75% of toons under 20% map completion
- 5904 combined total gaming hours
- No Legendary
- No full sets of ascended gear
- Purchaser of gems with real cash
- 1892 combined WXP rank (677 and 1215 respectively)

How can you help me? Can I hire you to get the hero points for my toons?

Anet should totally cater to you, because your case is the same as 90% of the playerbase.

Yes, it sounds about right for a typical player that puts a lot into this game. I PVE but it is about the same accounting for the fact that I have only been here a year so my hours are less. I did not bother with world completion on everyone, but none has less than 100 challenges either.

Sarie.1630:

Yargesh.4965:

Another storm in a teacup event. Wonder what the next end of the world will be?

It’ll be when they find out that in order to level a Revenant you can only do so in WvW, given it’s in the mists, in order to attune your new Revenant to the magic of the mists.

Oh, and that you can’t use Level Tomes.

Wahey.

No, no, no. You can only use level tomes earned through SPvP. That’s also in the mists.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

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.

It is unlocked in pvp for wvw, pve and pvp players alike, the difference however is that elite specializations are not unlocked at all for a pvp player that occasionally wants to run through heart of thorn maps with guildies or battle in wvw with his favourite elite specs. I hope they add a way of getting your hero points through pvp for those players.

Personally I have plenty of characters that occasionally I use in wvw/pve and only have 10% world completion. Barriers to switch game modes are bad game design in my opinion.

Vayne.8563:

One quest wouldn’t cover it, because I’d have to do that one quest on my 31 characters, which would be pretty monotonous. Nor would it keep me busy long.

But farming 400 Hero Points/ Character will do ? As i said earlier

1. Hero Points trains will be formed rushing through maps.

This way shows progression step by step. Get 60 points, I can use my weapon. Get some more points I can use these skills. It gives players something directly to work for. And yes a lot of players say they don’t want that but then, I’m not sure a lot of players really think deeply about their gaming experience.

With 60 points alone you unlock the minor trait of your specialisation. That is equivalent to a newly created char that has only 1 trait unlocked. How useful that character will be on normal WvW ?

It’s like reward tracks in PvP. They’re popular because you’re always working on something. There’s always something to move forward. That’s what keeps a lot of people going. It’s required by theme park MMOs because without it there’s pretty much no game.

The difference is that in PvP you have all your skills, traits, sigils etc already unlocked. Now imagine if you had to play PvP with only a minor trait unlocked on a Trait-line.

It’s also one of the biggest complaints people have had about GW 2. There was nothing to work for. So Anet is giving us stuff to work for.

To tie the specialisation to Hero points is bad choice in my opinion as i said earlier.

All in all you will need 400 HP to unlock all your specialisation including skins. That for me as a WvW player means that i have to grind 200 ranks of WvW and 6000 Badges. Do you know how fast you can gain those 200 ranks by playing WvW and not farming ranks in EOTM ? As i said before

2. EOTM – Trains will be formed to farm the 200 WvW ranks and 6000 badges needed.

Regards

Seed

papry.8096:

BobbyT.7192:

papry.8096:

BobbyT.7192:

papry.8096:

Shoe.5821:

You get all those hero points just by leveling up. Lol. ‘extend the grind’ harrumph!

400 to unlock all base spe & spell.
400 to unlock elite spec.

That’s very logical. :sarcasm:

Doing the same challenge 40 times in a row to get an elite spec isn’t grind. sure.

The rest of your post is nonsense.

You get the first 400 toming up to 80 anyways.
And 40 challenges is not that much to get.

Multiply that by 6 alts.

7 alts here, soon to be 8, with full map completion on 3 of them, and the rest hovering between 50-75%
Not sympathetic one bit,

I soon have 13 alts 80, 7 with full map completion & 4 with none as they are WvW alts.
6 was the low end of it. So your point was ?

If you choose to have a lot of alts, better prepare to do the grind

Yargesh.4965:

Another storm in a teacup event. Wonder what the next end of the world will be?

