Guild Wars 2

Feel like it will remain the way it is, it’s been to long into to the expansion for a change.
Now it would make the people that grindinded like crazy feel like they did it for nothing if they change it.

First, I am definitely a “hardcore WvW-only player” before HoT. That said, I like the mastery system. I like the fact you have to go do stuff to unlock more abilities to experience more of the maps. Also I really love the personal story; it’s super compelling and fun. But…

The number of hero points required for elite specs is too high.

I’ve done about 20 hero challenges across Verdant, Auric and Tangled. Like many others have said, some of these are gated behind masteries. HOWEVER there is absolutely no indication about them being currently inaccessible. I just wasted literally ~3 hours tonight trying to get a hero challenge only to finally realize that I would need Gliding 6 to get it (I think, anyway).

The hero challenges don’t say anything about them being inaccessible to your character. This leads to a lot of time wasted. This is also a big usability problem. It just compounds all the issues with elite specs. (Not to mention the icon for earned Hero Challenges is way way too similar to the unearned icon!!!)

ANet you did so much perfectly right with this expansion but you flubbed this whole elite specialization deal. Please fix it.

tullrn.7902:

Feel like it will remain the way it is, it’s been to long into to the expansion for a change.
Now it would make the people that grindinded like crazy feel like they did it for nothing if they change it.

The group of people you speak of don’t care to compromise and relax on this one issue. That group of people have been calling us whiners, criers and babies from the get go. So sorry but I don’t feel bad when anet finally relaxes the hero point grind. If they get their feelers hurt so be it.

I’m 45 ish days into GW2. I had a great time going through base Tyria without it feeling like a grind. At all.

So now HoT comes out and locking elite spec behind a massive wall of hero points might be okay for you guys but in the long run I assume you guys are gonna keep introducing further ‘elite spec’ such as ele with greatsword (used ele cause that’s all I’ve managed to play so far) for example.

Here is my major concern, will your future expansions be the same as this such as ele + gs that it will be gated by another massive grind combined with another couple of areas that requires as much mastery into it just so that we can actually ‘specialised’?

If that is your long term goal, you’ll lose a massive amount of players just from the idea of this.

Just my two cents.

Being forced to beg people to come help kill a champion doesn’t feel very heroic.

So to add another experience and opinion, here’s mine:

I’m playing GW2 again since a month after a loooong break (the first 6 months after release, then nothing). Of course I was thrilled because of HoT and prepurchased the special edition.

I planned for the elite specialisations of my characters and looked forward to the launch. Till yesterday night I thought I would get hero points through level ups after 80, so 400 wasn’t THAT much a deal, as I could just do my things (world exploration, crafting etc.) and still get my hero points. Or even use the tomes. Then I saw, that my experience bar was locked because of masteries. Ok… so I rushes through the opening of HoT (otherwise I would have taken my sweet time, doing everything, looking for everything) to get my ecperience bar unlocked again.

Now I’m realizing, that I won’t get any Hero Points the relaxed way. No… I have to grind/rush through the new content as I already did with the opening.

Long story short:
Would you please let us play through the content (without rushing!) with our elite specs, not because we want to unlock them? Frankly that’s some bad bad game design.

Thanks and kind regards

Well the main problem is whether you play a char you did all old map completions with or not.

If you did, you already have almost half of hero points you need. Just do a few easy ones on new maps and you are done. In 2 days.

But if you changed your main you are screwed for weeks of grinding.

Majic.4801:

Being forced to beg people to come help kill a champion doesn’t feel very heroic.

Wait, you mean there are people who can’t solo champions in this game? Oh wait, there are people who at level 80 can’t even kill a -veteran- mob…

I dont get why you are all complaining about the 400 points , I started playing friday and play for 3 hours a day and have my reaper already 80% finished . No stress and ita fun unlocking everyskill. I am always thrilled to see what comes next in my specialization.

For me it wouldnt be fun to get everything i want the day hot was released, it would be the same like using a cheat code and all the challange would be for nothing.

Suggestion: For various reasons.

Drop XP Buffs from trash mobs in GoT Maps. You can vary this dependent on the population present, and/or if need be decrease over time. You could make ‘Nighttime’ XP Buffs rich. something of this order.

Give casuals some hope, kitten .

BTW: The current speed buffs seem designed to train people. Why on earth do you have such speed buffs in these zones?

