Guild Wars 2

Acetone.4793:

ColinJohanson.2394:

In particular, in game we’ve seen a really positive reaction to the game from folks who are busy playing, which has been really cool to see.

I bet Square Enix responded in same way to criticism about their first iteration of Final Fantasy XIV. You know, the one before Realm Reborn. I’m sure there were people in love with that game as well.

But I’m sure people are “busy playing”. Very busy in fact. Grinding their precious life away to gain access to even the most basic features.

If I sound salty, it’s because I am. You can ignore me.
<3

Having played FFXIV V1 through closed beta onwards I can tell you SE thought it was a great game until two months after release when they finally accepted what we’d been telling them for 6 months+ .. the profile of the ‘feedback’ SE got was likely similar to that HoT’s getting.

Till now i solo´d most content. Completing the first story part and 4 hero challenges. I expect its not to hard to get the elite with a mix of WvW + PvE. All is new and i felt a bit lost at the start but it´s much more intresting to play HOT then doing map completion …

Simply make it 300 instead of 400. Even 350 or 15 points from every HoT challenge would be better then how it is now.
Many people don’t have the time to farm so many points, expecially on Revenant, also while doing halloween stuff, story and so on.

Davi.4920:

Most of all the majority of the expansion I am enjoying, so well done and thank you.

The only issues I have is

- Hero points with champions. Great if your with a group or one comes to help. Not so great if not. I had an hour to kill before work this morning and thought to myself that I would get some hp. Unfortunately I did not get a single one due to no one being in the areas and I could not solo them. Either raise the pop cap or please allow these to scale down better.

- Mastery system. I like it. However the progressive amount of xp needed goes against the “same xp for 20 to 80” and isn’t the reason I play this game. More xp from events is needed to feel more rewarding.

Thanks again.

Also this. Mainly the fact that many hero challenges are simply impossible to solo even if you are incredibly skilled. And many of them are hard to reach, so you have to organiza groups to farm them. That doesn’t fit at all the GW2 playstyle and playerbase

I haven’t been really exploring the jungle as unlocking my elite specs for my characters and builds is my top priority, (since they hyped the specs up so much and I want to play them.) If im in the jungle I tend to be running around from green map icon to green map icon, doing very little inbetween. Even then, the WvW hero point method (which is supposed to be an alternative for people who play WvW) is faster than doing it the standard jungle way, so instead of playing the new content, me and a lot of others in my guild have just been running around EB because we just want our hero points.

I believe it would be a good idea to add more methods to unlocking the elite spec / earning hero points. Either that, or reduce the hero point costs a little bit by doing the jungle method. Perhaps give us 15 or 20 points per hero challenge. Yes! 20. Im being honest!
If you want an elite spec you either run around picking off nodes in the jungle exactly like a checklist, or grind out WvW ranks with boosters by following the commander with a zerg that just wants hero points. You either follow around the green hero point icons on your minimap, or you follow around the commander icon on your minimap. It’s not a system im satisfied with. I find it funny that thinking lore-wise, the dragonhunters, chronomancers, druids and others all spent time doing nothing but running around in WvW.

For future expansions I can’t see myself doing this all over again for a trait line and a bunch of skills. I have four characters I play on, well under enough of what most people play, and none of them have substantial map completion. If I want to play Druid, berserker, Reaper and Chrono, I have to tick this checklist off 4 times, which means going to 320 of these HoT nodes again, again and again once more. I don’t actually want to even try revenant yet because I know im going to have to run around all these nodes again, undoubtedly falling asleep in the process.

Guild wars 2 is better than this! it used to be better than this. I know you have it in you Anet.

Given the even split between those that love and hate the expansion i think its important that all player express their opinion with constructive feed back.
Thank you to Colin for reassuring the player base that they are indeed listening despite the xpac only being out for 3 days.
I think personally from what ive experienced with the xpac the difficulty of mobs its good , they’re hard they’re aren’t skill 1 spammers, its good to be challenged just not all the time. you shouldn’t feel like every 10m is a struggle so maybe the density that you stumble across them could be better.
I liked silverwastes and their style of map just not all the time , i also enjoyed the more open exploration side of the core game and i feel like that has been lost to an extent with the expansion.
Gating the story behind masteries i don’t think was a mistake as such i think so long as the required amount isn’t excessive , This is also true for the elite specialisations.
Personally i care very little for mine as i think the druid is about as useful long term as an ashtray on a motorcycle but i feel that many people want to play their elite specs and through the new content.
Maybe the best solution is to set a high number of hero points just not 400 high?
maybe 250 is more reasonable?
Lastly i feel that gating some hero points behind champs may sound like great idea for people to group up and work together but eventually maguuma is going to be old content and finding people to do the hero challenges will be harder for solo players , what will happen then for the long term?
Maybe the best solution is to slide the difficulty of the mobs at hero challenges a little further south , at the very least get rid of the awful timers. These are champs not world events like teq or TT.
Anyway im sure many will agree and disagree with all i say but as stated in the beginning i think its important every player has their opinion voiced and constructive feedback heard so that the game has a better chance to move forward in the right direction. Considering how 50 / 50 the community is split at the moment i don’t envy your jobs , good luck

Here is my experience after the weekend:

I haven’t played the game, I’ve grinded it. Sadly, I’ve spent 14h in EoTM doing karma train to get hero points, and the time needed to unlock a single elite specialization is beyond any reasonable.
For WvW the issue is BIG. There’s need to be done anything for such ridiculous amount of time needed.