There is a rumour saying you’ll have to kill the raid bosses to get their loot… if it turns out to be true I may unsubscribe soon

Few more random thoughts:

1) I don’t like hard gated content. This is the reason why I do not like certain masteries, which are required to experience HoT content. But I can mostly live with that.
2) People don’t seem to realize that some of the HPs in HoT might easily be gated by masteries – it has already been stated that parts of the maps are not accessible without high tiers of gliding mastery, so you will end up having to grind masteries before you can get HPs that you’ll need to unlock especs.
3) Having to redo this on multiple characters is simply not fun. I have world completion on all of my 80s (10+1 that got deleted), so I like exploring. But I DON’T LIKE BEING FORCED TO EXPLORE to play my class to it’s fullest.

Proposed solution:

1) Make HPs an account wide currency similar to WvW rank – it can be gained by any character, but all characters benefit.
2) Increment the said currency when a new HP is explored, regardless by which character.
3) Exploring HP that has already been used by one of your character gives you nothing (or some experience) other than progress toward world completion.

This will preserve the current costs and exploration requirements, but will make it much alt-friendlier.

How many Hero Points are in the new HoT zones?

I am trying to recall a single MMORPG where an expansion handed out everything you expected to get with it up front, rather than making you earn it. I can’t think of a single one, and this sense of entitlement just truly baffles me.

In fact it seems to me that considering everything, you still get quite a bit more upfront than you do in most if not all of those other MMORPGs, considering that leveling Scrolls and tomes of knowledge and the like. Plus if you did everything possible getting a 200 point jump in your specializations.

Furthermore, there is a big difference between playing new content to earn the new abilities, and grinding old content.

unless you think the very first character you ever made in Guild Wars 2 should have been made instantly level 80 and given all legendary and ascended gear for free. Which of course is completely silly

This content was intended to be played, and the new stuff to be earned, not to be handed out like candy to children on Halloween.

Morfedel.4165:

I am trying to recall a single MMORPG where an expansion handed out everything you expected to get with it up front, rather than making you earn it. I can’t think of a single one, and this sense of entitlement just truly baffles me.

In fact it seems to me that considering everything, you still get quite a bit more upfront than you do in most if not all of those other MMORPGs, considering that leveling Scrolls and tomes of knowledge and the like. Plus if you did everything possible getting a 200 point jump in your specializations.

Furthermore, there is a big difference between playing new content to earn the new abilities, and grinding old content.

unless you think the very first character you ever made in Guild Wars 2 should have been made instantly level 80 and given all legendary and ascended gear for free. Which of course is completely silly

This content was intended to be played, and the new stuff to be earned, not to be handed out like candy to children on Halloween.

I can. Rift. They gave out all the souls (trait lines) of their new “profession” and even the option to, with deluxe purchase, bounce to lvl 60 (lvl 65 is cap) so you can join in all the content with everyone else right off. Still had to explore… still have to get those last five levels… still have to get all the achievements, etc. But you can join in with everyone else right away and, if you want costume things, they are still in the gem store.

I’ve got a feeling that Colin will post some updated changes to this system today and we will all rejoice!

Swagger.1459:

I’ve got a feeling that Colin will post some updated changes to this system today and we will all rejoice!

That would be splendid but doubtful. I feel like they are all pointing and laughing about now. This was their alternative to nerfing tomes of knowledge that folks have built up.

Knighthonor.4061:

How many Hero Points are in the new HoT zones?

At least 40, we do not know the exact number.

Part of the problem is you can bet we will have to grind masteries to get some of them so do not assume all of them will be easily reachable. Some people have been saying ‘40 points, no problem’ but I doubt they have factored that in. Plus we know nothing about the difficulty level of jungle hero challenges.

Knighthonor.4061:

How many Hero Points are in the new HoT zones?

40 hero challenges and they give 10 hero points each for a total of 400, which is how many points you need to fully unlock an elite spec.

If you have world completion already, you’re halfway through the elite spec. Considering elite specs include other stuff to unlock however, you’ll likely only need 10 or so hero challenge within HoT to fully unlock all skills and traits.

Morfedel.4165:

I am trying to recall a single MMORPG where an expansion handed out everything you expected to get with it up front, rather than making you earn it. I can’t think of a single one, and this sense of entitlement just truly baffles me.