Random Wax Orc.7695:

1) Hero Challenges that you don’t have the prerequisites for should be in RED not green.

2) Hero Challenges that can’t be realistically soloed should be renamed GROUP Challenges and have a different symbol.

3) All events should be visible from everywhere in the zone… with mouse-over tips that includes the event progress info.

4) Every event needs a rally point so players can get back to the event without having to run back across the map from a waypoint thereby losing credit for the event. Contested waypoints should be reconsidered in HoT for the same reason.

5) Diminished Returns should be removed from the HoT maps. Because of Masteries, experience gain should not be diminished on any maps throughout Tyria.

6) Newbie PvP player lockouts conflict with participation in guild pvp missions. There needs to be guild-wide unlocks for guild pvp missions.

7) Elite Specialization grinding and Masteries grinding would be fine IF the expansion wasn’t about playing with those Elite Specializations and Masteries instead of earning the content players paid real money to get. Players paid for this content, but now they have to endlessly grind to earn it in game. The grind wall is too high for content players just paid for. I will be sick of the new maps before can play them with the Elite Specializations and Masteries.

1 to 4 are great ideas for players on both sides of the fence.

BaconofPigs.1683:

Majic.4801:

Being forced to beg people to come help kill a champion doesn’t feel very heroic.

Wait, you mean there are people who can’t solo champions in this game? Oh wait, there are people who at level 80 can’t even kill a -veteran- mob…

Apparently, there are also people who can’t even kill a level 1 straw man, but like your post, that’s beside the point.

The point is that the current regime needs modification, and hopefully that point is getting across to the people who can do something about it.

The challenging npc’s are a welcome change but the meager xp is really disheartening. Events do not give enough experience. I just want to play with a specialization but I do not want to work 6 months for that privilege.

It is really frustrating getting to a hero challenge and finding out it requires a mastery to complete. It would be appropriate to have some kind of info on the map to tell us the requirement.

I’m going to add my two cents to this discussion. I don’t really have any major complaints about other components of the expansion so far, except for the elite specialisation thing. It is mind boggling on almost every level and actually made me stay away from HoT entirely. It is a sort of a bottleneck that I can’t force myself to go through and I can’t see why does it have to be there.

First of all, “elite” doesn’t mean “only for the chosen ones/dedicated players”. It’s purely a technical term that is used to distinguish non-elite specs from those unique ones. The natural assumption always was that more of them will be coming in future releases and your character sheet will only allow for one of those to be active at any one time. Anyone who says it is supposed to be grinded or “earned” actually ignores Guild Wars 2’s own nomenclature. Think about the “elite skills” at the end of you skill bar. They aren’t “elite” because they have to be grinded, they just compete for one exlusive slot on your skill bar and have more power to compensate for that.

Putting those technicalities behind us, and even ignoring them entirely, I still have no idea why such a basic gameplay mechanism is gated behind a significant amount of grind or any grind at all. In my mind it should have been comparable to the effort that’s needed for all non-elite basic traits and skills etc. I actually don’t think it is that crazy to demand this feature to be available (or at least more accessible with a symbolic amount of grind) from the get-go. You paid for it, didn’t you? It looks like a smoke screen that is being used to hide the overall lack of fresh and enticing content.

It also goes so much against what GW2 always stood for – playing your way and being rewarded no matter what you do, but having all the base avenues more or less open. It was up to you to choose whether you wanted to engage, but the options were there. I don’t feel like I have those options here. Granted, I personally despise grind in most shapes of form. But base GW2 content never felt like a grind, it was as much a joyous exploration of Tyria, as it was an exploration of game mechanics, trying out new weapons and skills. I feel like at least that last component is sorely missing here.

I decided to avoid the HoT content entirely and go back to leveling new characters in the base game until something is done here or I exhaust all other ways to play. The issue of elite specs is very important to me, because in my mind without having easy access to them, HoT is just a couple of pretty regions to run around in, where you can do the same old stuff you’ve done for years. Masteries are not a particularly big feature, raids are going to be inaccessible to a big chunk of the player base (remember, this is how ANet wanted them to be).