But yesterday, after bored and tired from such grinding, I gave it a try in the new maps. They’re great, gorgeous, they bring new stuff, the mastery system is interesting… but all this is destroyed by the simple fact of the limitations of elite specialization unlock.
After an hour trying to do the stuff as an original mesmer, it felt what I’ve always thought. New content should be done with new elite specializations. Now it seems like you need to eat a soup with a fork to be able to use a spoon… It’s just awkward.
After that, I abandoned the idea of enjoying the new content and focus to grind hero points. But to my surprise, not only you need to upgrade the mastery system, but content can only be done in groups, which is terrible since I couldn’t do several hero challenges since I was alone.
The whole experience feels really boring and frustrating.

So now not only you need a fork to eat the soup to be able to use a spoon, but before you need to sharpen a knife and get friends to build the fork to eat the soup to use the spoon…
Why did you built such a complex and ridiculous system? Why didn’t you give us the spoon and let us enjoy the soup, which is what is supposed to be enjoyed?

Given the vast amount of feedback which seems to me a bit too one-sided, I decided to pitch in my opinion.

I absolutely think the current cost is justified. Core Tyria already gives half of what you need and everybody could have done them in the months prior to the expansion. Even in the case you didn’t or rerolled a Revenant, speedrunning them solo takes about 4-6h, possibly more time efficient than the new hero challenges. At that point you have a lot of leeway to skip some of the more difficult hero challenges in Maguuma Jungle.

Another critical point to take into consideration is when the next batch of Elite Specializations are released. At that point there will be plenty new Hero challenges making it even more easy to cherrypick the hero points required for the specific Elite Spec you want.

If I had to change anything, I’d make atleast 50% of the total Hero Challenges in Maguuma easily soloable, so that the entire spec can be earned solo for those that want.

I am having a blast and love that it will take a week or so before I have my elite spec finished. Of course, it helps that I actually do enjoy the ‘grind’ in itself rather than seeing it as a requirement to have fun.

I pre-purchaced HoT because I was really excited to play the new content and finish the old as a Reaper. What I got was that I have to play thru HoT in order to unlock the Elite, not play the Elite while completing HoT. Unless someone can show me an official message explicitly stating this was to be the case Anet has conducted some serious malpractice.

Also, sorry but giving every mob and their grannies the ability to knock the player back/down does not equate to enjoyable, challenging combat.

I did good not visiting the forum during my 3 day marathon in the game. I absolutely love it! You return to this forum and the everyday whining is all over again, shattering your illusion that people actually like the game. I have no problem to farm XP etc. doing hero events etc. I like it, in the end I want to have something to do for the next months/years in this game. So if we unlock everything within just a couple of days there are many people who would complain about lack of content.

There are a lot of casual players telling it will take months to fully max out their elite specs. So my question to them: how did you level 8 classes then? Okay there are now tomes but they didn’t exist from the beginning. People these days don’t want to earn something. They want to hop in with everything unlocked. I may be oldschool coming from an 80ies gaming childhood. Weeks and months come and no one will be talking about this anymore be cause we have sunk our hundreds of hours into it and long are gone will be the memories of grinding our elite specs.

That said: I had a fresh start with my 2nd necro, having next to no hero points from the old content, I am now at over 50% on my reaper and it’s a lot of fun to play. You can play with a half finished class, it’s really no big deal, I even did fractals with it. I think in one week I’ll be maxed out, next will be my druid.

Still one critique: Make gaining hero points soloable. Yes, it’s fun to gather friends and do them as a party, but there aren’t always friends/guildies around and it’s frustrating to wait/find only to get it. It’s open world content and especially in remote places like where you need updraft it was rather a pain to get them, since most people weren’t that far.

Khristophoros.7194:

Ald.9418:

I look at elite specs as a long term progression path instead of what the majority here seems to see them as. I have no problem with their current iteration. Then again, i’m old school and could work on certain missions for years without calling them a “grind”.

Perhaps Anet should have done a better job explaining that instead of making them seem like something that “came” with the expansion and could immediately be played. I could see that argument for sure.

That doesn’t fit the GW2 design philosophy. Equipment, skills, classes, etc… are not supposed to be behind a grind wall.

Designs and philosophies change.

The main gripe a lot of players had with the game was a serious lack of long term meaningful progression, aside from legendaries. I’m sure Anet saw this in their feedback more times than not.

The “grind” aspect i’m tired of hearing about. Players have become so focused at doing every little aspect of this game and many others as efficiently as possible that they forget to actually play the game and enjoy it. Instead of rushing about trying to get all these masteries complete in one weekend, just play the game and they’ll come.

Now as far as alts go, i can understand. There’s a simple solution to correct that.

Got Master Daredevil yesterday, played 3 days. Spend less time whining and more time playing – because that’s all i did, play the game (not grind)

Personally i think its awesome how Anet implemented this, felt great when i finished the spec circle and got the last reward. It’s something to aim for and gives a sense of accomplishment when you finish, rather than being handed everything on day 1

I’ll toss in my thoughts on HoT as well.

First of all: I dislike about as much about it as I like, possibly a bit more. I’m fine with the fact that there is a larger progression to do, I just don’t think the way of doing it is right.

As far as my thoughts on masteries go, it feels kinda silly having to unlock the ability to unlock something in order to unlock something else…
Example here… I need the XP to unlock a mastery trait that allows me to earn a mastery point/hero points in order to unlock something else.

If you’d unlock mastery traits just with mastery points, which are earned by “leveling up” beyond 80 and from challenges in the world and achievements, that’d be totally fine. They could cost more than they do now too. The main issue is just that there is one single way to progress and that’s farming XP. I used to love gw2 for not forcing me to grind… Sure, I ran many champ trains, but I did because it was an option, something I chose. Now farming XP is necessary if I want to enjoy any of the new content.