Entitlement?

We were told what to expect. People planned for that and did the work asked of them. Whether you liked it or not we knew the upper boundary.

Then they changed it. Not us.

The amount of people complaining that they have to play the game, and yes play the game for every character they have is astonishing. Why must everything be given to you? Is it so hard to just have to actually do something in the game.

Please Arena-Net do not change this, I look forward to actually having goals on each character I play. Rather than just playing once and calling it done until the next big thing.

Menadena.7482:

Morfedel.4165:

I am trying to recall a single MMORPG where an expansion handed out everything you expected to get with it up front, rather than making you earn it. I can’t think of a single one, and this sense of entitlement just truly baffles me.

Entitlement?

We were told what to expect. People planned for that and did the work asked of them. Whether you liked it or not we knew the upper boundary.

Then they changed it. Not us.

What? They did not change anything since they have not until now given a number.

Well, I guess no more buying character slots after my revenant. I will be too busy grinding my existing characters. Great business decision there anet.

Menadena.7482:

Well, I guess no more buying character slots after my revenant. I will be too busy grinding my existing characters. Great business decision there anet.

GG for buying a game that required you to.. wait for it… play the game. No idea why you would buy an MMO that requires you to play the same content for each character you make. What game gives you a free fully everything character after playing with one character? What a horrible business decision it would be to just hand out characters after leveling the first one.

What ever happened to players working for something or wanting a challenge? In GW1 you had to find elite skills and use a skill capture spell. I loved that. In this case you have to do Hero Challenges which usually don’t take much effort. Plus, you usually do that kind of stuff anyway when you do world completion and map exploration. It’s not a grind if all you have to do is find and complete Hero Challenges. If you had to get specific drops that don’t always occur then it would become a grind. So for PVE you should complete the elite specialization fairly quick. Adventure forth and do it. My current build on my main toon is more than capable in the new area and probably won’t change much.

For WvW folks, which I also enjoy, it shouldn’t take too long either. Heck a PVEr who has done lots of WvW like myself could acquire more Hero Points as well. Not to mention Badges of Honor are in you wallet, so you can use them for any of your characters who may not have as many points built up.

Cheer/gear up folks and look forward to the challenges of the new release.

Yargesh.4965:

Menadena.7482:

Morfedel.4165:

I am trying to recall a single MMORPG where an expansion handed out everything you expected to get with it up front, rather than making you earn it. I can’t think of a single one, and this sense of entitlement just truly baffles me.

Entitlement?

We were told what to expect. People planned for that and did the work asked of them. Whether you liked it or not we knew the upper boundary.

Then they changed it. Not us.

What? They did not change anything since they have not until now given a number.

They stated world completion was the max. Until the datamine of 170 most people were assuming 100 HPs would be a good number to guess at. When we saw the 170 (which again many did not believe) and the progression for a typical profession I realized I could not get everything right away but about 120 would give me a good starting build.

Seed.5467:

Vayne.8563:

One quest wouldn’t cover it, because I’d have to do that one quest on my 31 characters, which would be pretty monotonous. Nor would it keep me busy long.

But farming 400 Hero Points/ Character will do ? As i said earlier

1. Hero Points trains will be formed rushing through maps.

This way shows progression step by step. Get 60 points, I can use my weapon. Get some more points I can use these skills. It gives players something directly to work for. And yes a lot of players say they don’t want that but then, I’m not sure a lot of players really think deeply about their gaming experience.

With 60 points alone you unlock the minor trait of your specialisation. That is equivalent to a newly created char that has only 1 trait unlocked. How useful that character will be on normal WvW ?

It’s like reward tracks in PvP. They’re popular because you’re always working on something. There’s always something to move forward. That’s what keeps a lot of people going. It’s required by theme park MMOs because without it there’s pretty much no game.

The difference is that in PvP you have all your skills, traits, sigils etc already unlocked. Now imagine if you had to play PvP with only a minor trait unlocked on a Trait-line.

It’s also one of the biggest complaints people have had about GW 2. There was nothing to work for. So Anet is giving us stuff to work for.