Notice that almost all features in HoT are hidden behind some sort of a grind. Even story. We basically paid for a huge treadmill here, and base GW2 wasn’t like that at all. It’s like the ratio of “new exciting stuff to do, you paid for it and it’s yours to play with” and “end game grind for the dedicated” has been switched here. GW2 had a lot of the former, with some of the latter. In HoT the most basic features have to be unlocked.

I may be in minority or majority, I don’t care. You know this one person here is not going to engage with your new content anytime soon.

MaJoBooOM.4851:

I dont get why you are all complaining about the 400 points , I started playing friday and play for 3 hours a day and have my reaper already 80% finished . No stress and ita fun unlocking everyskill. I am always thrilled to see what comes next in my specialization.

We’re complaining because we have to do all this crap 9 FREAKING TIMES to unlock elites on all our toons (for those of us with one of each class). Personally, If nothing changes, 2/3 of my toons are probably going to spend the rest of their lives sitting on rich iron or platinum nodes. GW2 was the best mmo I ever played because ( up until 2 days ago) it was not grindy. Sure, you can grind if you want to, but it completely optional. Those days are long gone. Getting hero points is grindy as hell because you have to do the same godkitten content on every toon. That actually wouldn’t be so bad, but pretty much every hero point requires a group to defeat a champ. Why are we all complaining? Because getting hero points in the new zones is essentially mandatory if you ever want to unlock elite specs, but many hero points require a group to fight a champ.

So way to go, Anet. You did it. You figured out a way to completely alienate anyone who is either A) casual, or has lots of alts. I am both A & B so am doubly screwed.

I like a lot about the expansion but the one thing I just can’t get passed is the hero point cost for elite specializations. For the few that seem to think its ok let me put something in perspective. If I level to 80th I have all of my normal specializations and skills unlocked and that great. But if I then map all of central Tyria I cannot even get halfway through earning my elite specialization.

Let me repeat, if I then map ALL OF CENTRAL TYRIA, I still have my specialization less than half unlocked. Forgive me, but really? I’d like to play with them while I mapped, before I’ve finished the game and all.

Understand, I’m fine with them costing more than a normal specialization but 400 hero points is simply too high. I feel it should have been in the 120~180 range (two to three times the normal amount). After all, as I understand it, they are supposed to give you knew fun options to play and not be more powerful than any of the existing options so why make them so expensive?

In any case this I sincerely hope it changes.

leftyboy.9358:

tullrn.7902:

Feel like it will remain the way it is, it’s been to long into to the expansion for a change.
Now it would make the people that grindinded like crazy feel like they did it for nothing if they change it.

The group of people you speak of don’t care to compromise and relax on this one issue. That group of people have been calling us whiners, criers and babies from the get go. So sorry but I don’t feel bad when anet finally relaxes the hero point grind. If they get their feelers hurt so be it.

I’m angry that ANET isn’t closing down and infraction the rude, insulting posters who make childish attacks on the many who are unhappy with elite spec unlocks. I don’t mind being disagreed with, even strongly, but personal attacks being allowed do not make ANET look good.

I hated it when the living story turned into a jump puzzle and came in little steps, that was when i stoped playing GW2 open PvE.
Then they announced HoT and all information we got sounded very much like a giant jump puzzle, now i suppose i will quit GW2 totally…as i do not even get chests in WvW any more. Suppose with this awsome add on they will lose lots of players.

Ha, just had a whisper from a friend of mine – “is there no way to increase masteries without grinding XP” – she doesn’t even read the forum and I haven’t even mentioned my displeasure with this to her.

I’m now worried she’ll be put off playing too…

Sytherek.7689:

I’m angry that ANET isn’t closing down and infraction the rude, insulting posters who make childish attacks on the many who are unhappy with elite spec unlocks. I don’t mind being disagreed with, even strongly, but personal attacks being allowed do not make ANET look good.

Yeah, it seems like being a unhappy with something justifies insulting them for some people.

Almost every post that someone asks for the requirement to be lowered is met with a sea of “man up”, “cry-baby” and worse.

Along with the “What grind? I’ve played x-MMO and had to stand at one tree for 12 days straight hitting button xyz to unlock a hat, THAT’s a grind. You must want to unlock the elite by logging in” as if playing a grindy game justifies shooting down peoples feelings that unlocking the elites like this is grindy.