Next up, elite specs! I really like the idea of them. And while not all are really interesting to me, I still want to try out a few, maybe weave the new trait likes in with classic play-styles. Though they feel discouraging. I held off on world completion with my thief, mostly since I thought I’d just do it for fun and hero points for the new specs… turns out doing old content for them is not really going to work out.
The masteries I can at least unlock account-wide, but all I can see myself do after having finished the new zones once is taking my alts, doing a run through to get the hero points only and likely never touch the new content again, which is a shame, considering the whole idea with gliders, etc.
In my opinion, a better way would have been to have the elite spec itself locked behind a quest-chain, or maybe a quest of the story that unlocks them and then having them cost as much as the old specs. That would also mean HoT hero point challenges giving 1 point instead of 10.

What I wonder here… since elite specs are so much more expensive, are they just flat out better than the old ones? In case of some berserker utility skills it nearly feels like it.
If so, that may be fine for veterans, but for new players, this practice will just make things worse and worse.

The reason why I liked GW2 to begin with was the fact that even if I didn’t play for a year, missed out on ascended items and such, I was still able to play on a even enough level with others.
Right now it feels that if I’d hop off now and return after the next expansion, those who kept playing would feel beyond reachable.

So to sum it up:
I love the idea with the gliding and the general thought of masteries. But the way they (and the elite specs) are gated just feels a bit too forced.

It might also be worth a consideration to lock less content behind masteries. Need one to unlock gliding? sure, sounds good! Another one for updrafts? alright I can live with that. Another one for bouncy mushrooms? well… okay…
But that’s about as far as it should go. As someone said (forgot who or where) masteries should make us feel empowered, they shouldn’t lock a good bunch of content away from us.

If I look at masteries for the old content, specifically what they unlock, not how they are unlocked (since I went through that before). That is the right way! The first mastery tree for example… Nothing of it is truly needed to access content, but it’s all helpful, it’s all quite cool. Automatically pick up loot? sure, I want that! It’s great to have, but nothing that locks me from playing parts of the game if I don’t have it.

Locking gliding, updrafts and bouncy mushrooms behind masteries is fine by me. But any more isn’t the right path to head down. Masteries should, as stated above, make us feel empowered. I see how the mastery implementation was meant as a long term motivation, but that also means, content will be locked away from those with less time to play for a long time. It’s going to be even worse for new players, especially after adding another expansion.
Masteries should be extras, not necessarities.

As some last word, I know someone is going to call me a whiner for not liking the implementation of mastery/elite spec progression. If people like it the way it is, fine! I don’t, I simply stated my opinion here.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Lots of passionate feedback and discussion in here on either side, and a friendly reminder that constructive feedback helps us make better games (please do keep it constructive!) We don’t always get every detail perfect the first time, but I like to think one of our strengths is we’re always open to and listening to feedback from our community and making good decisions based on that feedback.

Ultimately, we’re thrilled with the parts of HoT everyone is enjoying. Your passion is awesome, and it’s part of why we all love creating this game. In particular, in game we’ve seen a really positive reaction to the game from folks who are busy playing, which has been really cool to see.

While we never like to rush and make snap decisions, in particular with a game that’s basically been out less than three days; I think there are some fair points in here for us to discuss. Much like other feedback about HoT, we’ll be discussing this as well!

Thanks again!

Releasing the expansion AND halloween was a mean thing to do. It causes people (like myself) whom are EXTREMELY excited to get into the jungle, think twice and decide on the content that has a limited time. However I just finished my last achievement like 2 minutes ago, and now it’s time roam the jungle.

Love most aspects of the expansion, however all I do in this game is pvp and wvw, they are what I enjoy most about this game. The PvP is done great, I’m sure the skill balancing could be better, but I digress. I almost exclusively bought this expansion because I was under the impression I would be getting my elite specializations on day 1, and be able to enjoy my game. This isn’t the case, as many others have already stated better than I ever could.

I am not a big fan of playing the story or anything, while I personally feel it’s done well, it’s just not what I come onto Guild Wars 2 to do. I love the PvP aspects of this game, everything about it, countless hours of enjoyment. This expansion bothers me because it’s forcing me to do things I DO NOT want to do, I would much rather enjoy this game and some compromise be made between people in my situation and people on the other end telling me I need to enjoy the game their way. It’s a serious limitation for me, I do not like it. Please figure out a way to appease your customers.

I like the current state of the game. Majority of the people were just used to content being handed to them on a silver plate but this actually makes us work for it

Personally I’m loving the way its working. I’ve been working on my herald since launch and have played old tyria, maguma, and WvW (which I haven’t played in over 2 years). I’ve enjoyed it all.

I get that people want everything right away, but I also get that if you give it to us immediately we’ll immediately complain that there’s nothing to do, well, I’m doing everything in the game and enjoying the ride. Thanks Anet!

This thread feels more toxic than Reddit.
How is this possible?

Nike.2631:

hurrado.2346:

Praise the lord they are looking into a solution, thanks Colin!

Um, that’s NOT AT ALL what he just said.

Always the same problem, people hear what they want to hear and then come back to complain when those expectations weren’t met…

I actually like that the specs are hard to get, it makes them more unique and you appreciate them way more than you did in the betas where you unlocked them from start. I don’t know if they should require 400 hero points though, maybe 200 points so when you have all in old world you can go play with your spec in the jungle.
That is also a big part why some people are mad, they wanted to play with their spec in the jungle from start.