To tie the specialisation to Hero points is bad choice in my opinion as i said earlier.

All in all you will need 400 HP to unlock all your specialisation including skins. That for me as a WvW player means that i have to grind 200 ranks of WvW and 6000 Badges. Do you know how fast you can gain those 200 ranks by playing WvW and not farming ranks in EOTM ? As i said before

2. EOTM – Trains will be formed to farm the 200 WvW ranks and 6000 badges needed.

Regards

Seed

The 60 points you unlock a new weapon with new weapon skills. That’s five skills for 60 points, which may well synergize with other traits as well. I think you’re understating it.

Zania.8461:

Few more random thoughts:

1) I don’t like hard gated content. This is the reason why I do not like certain masteries, which are required to experience HoT content. But I can mostly live with that.
2) People don’t seem to realize that some of the HPs in HoT might easily be gated by masteries – it has already been stated that parts of the maps are not accessible without high tiers of gliding mastery, so you will end up having to grind masteries before you can get HPs that you’ll need to unlock especs.
3) Having to redo this on multiple characters is simply not fun. I have world completion on all of my 80s (10+1 that got deleted), so I like exploring. But I DON’T LIKE BEING FORCED TO EXPLORE to play my class to it’s fullest.

Masteries are like new weapons in Zelda. You know there is this rock you can see from the whole beginning but can’t get through till you get the bombs to explode it. Your first toon won’t have the bombs at start so there will be some gated locations in the first zone you can’t access. When you get the right mastery then all your account will get it so when you enter the first zone with the second toon, the number of HP available will be much bigger because there will be no gates anymore. So in the end the more your account masteries grow, the quicker it will be to unlock Espec on alts.

When you leveled your first character in the game there were no tomes available, no lvl 20 scrolls. You may have seen nice lvl 80 builds on the web, they were simply not available until you were lvl 80. So to rephrase other complains, you had to “finish” the content before playing your dream build. There is still no way to discover the tutorial zone with the build you want to play. And if you level in an old fashion way, you are still gated until level 71 minimum to play the exact build you want. Chances are you won’t reclaim Claw Island with this build. The difference in the expansion is that you’ll be able to replay the story missions…

Maybe the number of tomes in the game is too high so people now don’t understand character progression anymore, they just want to double click.

Zypher.7609:

GG for buying a game that required you to.. wait for it… play the game.

Maybe because (drumroll) this was sold as a ‘play your own way’ game and good for casual players, like RPers?

Menadena.7482:

Zypher.7609:

GG for buying a game that required you to.. wait for it… play the game.

Maybe because (drumroll) this was sold as a ‘play your own way’ game and good for casual players, like RPers?

Did RPers get level 80 by just logging in the game and map chat or /emote in Divinity’s Reach ?

Notice now how it blew up in their faces so they are being super silent and have nothing to say?

One question to keep in mind folks… “Is it fun?”

Menadena.7482:

Zypher.7609:

GG for buying a game that required you to.. wait for it… play the game.

Maybe because (drumroll) this was sold as a ‘play your own way’ game and good for casual players, like RPers?

I like play your own way as well. But I didn’t expect everything to be handed to me on a silver platter. I don’t expect my characters to all be level 80 when I make them or have fully ascended equipment and weapons. You have to “play your own way” and “at your own pace” to achieve anything in any online game. If you’re a hardcore player it will come faster to you than a casual player. A slower more casual player won’t have the “good stuff” until much later.

And if you’re an RPer, you made your own choice to move at that pace. ANeT didn’t force it upon you. As an RPer(I’ve played role playing games like D&D all my life) I don’t expect it to go fast. I’m roll playing for a reason. I’m sure you understand that aspect. Good luck in the game and roll play your way to higher goals and have fun.

I’ve been in games for some time now, many years. I know that no matter WHAT Anet did with the expansion, there would be a lot of complaining, particularly from PVE’rs.

You can have a Monty Hall expansion that you can rush through and get all of the new stuff in a very short time, maybe days.
This option lets you complain about lack of content and no end game.

You can have an expansion that gives a LOT of content that will require weeks, or even months to get all of the new stuff.
This option lets you complain about “grind”.