I am not so shure anymore if its so hard to get the hero points. Shure not fast but i ran an hour WvW roamin learning the new maps a bit. I got about 10 coins for buying random hero quests. This will lead to something about 40h playtime for an elite spec.
If that pace keeps up, then its OK. I don´t know for shure now but will see. If not is stays ridicolous.

I’m taking time away from GW2, like several friends of mine.

Suggestions:

Lower the cost of elite specializations dramatically.

Compensate those who’ve ground the poor design of elites, perhaps with gems.

Refocus your company on real content, not artificial grind meant to make weak content feel longer.

Make a commitment to what brought many of us to GW2 — fun. GrInd is not fun, playing a new spec I paid for is.

Don’t make future specs equal in strength to existing specs and then charge 10x as much effort. If the new elite specs were super powered, the effort wouldn’t feel so bad, but that would wreck the game. Make effort commensurate with value.

I’m out a here. Other people treat me better for the money I spend.

Wolfric.9380:

I am not so shure anymore if its so hard to get the hero points. Shure not fast but i ran an hour WvW roamin learning the new maps a bit. I got about 10 coins for buying random hero quests. This will lead to something about 40h playtime for an elite spec.
If that pace keeps up, then its OK. I don´t know for shure now but will see. If not is stays ridicolous.

One last comment — I had a similar WvW experience last night, gaining 10 coins in an hour. It was boring, repetitive, and in a strange way, fun. But I can’t see spending 40 hours running WvW just to unlock something I paid for that’s a fundamental aspect of my character. Heck, I could level a traditional 80 in the same and same way. A new spec shouldn’t take that much work.

As a WvW who tolerates PvE if done right, I posted some angry comments on the first day. Now, considering that masteries are acc bound I guess the system is not so bad. (But 400 hero points is still too much for people who can’t be bothered to PvE or don’t have the time)

But what really kittenes me off, is that unless you find the correct path to advance on the maps, it’s very punishing. Spent like 1-2 hours just searching around to try and reach the 4th map, only to realize you need the burrow mastery or something. It’s like devs wanted to hide things for us so we could “discover” them but literally everything was hidden since I stepped onto maguuma jungle, so frustrating and anoying honestly

THIS is the only thing I have to complain about with the expansion.

As a veteran player I have a number of characters that kept earning skill points past 80. With nothing better to do with the points I used them to craft weapons and sold them on the TP. Fast forward to present day and most of my characters could barely afford to unlock the ability to wield a new weapon. Particularly on my main that has 100% map completion.

To add insult to injury the map doesn’t display incomplete hero challenges like it did with skill points. It highlights all the other map completion items, but it won’t even highlight the ones I’ve completed. So now I get to “hunt and peck” for skill points flipping between websites and the game.

I tend to agree, will be taking extended time away from Grind Wars 2, thankfully there more then one game on market.

While I like new map design (gliding is the best thing ever!), I must agree that in general, “gating” seems excessive. I want “X”, but to get it I need to master “Y”, but for that I need mastery point locked behind “Z”. Running around a map and constantly banging my head at stuff locked behind something I can’t get because it’s locked behind something else gets a little frustrating.

In itself it wouldn’t be so bad, but it makes the “400HP” requirement a much bigger issue than I expected. The nature of many hero challenges (champion with ton of hp and a kitten TIMER) makes things really dire, as due to map size/navigation issues people aren’t all that willing to help with them.

I believe one of two things should be done:
a) reduce the number of HP required to reasonable amount,
or
b) make all HP challenges soloable (remove timers for bare minimum… I mean, if someone is good enough to solo a champ, why not let him do it?)

Finally, a bunch of suggestions from Random Wax Orc.7695 that I repeat because they deserve it:

1) Hero Challenges [and mastery points] that you don’t have the prerequisites for should be in RED not green.

2) Hero Challenges that can’t be realistically soloed should be renamed GROUP Challenges and have a different symbol.

3) All events should be visible from everywhere in the zone… with mouse-over tips that includes the event progress info.

5) Diminished Returns should be removed from the HoT maps. (…)

I think most people could agree with those 4 points.

Turethir.7281:

I was ganged up on in my guild for expressing negative opinions in GC yesterday, which is a shame, as I was always very positive about this game.

Me too, I was very upset and just venting to whom I thought were friends, but all I got told was too stop complaining and read the forum post on complaining. ( our guild forums)

I was like wow, excuse me. Not everything is rainbows and sunshines. Negative opinions are just as valid. They was like ya but they are annoying… PSS whatever. I’m just going to play another game and see if things die down and some things gets changed/fixed.