Fade.5904:

Got Master Daredevil yesterday, played 3 days. Spend less time whining and more time playing – because that’s all i did, play the game (not grind

I’ve played since friday and I haven’t unlocked anything meaningful. The difference between you and me might be that I have a life besides Guild Wars 2 and don’t play it like a 12h per day job – and don’t even try to tell me that you’ve unlocked those things with a game time of about two hours per day.
I played the games of this franchise precisely because they allowed me to stay on top of things without giving up my life for it. I’m not even a casual player, I’m actually quite wary of builds, equipment options and ways to master the game mechanics to be able to compete on a skill level above average at least.
What you arrogant white knight call “whining” is players – often long term players of this franchise – being upset about a fundamental change in design philosophy that shakes the very foundation of this franchise, the very reason many players who don’t like the standard MMO formula play Guild Wars and not WoW and other standard MMOs.

And to Colin: It’s great that ArenaNet is discussing this. And no, I’m not sarcastic about that one one bit. But let’s face it: All this didn’t happen by accident, your company isn’t composed of morons and rookies but professionals. Even if some of you may have not been happy about the shift in design philosophy, they were not able to defend the old way of doing things.
Therefore I’m not convinced that any internal discussion ArenaNet will lead will improve HoT to the point where it no longer alienates a significant amount of it’s unique player base.

But I don’t want to finish this post as the merchant of doom I never wanted to be for this franchise. I love it, I don’t want it to die, I don’t want to be driven away from it. Therefore I will preserve a beacon of hope that the HoT grind might be pushed out of anything that’s not optional.

Yeah fine if some say they like the 400 HP because it worked for them. Because they “worked” all weekend for it and are already half through.

But the point still is the majority don’t want to “work” for the elite, that’s right. We want to “play”, “enjoy”, “savor”.
Why are we forced to do grind through the jungle and cannot enjoy it? Because that’s the consequence. For example, my playstile would be to play the new content bit by bit (it will take long). Do something else in between, not having that much time to playing to begin with. So to get the elite spec, to play with it, enjoy it, I can’t do that. Is that intended? Rush through the content, “work” it through, otherwise you will never see the elite specs? Yeah well congrats. Disheartened players right there.

And that’s not even taken into account the most pressing problems of many players: Champion HP (can’t do solo) and mastery locked HP.

For example for the regular trait lines and HP you just had to level. Experience comes from all kind of sources. You don’t have to “work” for it, just play the game, enjoy the ride. The old HP challenges were just a bonus to get it faster if you wanted to.

Gunmetal.1952:

Anet lost their way with this expansion.

Having 8 Level 80’s, you really think it’s ‘fun’ for me to have to go out and farm roughly 2700+ points between all my characters to unlock each elite spec? It’ll simply be repeating content I’ve already done, which doesn’t interest me in doing.

How long did it take you to get 8 level 80’s? It took me over a year.

Did you forget that each of those characters required effort to advance? Did you forget you played the same content on each of them? Did you forget that horizontal progression means that you still have to earn that progress?

If this reactionary mob manages to cheapen a challenge that many have completed in fewer than three days, because they don’t feel like playing the game, I’m confident that whining is the new meta.

“Most games you go out and you have really fun tasks occasionally and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. I swung a sword, I swung a sword again hey! I swung it again, that’s just great. We just don’t want players to grind in GW2, no one enjoys that, no one finds it fun…” – Just remember what you told us before we began this journey Colin.

swansea.2453:

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Lots of passionate feedback and discussion in here on either side, and a friendly reminder that constructive feedback helps us make better games (please do keep it constructive!) We don’t always get every detail perfect the first time, but I like to think one of our strengths is we’re always open to and listening to feedback from our community and making good decisions based on that feedback.

Ultimately, we’re thrilled with the parts of HoT everyone is enjoying. Your passion is awesome, and it’s part of why we all love creating this game. In particular, in game we’ve seen a really positive reaction to the game from folks who are busy playing, which has been really cool to see.

While we never like to rush and make snap decisions, in particular with a game that’s basically been out less than three days; I think there are some fair points in here for us to discuss. Much like other feedback about HoT, we’ll be discussing this as well!

Thanks again!

Too little, to late i’m afraid Col. People are slating the expansion all over the net, you have committed the cardinal sin in gaming of alienating your casual player. The casuals are the ones that keep a game ticking over, pay for the newest skin, like to change their character design and pay for it.

Your current model will see these players leave in droves and will ultimately kill the game.

Colin-

Therein lies the problem. You had managed to do what a lot of games fail at: appeal to players of all styles at the same time. Since I do not do things like PVP and jumping puzzles I get labeled a casual … despite that I play around 40 hours a week and have sunk more money into this that most subscription games.

I already knew I would not be as interested as much about the new maps (I suppose I will look around, but as a tourist and not worrying about doing anything). I loved the new mechanics though and bought the elite version specifically because I liked some of the elites. OK, I did not have map completion (casual again) but did not think you would want EVERY hero challenge on the map. Much less that you would want more than that.

To add insult to injury you decided to do the same with hero challenges to central Tyria. I am a mentor. I bought a commander tag just to do so. I actually want to HELP in player retention. So now to get all of the tools to help me in that … I need to get mastery points beyond what I have. The ones remaining are things like jumping puzzles and PVP, things I will never do. I have PLENTY of achievements done: half my characters have done the battle of fort Trinity, skads of collections, every achievement in Teq (most multiple times over), every boss I can think of multiple times, defeated various legendaries, bought skads of skins, leveled all my crafts, over 5000 AP (not all from dailies), on and on. Even attempted ones I knew at the start I would not be able to do. So what do I find? I have only 13 of the 19 kitty-cat points I need to fully be a mentor.