There are still a lot of old school gamers around that laugh at this generation of gamers when they use the word “grind”, because some of us actually played legitimate Korean grinders and know the origin of the term….and today’s players use the term to describe anything that requires playtime.

Stop complaining! You paid $50 or more for new content. Do you REALLY want to be able to complete it in a week? Seriously? How many of you complaining about the “grind” for Hero Points right now, would be asking for a refund if you blew through the $50 content in 3 days, complaining that you got ripped off?

For me, I want my $50 worth. I expect at least 3 months of solid new content and experiences for my money. What you complainers call “grind”, I call value.

For those complaining about grind, there are PLENTY of “Pay to Win” games out there where you can just spend money and get all the best stuff instantly. Go find one, and you can spend lots of money and not have any “grind” at all.

TL:DR Shut up about grind. If you want to spend $50 for a few days of new content, your expectations are ridiculous. Go play a Pay to Win, pay money for instant gratification and BIS gear.
The rest of us want $50+ worth of quality game time.
Just because you are excited to play your new profession, do you really want GW2 to be “Instant BIS, just add cash”?

I think a grinding aspect with hero points will only hit players with many 80 toons.
The casual player that uses one character 80% of the time won´t realy feel missing hero points. Maybe he has to do some more challenges if he is pvp focused.
And if someone has 8+ characters wanting all elite specs completed it might be anoying but its actualy good not to throw elites out like candy …

Totally agree! The reward is much more satisfying when you have to work for it! Makes the game a lot more fun!

Ranael.6423:

Menadena.7482:

Zypher.7609:

GG for buying a game that required you to.. wait for it… play the game.

Maybe because (drumroll) this was sold as a ‘play your own way’ game and good for casual players, like RPers?

Did RPers get level 80 by just logging in the game and map chat or /emote in Divinity’s Reach ?

After a year, no matter your level, your first character gets a 20 scroll. That and crafting gets you to 36. For the sake of argument you have no tomes in the bank and do nothing (including finding WPs/POIs in DR) to get skill beyond crafting. You get 16 tomes a month if you select the option per month of 6 tomes.

In less then 3 months you have an 80 just by buying some gold on the TP and doing crafting. Sure, you can do it MUCH faster but that was not the question you asked.

can’t agree with this post enough

Vihar.5780:

I’ve been in games for some time now, many years. I know that no matter WHAT Anet did with the expansion, there would be a lot of complaining, particularly from PVE’rs.

You can have a Monty Hall expansion that you can rush through and get all of the new stuff in a very short time, maybe days.
This option lets you complain about lack of content and no end game.

You can have an expansion that gives a LOT of content that will require weeks, or even months to get all of the new stuff.
This option lets you complain about “grind”.

There are still a lot of old school gamers around that laugh at this generation of gamers when they use the word “grind”, because some of us actually played legitimate Korean grinders and know the origin of the term….and today’s players use the term to describe anything that requires playtime.

Stop complaining! You paid $50 or more for new content. Do you REALLY want to be able to complete it in a week? Seriously? How many of you complaining about the “grind” for Hero Points right now, would be asking for a refund if you blew through the $50 content in 3 days, complaining that you got ripped off?

For me, I want my $50 worth. I expect at least 3 months of solid new content and experiences for my money. What you complainers call “grind”, I call value.

For those complaining about grind, there are PLENTY of “Pay to Win” games out there where you can just spend money and get all the best stuff instantly. Go find one, and you can spend lots of money and not have any “grind” at all.

TL:DR Shut up about grind. If you want to spend $50 for a few days of new content, your expectations are ridiculous. Go play a Pay to Win, pay money for instant gratification and BIS gear.
The rest of us want $50+ worth of quality game time.
Just because you are excited to play your new profession, do you really want GW2 to be “Instant BIS, just add cash”?

How about you stop complaining about people complaining?

People have brought up valid complaints, and people like you come along and say “shut up and deal with it.” You know what the irony is here? People always kitten and whine about people complaining, but if it wasn’t for complaints, things would never change. Complaints are what gets companies to make changes and improvements.