As a wvw player only i paied the game for playing with elite spec in wvw not for any kind of grind. I already have a job. If people like pve, the grind, jps or whatever you want is fine for me just don’t force the others to do things they don’t want to.
And before someone pops out telling me “well if you play pve maybe you start to like it!” no. Already tried and i really hate it. Wasting the few time i have in pve maps makes me hating it even more.

Levelling specs in wvw is kinda the same. It’s not really an option. I wanna enjoy HoT with hot things not waste my time.

Elite Specializations.

I was so looking forward to logging in on launch, to build my reaper in WvW only to find that the whole profession line is locked behind a massive wall.

I don’t do PVE content, even though i have tried it to see if the whole hero point acquisition was any more bearable, it wasn’t.

400 hero points to actually play the game, Especially when your “proof of heroics” are RNG (i got 2 from one rank up, seriously?) , is completely ridiculous.

Atleast one of these things needs to happen.

1. Up the drops for proof of heroics and make them a staple amount rather than random, so we know when we’ll actually be able to play elite specs.

2. Lower the amount of hero points needed.

3. Reintroduce world xp consumables to laurel and/or badge vendors.

I’m playing a reaper myself and all you need is 60 HP to unlock the elite specialization (you get an exotic greatsword plus the associated skin) and another 15 HP to unlock the first minor trait that allows you to go into reaper shroud. That means a total of 75 HP gives you 10 new abilities to play with.

That is enough to feel like a reaper and enjoy playing it. You absolutely don’t need 400 HP to enjoy playing a reaper. Sure, you won’t be the most effective reaper possible due to lack of reaper-traits and utility skills but at least you get a sense of progression once you unlock everything else step by step

Also I suggest trying to change your own behaviour instead of asking arenanet to cater to your self-imposed restrictions (“I don’t want to do PVE content”)

good luck & have fun

MaJoBooOM.4851:

I dont get why you are all complaining about the 400 points , I started playing friday and play for 3 hours a day and have my reaper already 80% finished . No stress and ita fun unlocking everyskill.

Let me know how much fun you are having when doing it for the third, fourth, fifth or eleventh time.

The problem is very simple:
Players want to play the new Elite Specialisations → They need a lot of Hero Points → Players try to rush through all Hero Points → Players waste a lot of time getting to the Hero Points, realising that they cannot access them because they need a lot of Mastery Points → Players now have to first grind for Mastery Points

If Elite Specialisations were easy to unlock, players would not feel obligated to prematurely unlock Masteries to get the required Hero Points. They could enjoy the content at a slower pace whilst having fun. Right now players feel forced to overcome a grindfest until their fun begins. They looked forward to playing the content with the new Elite Specialisations, not play almost all new content with their old character, to then finish the bit that is left with the character that they initially intended to play.

Straylight.7529:

I’m playing a reaper myself and all you need is 60 HP to unlock the elite specialization (you get an exotic greatsword plus the associated skin) and another 15 HP to unlock the first minor trait that allows you to go into reaper shroud. That means a total of 75 HP gives you 10 new abilities to play with.

That is enough to feel like a reaper and enjoy playing it. You absolutely don’t need 400 HP to enjoy playing a reaper. Sure, you won’t be the most effective reaper possible due to lack of reaper-traits and utility skills but at least you get a sense of progression once you unlock everything else step by step

Also I suggest trying to change your own behaviour instead of asking arenanet to cater to your self-imposed restrictions (“I don’t want to do PVE content”)

good luck & have fun

Because running around with a sub-optimal build isn’t really on the cards and shouldn’t be the case for anyone. Gating skills / traits and utilities behind a grind wall, especially one that involves RNG unless you’re pigeonholed into one gametype is bad design. They should be available in all sections of the game, not just in one (pvp).

MaJoBooOM.4851:

I dont get why you are all complaining about the 400 points , I started playing friday and play for 3 hours a day and have my reaper already 80% finished . No stress and ita fun unlocking everyskill. I am always thrilled to see what comes next in my specialization.

For me it wouldnt be fun to get everything i want the day hot was released, it would be the same like using a cheat code and all the challange would be for nothing.