I do not have as much a problem with grinding XP in central Tyria. After all, I have been doing it for a year so 19 levels is next to nothing there. I ask for 2 things:

1) Like everyone else, reevaluate how to get elite specs. If someone is not interested in the new areas they should not have to step foot in there at all. Maybe add a central-tyria-use-only form of an unlock? Make it easier to obtain for the people that use those areas too though.

2) Reevaluate how we get masteries in central Tyria. Right now to get the ones I need to help you I have to do things I know at the outset I would not choose to do (nor are they ‘easy’). If you have a lot of achievements you should have a lot of mastery points.

Riddle me this. What sort of an impression of GW2 you think people will get (and hence likelihood of sticking around and giving you $$) if their mentor has a bad attitude about the game?

As a mentor I am essentially working for you for free. I just want the tools that could help me do so. I have seen other games that were hostile to the mentor program and it did not work out so well for them.

I’ve been trying to think of why HoT is different for me. After all, I’ve played WoW, FFXIV, AoC, Archeage, TERA, WAR online, SW:ToR, TSW, Neverwinter Online, and other flashes in the pan.

These games make you level to access new abilities and content in particular areas of the game, and I couldn’t have found it too much of a slog, because (in those games I enjoyed) that’s exactly what I did.

The one difference between HoT and the others, though, is that there’s nothing to break this up besides WvW. There are no new dungeons in HoT to run when you want to take a break from the areas. In other games, when I get tired of new zones for a while, I’ll run instanced content for a ‘break.’ For a PvE player who wants their elite spec and masteries in this game, there is nothing but the jungle. It’s like being force fed chocolate cake.

It would be nice to have more ways to accomplish the same goals.

Clayxmore.5178:

This thread feels more toxic than Reddit.
How is this possible?

Because, I’d like to make the point that while some of the people that are complaining about grind are being ungracious in their whining, absolutely 100% of the people complaining about the people complaining have been incredibly elitist braggarts that lower the tone of public discussion.

“I didn’t feel like it was a grind, so it isn’t a grind!” contributes basically nothing to the discussion. “You guys are spoiled entitled brats” is one of my new favorites as well.

And also, gating content doesn’t equal content. I’m not sure why people came to that conclusion at all. If there are 3 events in one map and you can do all of them with no masteries, and there are 3 similar events in another map, one of which you can do with no masteries, and 2 of which you can only do after grinding the one event 9999 times, that isn’t more content. The two maps have the same amount of content, just one is insanely more obnoxious. I really hope people can get this straight. At some point you have to ask yourself if maybe it isn’t “rushing” through content, there’s just no content.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Lots of passionate feedback and discussion in here on either side, and a friendly reminder that constructive feedback helps us make better games (please do keep it constructive!) We don’t always get every detail perfect the first time, but I like to think one of our strengths is we’re always open to and listening to feedback from our community and making good decisions based on that feedback.

Ultimately, we’re thrilled with the parts of HoT everyone is enjoying. Your passion is awesome, and it’s part of why we all love creating this game. In particular, in game we’ve seen a really positive reaction to the game from folks who are busy playing, which has been really cool to see.

While we never like to rush and make snap decisions, in particular with a game that’s basically been out less than three days; I think there are some fair points in here for us to discuss. Much like other feedback about HoT, we’ll be discussing this as well!

Thanks again!

You need to IMMEDIATELY free up the Elite Specs, the rest you can chew over.

I have played MMO’s for over 20 years – starting with EQ Beta – and this is the most customer hostile expansion I have ever seen.

Throw a bone while your customers are still willing to play.

Sicarius.4639:

“Most games you go out and you have really fun tasks occasionally and the rest of the game is this boring grind to get to the fun stuff. I swung a sword, I swung a sword again hey! I swung it again, that’s just great. We just don’t want players to grind in GW2, no one enjoys that, no one finds it fun…” – Just remember what you told us before we began this journey Colin.

This is rather funny to read becouse when/if they give everyone Max masteries and Max Elite spec by just logging in the game people will start to complain that there are not enough content in the game and start farming events on the new maps to earn gold to buy the precursor crafting mats on TP and then they will start to complain that GW2 is just about farming and Grinding and put that Quote on the forums again. It’s a never ending story. What’s funny is that most of the posts I have made is about how I havent farmed or grinded much in GW2 as I loathe that, except for tokens in dungeons and some LS stuff from season 1, I have never fealt that I have been forced to grind for something. Most of the stuff in the game comes to me by just playing it and it’s content.

I agree that Elite specs are a little too expensive and that timers on HP Challanges is Dumb but I still havent fealt forced to farm anything. I can enjoy the content as my scrapper actually, I don’t need 100% scrapper to enjoy it and I actually getting the Progression feeling everytime I unlock a new part for my scrapper. It is rather nice.

Naero.4895:

I love seeing so many self-entitled white knights defending their lovely PvE experience.
The most common defenses to the hero points system go like: “It’s not to bad, just play the game”, “mastery points are account-bound” and the evergreen “you guys just want everything handed to you”.

I also want to mention, let’s assume that these people are right and we do want everything handed to us. (I don’t, but let’s just say.)