But thank god for Companies like EA and Activision people like you exist! Whenever someone criticizes them, you’ll just jump down their throat and silence them, so companies can keep ripping people off or making sub-standard products!

TL;DR

I think everything should be unlocked when we hit 80 and we should have the best statistical gear by then. Grinding should be left to cosmetics. Good idea???

Swagger.1459:

One question to keep in mind folks… “Is it fun?”

MagicBall.0008

Could be better.

It feels like the one real expectation that was being defied is using/training the new specs during map exploration. Not after it’s all done.

Said it before, but I’m reiterating, if they could remove the need to buy off the other training tracks, this would work out reasonably. There isn’t any need to force us to play the game. We bought the expansion so we can play it.

We’re just tired of the goal post, constantly moving. “Oh hey, I saved up 100g for that shiny new precursor!” Economy Change! Precursors now 1000g!! “Oh wow, it took awhile, but I finally got that map completion, and all the hero pts!” Screw You, DO MOAR! :’(

Its just disheartening. We were under the impression that veteran players would already have enough pts, if they did map completion. Now, it just feels like a punishment, more than some excuse to play more. As if we wouldn’t play as much… We just want to play the content, in our elite spec.

The content is what you play, the elite spec is how how play it.

Having to play a large portion of the new content with your old spec of the last three years is absurd. Having the new content invalidated isn’t the point, not being able to play it with the elite specs is the point.

I think the way they did it is great! I would rather have to work for something and have a feeling of accomplishment. Also, I don’t think the requirements are unreasonable in the slightest. Even the more casual of players will likely have their first elites unlocked in a matter of days if that is what they choose to do. I’m put money on the fact that if you just play through the HoT Story and Zone/Mastery progression as you are supposed to do, you will get all the HPs you need in pretty short order.

The only thing I would have done differently is the following. I would have created a mastery system for unlocking the Elite Spec, Runes, Sigils, Skins, and maybe some crafting recipes. After unlocking the Elite Spec on the first tier of the mastery, you could them invest your Hero Points into unlocking its traits and utilities. Anet gives you your first Mastery Points at the end of the initial story chapter, so you could use it to just about immediately unlock your Elite Spec. Then all you would need your HPs (Much less than 400 now) to get your traits and utilities.

Rauderi.8706:

Swagger.1459:

One question to keep in mind folks… “Is it fun?”

MagicBall.0008

Could be better.

It feels like the one real expectation that was being defied is using/training the new specs during map exploration. Not after it’s all done.

Said it before, but I’m reiterating, if they could remove the need to buy off the other training tracks, this would work out reasonably. There isn’t any need to force us to play the game. We bought the expansion so we can play it.

Perfectly stated.

Menadena.7482:

Zypher.7609:

GG for buying a game that required you to.. wait for it… play the game.

Maybe because (drumroll) this was sold as a ‘play your own way’ game and good for casual players, like RPers?

I dislike when people take the ‘play your own way’ to mean develop a game where I do nothing and get everything. Because that is how you want to ‘play’ the game. This is not what ‘play your own way’ means. So please stop using it like that.

Feedback is essential to the development team so they can make a better product for the end user. We are the end users so we will provide our feedback thanks.

Menadena.7482:

Zypher.7609:

GG for buying a game that required you to.. wait for it… play the game.

Maybe because (drumroll) this was sold as a ‘play your own way’ game and good for casual players, like RPers?

I’m not sure how not having all the elite specs unlocked has anything whatsoever to do with roleplaying.

Ranael.6423:

Masteries are like new weapons in Zelda. You know there is this rock you can see from the whole beginning but can’t get through till you get the bombs to explode it. Your first toon won’t have the bombs at start so there will be some gated locations in the first zone you can’t access. When you get the right mastery then all your account will get it so when you enter the first zone with the second toon, the number of HP available will be much bigger because there will be no gates anymore. So in the end the more your account masteries grow, the quicker it will be to unlock Espec on alts.