Reapers are currently one of the best PVE classes in the game for soloing content. If your playing a Necro you can solo certain champions. Nearly every post I have seen from Necros are ones about soloing their way through the Jungle. Let’s hope Anet doesn’t nerf them

Other classes struggle to solo some Veteran mobs nevermind anything stronger. Some classes have a much harder time in the Jungle even in groups thanks to trash mobs that can one shot you.

localghost.9145:

MaJoBooOM.4851:

I dont get why you are all complaining about the 400 points , I started playing friday and play for 3 hours a day and have my reaper already 80% finished . No stress and ita fun unlocking everyskill.

Let me know how much fun you are having when doing it for the third, fourth, fifth or eleventh time.

And also how much fun you’re having when there’s no zerg wave to ride so you have to kill champs solo for those points.

The game hasn’t even been out 3 days yet, and it’s already getting difficult to find people to help with hero points.

Vex.7486:

Straylight.7529:

I’m playing a reaper myself and all you need is 60 HP to unlock the elite specialization (you get an exotic greatsword plus the associated skin) and another 15 HP to unlock the first minor trait that allows you to go into reaper shroud. That means a total of 75 HP gives you 10 new abilities to play with.

That is enough to feel like a reaper and enjoy playing it. You absolutely don’t need 400 HP to enjoy playing a reaper. Sure, you won’t be the most effective reaper possible due to lack of reaper-traits and utility skills but at least you get a sense of progression once you unlock everything else step by step

Also I suggest trying to change your own behaviour instead of asking arenanet to cater to your self-imposed restrictions (“I don’t want to do PVE content”)

good luck & have fun

Because running around with a sub-optimal build isn’t really on the cards and shouldn’t be the case for anyone. Gating skills / traits and utilities behind a grind wall, especially one that involves RNG unless you’re pigeonholed into one gametype is bad design. They should be available in all sections of the game, not just in one (pvp).

When you make your character he doesn’t pop out level 80 with all skills, he is sub-optimal.

Then you progress in the game to build your character.

Expansion is no different.

Hope this helps.

I am sick and tired of artificial GATING of content in MMO’s to try STRETCH out how long it takes to get to the good stuff. Is that because there isn’t much through that gate once we get there?

Just look at fractals and the agony system where you have to WASTE time farming just to get to the harder fractals. If I was farming for better gear it would feel like progression but instead your farming for a stat that’s ONLY USED IN FRACTALS.

It’s exactly the same with Mastery’s. We are farming Mastery’s that we can’t even use outside the Jungle just to get to ONE new spec line that costs as much points as our 5 other spec lines combined. The 5 other spec lines don’t even offer as much build choice anymore and they honestly feel like they been gutted.

We can’t even choose to ignore the spec lines we don’t want so we can save points for the elite spec line. We have to put points in spec lines we will NEVER EVER use. How is that character choice?

We are forced to farm agony, farm mastery’s and dump points in spec lines we won’t ever use just to get to what we really want. It’s all wasted time and wasted game content that offers no advancement to our characters.

Agony GATE
Mastery GATE
All 5 Spec lines GATE

The nerfing of non-gated content such as Dungeons and lower level fractal rewards is insulting enough that players are leaving over it. We are being pushed onto a treadmill of grinding the same content over & over to get over a gate that doesn’t even advance our character.

Maybe the developers should focus on giving us more game content and goodies that advance our characters instead of wasting time and resources on gates that the players don’t want and never asked for in the first place.

We want new challenging game content that isn’t gated behind anything but player skill and building your character for the fight. (aka bringing a build/spec that counters that boss your fighting). Gear grind should be part of that but it should take a back seat to the rest and shouldn’t be boring.

it’s a wild jungle guys, dangerous and unforgiven. u need to adapt to it nature, you just spend to much time without any difficalty at all and it gives you a wrong understanding of grind. end game is exactly a grind and all of you are bagging for end game. if i’am wrong feel free to explain what you were doing all this time in Tyria before hots, and other games after levelcap

Turethir.7281:

I was ganged up on in my guild for expressing negative opinions in GC yesterday, which is a shame, as I was always very positive about this game. Luckily there seem to be lots of kindred spirits here so I’ll freely express my opinions.

In my mind (and as many have said) fixing the three things below will make a massive difference.