What’s wrong with that? In central Tyria, the vast majority of skill points literally have you walking up a place and pressing F. In Maguuma, if you press F on a skill challenge while you’re by yourself you will typically die instantly. Why has the difficulty level gone into the stratosphere, relative to central Tyria? Either make central Tyria harder or tone down the jungle. The difficulty curve is absolutely ridiculous and nonsensical. Of course players expect something only mildly harder than pressing F at a skill point, it’s what the game has trained people to expect over a period of THREE YEARS.

If you look at it like this, even if you “agree” with the white knights, they’re still just structurally wrong in their argument. The game is not in a good place, no. The very fact that a good deal of people are complaining should be enough evidence of that. Just because one person has fun doesn’t mean that suddenly invalidates the experiences of other players who didn’t have as enjoyable an experience. You don’t just tell someone who’s not having fun that they’re doing it wrong and think that just magically fixes all the problems. It’s insane to think that way.

The core GW2 had 1 feature that was simply freaking awesome: You choose your own path towards glory.

I leveled chars by doing every heart on the way, by running with boss trains, by crafting, by WvWing since lvl 1, etc…

I always had the choice of doing it the way I want.

Not anymore with HoT. GW2 became another grindy MMO, similar to so many around…

ANet please keep the players options open…let players chose their path to glory.

Weekend was insane. Had no time to check forums.
I see ppl complain a lot about difficulty of new H.P.
While there’s some really hard like balthasar or frog in the sky on the south-west of verdrant, most H.P. are ezpz/faceroll/etc.

I have a suggestion for Champ H.P.
You can add difficulty level to them:
-easy mode when instead of champ vateran is spawned. It can be soloed but gives only 3hp out of 10
-normal mode with champ spawn and full 10hp.

H.P. done in easy mode can be re-started in normal to get missing 7hp.
All that with proper indication on map.

P.S. I personally have no problem with new H.P. and like the challenge they provide.

I have no problems with the Hero Point system and the cost of the elite specs, I don’t see this as “grindy” at all, I can’t see how a system that requires you to get unique, individual Hero Points once per character can be seen as “grindy” (especially when masteries are account wide so you’ll be able to get your alts their Hero Points a lot quicker). I feel that word has lost its meaning (like the word “noob” has) and a lot of people now use it to mean “anything I don’t want to do”.

Anyway, I’m enjoying playing the game and I want to get that across, it’s not all bad, everyone isn’t unhappy, some people really like seeing an open road with things to do, things to unlock and not having everything finished.

Edit: the one thing I would say is that I think it would be better to have all the traits first, so they are the first things to unlock and then the skills. You can play with these specs quite well when you have all the traits unlocked.

As I have been there pleased to put my feedback here into, so I do it now.
Heres a Relink to my Feedback Thread with a nearly douzen of proposed improvements, that I think would make HoT a much better player experience for everybody
(Guaranteed 100% complain free and constructive, ignore the little bit emotion (words like stupid) in the suggestions ^^, because its just my personal opinion about some things I dislike xD)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/HoT-Improvements/first#post5660863

I am so far loving Elite specs and hero point.

please for god sake don’t nerf Hero points its perfect the way it is,the only complain i hear is it cant be soloed, why solo anyways? its an MMORPG you gotta group up and timer provides extra challenge and makes people get and learn good combat.

Elite specs are so great i finally have something to work for best progression system which rewards my past hard works.

so far very good progression system, please at least in next expansion add War Axe for warriors and make anew spec

I am so far loving Elite specs and hero point.

please for god sake don’t nerf Hero points its perfect the way it is,the only complain i hear is it cant be soloed, why solo anyways? its an MMORPG you gotta group up and timer provides extra challenge and makes people get and learn good combat.

Elite specs are so great i finally have something to work for best progression system which rewards my past hard works.

so far very good progression system, please at least in next expansion add War Axe for warriors and make anew spec.

Orpheal.8263:

As I have been there pleased to put my feedback here into, so I do it now.
Heres a Relink to my Feedback Thread with a nearly douzen of proposed improvements, that I think would make HoT a much better player experience for everybody
(Guaranteed 100% complain free and constructive, ignore the little bit emotion (words like stupid) in the suggestions ^^, because its just my personal opinion about some things I dislike xD)

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/HoT-Improvements/first#post5660863

Awesome feedback. ANet please listen…

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Lots of passionate feedback and discussion in here on either side, and a friendly reminder that constructive feedback helps us make better games (please do keep it constructive!) We don’t always get every detail perfect the first time, but I like to think one of our strengths is we’re always open to and listening to feedback from our community and making good decisions based on that feedback.

Ultimately, we’re thrilled with the parts of HoT everyone is enjoying. Your passion is awesome, and it’s part of why we all love creating this game. In particular, in game we’ve seen a really positive reaction to the game from folks who are busy playing, which has been really cool to see.

While we never like to rush and make snap decisions, in particular with a game that’s basically been out less than three days; I think there are some fair points in here for us to discuss. Much like other feedback about HoT, we’ll be discussing this as well!

Thanks again!

I really wish you have us some kind of quest chain or collection to unlock the elites, instead of mastery gated hero points. I’m fine with the idea of a long mastery grind, as long as it’s not blocking our elites. What about revenants that didn’t have 200 hps stored up?

I guess I am one of the few that actually likes the time that I need to spend to earn the points. The HP hunting and difficulty was the most fun I had in game in a long time.
And I have many alts and still look forward to fight through for them also. With the masteries unlocked its actually much easier even if you do not have map completion.

Personally I think the only valid point is the slow progression in WvW.

I would make easy HP farming in EoTM possible after you have completed the story and maps once. Maybe with an extra vendor in EoTM. Thus people would stop complaining about the non existent grind and everyone would have the option to progress as the like to. Whether they want to challenge themselves ans spend time or want everything unlocked fast (not sure where is the fun on that but each to his own tastes).