When you leveled your first character in the game there were no tomes available, no lvl 20 scrolls. You may have seen nice lvl 80 builds on the web, they were simply not available until you were lvl 80. So to rephrase other complains, you had to “finish” the content before playing your dream build. There is still no way to discover the tutorial zone with the build you want to play. And if you level in an old fashion way, you are still gated until level 71 minimum to play the exact build you want. Chances are you won’t reclaim Claw Island with this build. The difference in the expansion is that you’ll be able to replay the story missions…

Maybe the number of tomes in the game is too high so people now don’t understand character progression anymore, they just want to double click.

Gated content is a way of saying : we don’t really have that much content, so we have to make you jump through all these hoops to get to whatever little we have.

What about WvW? If a WvW player has multiple characters should they grind 200 ranks per character just to fully unlock espec for it?

With regards to tomes – I have leveled all my characters from scratch. Level 20 scroll was used a couple of times mainly to get rid of them (until I realized that that’s not feasible and started piling them up again). Most often I level my characters without buying them a single piece of equipment (they do get 15 slot bags) until 80. I enjoy doing this. But I am a minority, and even I will not enjoy grinding out HPs for especs. How many people will enjoy grinding out same content 3 times in a row (to make their characters competitive)? How about 5? 10? 20? 60? Some people do have a lot of alts and especs are often too good not to have.

Except some people do not care about PvE but enjoy WvW.
Those people had to pay 50$ as well to get access to the new specialization and now they are told that they need to either grind PvE or wait for months until they can collect enough WvW ranks. I don’t know how many people are in this situation but I know this really upset me.
It’s not because I paid for an extension that contains some particular content that I should be forced to play all of this content to enjoy a little part of it (WvW).

It’s like if you had to level each class in the game to level 80 to unlock elite skills for any particular class. This situation would be ridiculous, just like the situation above.

IchbinVol.5407:

We’re just tired of the goal post, constantly moving. “Oh hey, I saved up 100g for that shiny new precursor!” Economy Change! Precursors now 1000g!! “Oh wow, it took awhile, but I finally got that map completion, and all the hero pts!” Screw You, DO MOAR! :’(

Its just disheartening. We were under the impression that veteran players would already have enough pts, if they did map completion. Now, it just feels like a punishment, more than some excuse to play more. As if we wouldn’t play as much… We just want to play the content, in our elite spec.

The goal post NEVER moved. Someone datamined some stuff, and everyone took it as gospel. When did Anet ever change the goal post on this?

In fact, by giving us 10 points for every hero point in HoT, they’ve made it very easy to level up your elite specialization.

So, to make a reverent you have to unlock it with 400 skill points right? Or they just giving that for free?

Pompeia.5483:

Morfedel.4165:

I am trying to recall a single MMORPG where an expansion handed out everything you expected to get with it up front, rather than making you earn it. I can’t think of a single one, and this sense of entitlement just truly baffles me.

In fact it seems to me that considering everything, you still get quite a bit more upfront than you do in most if not all of those other MMORPGs, considering that leveling Scrolls and tomes of knowledge and the like. Plus if you did everything possible getting a 200 point jump in your specializations.

Furthermore, there is a big difference between playing new content to earn the new abilities, and grinding old content.

unless you think the very first character you ever made in Guild Wars 2 should have been made instantly level 80 and given all legendary and ascended gear for free. Which of course is completely silly

This content was intended to be played, and the new stuff to be earned, not to be handed out like candy to children on Halloween.

I can. Rift. They gave out all the souls (trait lines) of their new “profession” and even the option to, with deluxe purchase, bounce to lvl 60 (lvl 65 is cap) so you can join in all the content with everyone else right off. Still had to explore… still have to get those last five levels… still have to get all the achievements, etc. But you can join in with everyone else right away and, if you want costume things, they are still in the gem store.

Ok, so I’ve never played Rift, but by your own words you still aren’t getting everything there either. You still had to explore, get lasst 5 levels, the achievements, etc etc. But you can play with everyone else right away. Well, with HoT you can as well. Nothing is stopping you. And if you did all the core content, you are already just over halfway there too. So although you got more of a jump start than GW2, you still didn’t get everything there either, and just as with Rift nothing is stopping you from playing, so this really is a non sequitur.