1) Drastically reduce the number of hero points needed to unlock elites. While I am not especially bothered about my elite spec I know how much others were looking forward to them. It was only in a post literally a day or two before the expansion that it was explicitly stated that these would be ‘unlocked’ – not helped by the beta weekends making them instantly available. This gave a lot of people the wrong impression and I can understand their frustrations. I would reduce this to around 60 points or so.

2) Half the XP needed for each mastery. Although these are account-bound (which is good) I still feel they’re too grindy. I find myself looking at my XP bar a lot. I never did in the base game.

3) When people are not around hero points (often because they’re mastery gated or very hard to get to) stop with the unsoloable champions with time limits! Downscale them to veteran mobs so that soloers can have a chance. This will become even more obvious once fewer players are on the map and people are attempting to get hero points for their alts. Implementing point 1 would massively reduce this issue also!

ANet made a good move by getting rid of the story requirement to have Itzel 4 mastered.

Come on ANet – if you sort these three things out, the majority will be a lot happier.

This is excellent feedback. I wanted to quote it to increase its chance of being noticed.

I would add that I feel unlocking masteries with both points and XP seems redundant (possibly even confusing). A more radical suggestion: what about removing the XP requirement from masteries entirely? I think it would eliminate the grindy feel, while still requiring players to work for the mastery points.

I am strictly a WvW player that is being forced to pve to gain access to to specializations that I will only use in WvW. Let me repeat WvW. This was the one thing that kept me coming back since the beginning was the fact you didn’t force me to pve to get something I needed. Anet you added hero points the WvW maps but 1 and you can only get 1 for each BL in the same spot? Yet you made me get a vista or poi on 3 different BLs before?

The new WvW maps are entirely to large. Yes you can still have fights in a few select places on the map but, now that the entire eotm population has moved to where the actual fights happen, they decide to jump gloriously to their deaths instead of actually fighting. The keep champs while I do love a challenge completely wreck groups and needs nerfed. Last time I checked WvW was about servers fighting other servers. You just basically made another pve map and once everyone gets over the whole hot hoopla they will realize its not about fighting anymore. It’s about making sure you have the most upgrades on the guild hall trait line for wvw and exploiting the hell out of a map as a guild.

The only thing that is keeping me here now is I added stripper pools to the guild hall. Thx anet at least you got that right.

Snoops

Turethir.7281:

I was ganged up on in my guild for expressing negative opinions in GC yesterday, which is a shame, as I was always very positive about this game. Luckily there seem to be lots of kindred spirits here so I’ll freely express my opinions.

In my mind (and as many have said) fixing the three things below will make a massive difference.

1) Drastically reduce the number of hero points needed to unlock elites. While I am not especially bothered about my elite spec I know how much others were looking forward to them. It was only in a post literally a day or two before the expansion that it was explicitly stated that these would be ‘unlocked’ – not helped by the beta weekends making them instantly available. This gave a lot of people the wrong impression and I can understand their frustrations. I would reduce this to around 60 points or so.

2) Half the XP needed for each mastery. Although these are account-bound (which is good) I still feel they’re too grindy. I find myself looking at my XP bar a lot. I never did in the base game.

3) When people are not around hero points (often because they’re mastery gated or very hard to get to) stop with the unsoloable champions with time limits! Downscale them to veteran mobs so that soloers can have a chance. This will become even more obvious once fewer players are on the map and people are attempting to get hero points for their alts. Implementing point 1 would massively reduce this issue also!

ANet made a good move by getting rid of the story requirement to have Itzel 4 mastered.

Come on ANet – if you sort these three things out, the majority will be a lot happier.

Just my opinions on your opinions;

1) I like that it’s difficult unlock elite specs. But, I would like to see;
a) Remove the 60 point buy in. At least let people get started right off the bat.
b) Give us some other ways to do it. Map completion gets you about half way through, and is a pain in the kitten . Hero points can be really difficult for some people, and others hate the idea. One of the best parts of guild wars 2 has always, in my opinion, been that you have 3 or 4 paths to any end. You want to level up? Okay you can do that in PvP, Crafting, Events, Dungeons, WvW, Gathering, Map Completion. So why limit Elite Specs to Hero Points and Hero Points alone? Why not make an Elite Spec PvP track? Add some hero point rewards to some of the difficult WvW captures? Make a Boss Event drop a couple of points here and there? Add in an Elite Spec Mastery; let us earn rewards by just general questing.
c) In Summary; I don’t think having it be a challenge, or a ‘process’ to fully upgrade your elite spec is bad. I am glad for the challenge, but GW2 was designed to appeal to a large variety of player bases; having such a limited method of progression is going to alienate a lot of them.
Honorable Mention Replay-ability. So many people I know have multiple alts. The current method of unlocking elite specs is going to be a nightmare to do multiple times. I, personally, enjoyed the challenge of unlocking my Chrono. I loved it, but if I have to redo the same exact thing for each toon, with no possible chance of variation. . .I’m probably just not going to do it.