Fade.5904:

Got Master Daredevil yesterday, played 3 days. Spend less time whining and more time playing – because that’s all i did, play the game (not grind)

Personally i think its awesome how Anet implemented this, felt great when i finished the spec circle and got the last reward. It’s something to aim for and gives a sense of accomplishment when you finish, rather than being handed everything on day 1

I did the same thing. I didn’t enjoy the experience. That’s what people are complaining about.

This has been a two day read. And I definitely see why.

First, a story. I been avoiding most of the hype and information about the expansion, it’s how I deal with every game. But I seen videos about the specializations, I been informed by friends what they like about what they been shown, it’s all good. But I also remain withdrawn to the hype, I want to see the expansion in action, to go on an adventure myself.

I did buy it beforehand, as an altoholic it solved two issues at once for me. A character slot for the Revenant and the satisfaction that I had the game now (I am not always sure when I have money available). The day of the expansion and I download it while making dinner, once done (both of them) I log in. Create my Revenant and tome it up as far as I can (lvl 75), the rest I do Mad King’s Labyrinth for, easy Xp (<3) and AP.

This is where my enjoyment end. At max lvl I see and realize I am unable to use the specialization, even if I finish exploring all of Old Tyria. 400 HP? I know I avoided most of the hype and information, but it must have come up, right? Nope. It’s a unpleasant surprise. I log to the only character I have world explorer on, my necro. I come short of halfway through to Reaper, and my heart sinks deeper. I look for ways to why this is, if it’s a bug (Yes, that’s my first thought), and find this thread. I read through this whole thread and cannot believe what I read, from both sides, ofcourse.

tl;dr: I am badly informed and get the 400 HP thrown in my face like a Halo Plasma Grenade, for the Elite Specializations.

Well I don’t know what to say, but I try to play. I cannot get into it, even if gliding is fun, the Masteries are a chore but I still enjoy doing them, they are my goal. But the Specializations is really far out of place for me.

I’d go with the 60-100 range of HP here, since it still demands some time in the new zones or the old to get the Specialization, but it’s done with early. Rest is fine al thou tough as Chuck Norris’s abs (I will need to change my nerves after each attempt in a future raid, I feel..).

Lastly, something I noticed while reading through it all, is that those that are fine with this all, many of them take it on themselves to try and invalidate or shame the ones being concerned with things, by calling them whiners, babies or insinuating that those players are bad. Ofcourse there’s others who are showing concerns that would refer to these players as no-lifers or such, however what I want to let you know that it’s not constructive at all, it just separates the community. Let those who like hardcore gaming do that and vice-versa.

Thing is that I believe it would be better for ANet to actually respond and change the concept of Elite Specializations here, because:

- If they do change them to a acceptable level of HP, the majority of the ones concerned would most likely take it well and ANet could start trying to build the relationship back up. The downside to this could be, as always, people who don’t want to see content they already done being “dumbed down”, complain.

- If they do not do any change to this, the subject at hand will most definitely remain in the back of the head of everyone who don’t immediately leave the game and could haunt ANet in the future as well (It has probably already reached this stage, but if they do not respond this will be much worse, I believe). There’s exclusively downsides to this option, as I doubt the players who are fine with this is going to give more money to ANet just because they choose this option.

There is however a possibility of more alternatives, but I think these are the major two that could happen.

And before I end this horrible forum post I composed, I am a 20 (Soon 21) x lvl 80 character strong player with over 5k hours in the game. I am a role-player and a PvE-player. The thought of doing the busy-work for specialization on all of them is so overwhelmingly tiring, that I’d rather write a Forum-post in a thread already full of concerns and experiences of the same kind, the kicker is that I dislike writing.

Play nice and don’t be rude, we all got concerns and lives, let’s not make it harder for others unnecessarily.

/DreaderVII

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Lots of passionate feedback and discussion in here on either side, and a friendly reminder that constructive feedback helps us make better games (please do keep it constructive!) We don’t always get every detail perfect the first time, but I like to think one of our strengths is we’re always open to and listening to feedback from our community and making good decisions based on that feedback.

Ultimately, we’re thrilled with the parts of HoT everyone is enjoying. Your passion is awesome, and it’s part of why we all love creating this game. In particular, in game we’ve seen a really positive reaction to the game from folks who are busy playing, which has been really cool to see.

While we never like to rush and make snap decisions, in particular with a game that’s basically been out less than three days; I think there are some fair points in here for us to discuss. Much like other feedback about HoT, we’ll be discussing this as well!

Thanks again!

Thanks for the checkup Colin… I do wish you all had been able to get to this when we immediately made a 3000+ post outcry saying that 400 points was going to be agony, and it definately was. I spent my first two days in the game painfully struggling through skill nodes… which were even more of a hassle than I thought because a lot of them are linked to masteries… just so I could play HoT the way I had wanted, which was as my reaper. We were sort of ambushed by this new change. I know you needed a way to get players to dip their feet into new content but I just never thought locking it the specializations we had been playing, anticipating, and dreaming about for months… That move made me a little salty, especially since this announcement was only a week prior to HoT coming out. That was also a sore spot for me.

I can understand in the end, you had a lot on your plate. However in the future, if you really wanna avoid such negative immediate feedback from so many players the best way is probably to prioritize the final weekly patch towards addressing some of the things that are viewed negatively heavily. Even if the general consensus at the offices is that “This is probably just a huff, they will understand once they play it”… in my experience in playing games, the community impact stays negative, even if it wasn’t that bad… Like even if the skill points hadn’t been absolute hell, that gave me a headache trying to finish… I would say I probably would have been upset, because I was forced into something the community as a whole screamed out in union against.