2) Yes. Please, Yes. Especially the first level mastery tracks. Higher level ones should be more challenging to get, but the opening tracks need to be more accessible.

3) For most of the hero points, I think having a champ is great. It’s a fun challenge. The time limit, however, is annoying. One of the things they implemented (intentionally or not) is the efficacy of a tankier build, at the cost of DPS. But then they put in high defense/hp champions with a 5 minute kill timer? In my opinion, the time limits should be removed or inversely scaled with participation.
As an afterthought; maybe include ‘challenge modes’ like they do for some achievements? Scale it off of participation so one or two people gets a vet, but if you want a good challenge with extra rewards you can select the challenge mode. Idk, just a thought.

Either way Turethir, well thought out response, thank you for posting these ideas and I hope Anet reads your post.

Charrbeque.8729:

From what I’ve seen there is way less HoT content compared all all of the core game, yet you have to do just as much work.

From what I can tell, it’s sort of the point. If you have little content you need to stretch it to make it look like more than it is especially with the price tag, hence people calling it “grind”.

Red Mistress Denna.9804:

Either way Turethir, well thought out response, thank you for posting these ideas and I hope Anet reads your post.

Thank you (and also a big thanks to Preserver who quoted my post also) – and thank you for your insights, too! I like the idea of a ‘challenge mode’ for Hero Points. Shame there’s no Build Switcher yet, as it would be a lot easier to switch to tankier gear/specs quickly to take on these challenges, if soloing champs is something you like to do!

As others have suggested before, downscaling mobs around HP to allow for solo captures would go a long way to reducing the frustration some of us feel.

Another idea to seemingly reduce grind without actually doing it… allow for free trait/skill unlock progression in elite spec line. In other words, allow players to unlock whichever trait/skill they want to use first. This way, we can start using the specialization and continue working towards fully unlocking it while playing.

This change can be unique to elite spec so other branches wont be affected; ultimate hp req wont change so sounds like a good compromise (although i really do hope the sheer # of req hp does go down… 400 X 9 is a LOT).

Apologies in advance if someone else suggested it before… 52 pages is a lot to read through

I just want to say one thing about these Elite spec requirements: kudos Anet, you managed to go back years, concept-wise, to something very much akin to DAOC’s Trial of Atlantis Master Levels.

Worst.
Thing.
Ever.

GW2 at release was a great game. I played the beta and knew exactly what kind of game I was getting and loved it. Unfortunately, since then it’s been misstep after misstep for Anet. The Karka event, LS1, LS2, NPE, and now HoT. The first few were understandable because they were trying some new concepts. However, at this point they seem to have no idea what they are doing. They shouldn’t have this many large protests over their actions month after month.

Actually, elite specs remind me of ESO’s Veteran Ranks (VR) system. Basically, they didn’t have enough content, so after you ground out your own faction’s quest line, they made you do the same thing for the other 2 factions. However, in ESO until you reached max VR, you were at a HUGE disadvantage in wvw. Worst, grindiest mmo experience of my life.

Allow refund/rebuy.

Yes, elites are only available at lvl80. Yes, they cost more than core. But don’t require me to buy every other skill and trait just to start spending on elite. I don’t want half of those anyhow.

Allow me to distribute points across core and elite and to change that distribution. That will go a long way toward making it feel like I’m playing it “my own way” and not faced with a grindfest.

Yup, exactly why I don’t play ESO.

What’s weird is that HoT is end game content. It content that is best played with a fully equipped character. However, because of the way elites were implemented, many people are playing with incomplete builds and having a terrible time. They are rushing through content to complete their builds. I too would love to take my time and explore, but my priority is getting my elites first. Otherwise, the game just isn’t fun for me.