Either way, the rest of HoT seems pretty cool save for the horrible horrible WvW maps… which are more like drytop jump puzzles than actual fortress arenas… those things should be canned all together…We had two coordinated max tier 1 servers in WvW running around in there for about 6 hours and never saw each other but one time…. that is horrible for WvW because we want to fight…. some of the pvp skills need tuning badly… like really badly.. but I suppose that will come with time. Other than that good luck on the game.

TLDR: Thanks for responding, you probably should have seen the warning flags sooner, forcing hardcore content and map completion to obtain skills has never been GW2’s m.o. Even as a beta player it wasn’t this bad. WvW is dead, pvp needs reviving, the rest of HoT seems great.

“Fade.5904:

Got Master Daredevil yesterday, played 3 days. Spend less time whining and more time playing – because that’s all i did, play the game (not grind)"

How many people in GW2 have that kind of time to spend “playing” ( grinding )? I’m willing to bet the real money spenders are actually the busy, middle class professinals who, you know, spend most of their week working, doing stuff with their loved ones, going out, going to the gym etc. These people are the bread and butter for Anet, the so called casuals who play for an hour at a time most days. When you market your expansion on the back of the Elite spec, make sure you go full disclosure on what exactly it would take to actually play it once it goes live. Anet did not do that and so now folks feel cheated. Pretty simple to uderstand no?

leftyboy.9358:

I paid $100 to play new specs through new zones. Give me my elites to play and I’ll shut up along with everyone else who’s kittened over this. It’s really quite simple.

/agreed.

From my perspective, the game was marketed to us as having all these great new skills that we could use for our characters. So much was focused around these elite abilities and was probably one of the biggest selling points.

Folks on this forum started asking over 3 months ago about these skill points and we don’t get an official response until 72 hours prior to release?

To me, this is borderline false advertising at worst, deceptive advertising at best. I still find it hard to believe we’re even having problems like this.

One way to deal with alts could be that Hero challenge are granted account-wide.
You need to do them once with any character.
For alt, you “just” need to get them 80 to get the leveling Hero points and unlock trait lines slots.

But I don’t bother having to gather Hero points for Elite specialization the first time.
I’m 5 unlocking steps away from the elite skill.
I did all Hero challenges of Tyria with my 80 in 12 hours the day Heart of Thorns was released. I even get half the points available in WvWvW.
(If you don’t know where to get them, you can use the Wiki to get maps.)
I barely leaved the Verdant Brink and focused on doing the first map before discovering the next ones.

But it bother me a lot that a random number of Elite points will remain in the end ^^

ColinJohanson.2394:

Hey folks,

Lots of passionate feedback and discussion in here on either side, and a friendly reminder that constructive feedback helps us make better games (please do keep it constructive!) We don’t always get every detail perfect the first time, but I like to think one of our strengths is we’re always open to and listening to feedback from our community and making good decisions based on that feedback.

Ultimately, we’re thrilled with the parts of HoT everyone is enjoying. Your passion is awesome, and it’s part of why we all love creating this game. In particular, in game we’ve seen a really positive reaction to the game from folks who are busy playing, which has been really cool to see.

While we never like to rush and make snap decisions, in particular with a game that’s basically been out less than three days; I think there are some fair points in here for us to discuss. Much like other feedback about HoT, we’ll be discussing this as well!

Thanks again!

Colin thx for the hype, but now it’s the time to sit down, and take a look into ranger. Now or never. I don’t want to wait 3 years for minor change!

Dear Devs,

I am enjoy the story and the content so far in Heart of Thorns, I have been in the jungle since it launched and really have not left. So bravo on that part since normally PvE is not my thing at all but I must complain a bit so you understand I am not completely happy however. My biggest complaint is I can not play my mesmer as a chronomancer, the character I have spent the most time on, built ascended armor for and took the time to craft legendary weapons for. So for now she sits and I play my ranger who I really only ever used to long into for guild recruiting purposes because she had map completion which made it easier to unlock over half of the ranger elite. One last thing before I go, did I mention the nine other level 80 characters I cant try the elite for due to the hero point requirement?

Sincerely,
An upset player

P.S I don’t want a refund, I just want to play my elite specialization

There’s a lot of information and rumors flying around right now. I heard that in order to fully unlock the elite skills, you have to first get world completion. Can this be confirmed or disproved? As a player with a ton of alts, this would make unlocking all of the elites a herculean task for this casual player.

I dont think any of the mastery or hero points needs to change, its endgame content and making it easier to acquire defeats the purpose. The mastery gated hero points and events is all good, no need to nerf that into a 1 minute defense of shaemor thing.

All the new zones need is some fine tuning to ensure it stays relevant once the majority of players has blazed through the expansion, making sure the new maps isnt left empty after a few months.

The only two issues i see here is event scaling and map travel, its ok for now, but i think in a few months it could be a problem.

Map Travel
Adding a few more waypoints, 3-5, for each map should ensure players have a easier time getting to where they want.

Event Scaling
As for the event scaling that just needs to be tweaked, so its bit more manageable for number of players actually doing it.

Yes, it’s 400 Hero Points. The new maps have 40 hero challenges that award 10 points each, but require a group to do. The excess points you have from world completing the core maps can be considered a head start and lets you only do 20 HoT challenges.

Its true pal. Welcome to Anet’s new anti-casual game meta.