Guild Wars 2

Well it’s called Elite spec.
So don’t see the problem. Getting all heropoints in central tyria is no biggie

pepsis.5384:

“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?

Actually like probably a lot of people i booked Friday off, Saturday was my day off anyway so i’ve had 2 binge days of playing, it’s not an everyday occurrence.
As hero points go, on the first map alone there are 9 hero points you can get with just gliding 1 and mushroom jumping… those take so little time to get if your joining in on events (ie playing) that’s 90 hero points right there out of your 400.
Presuming i don’t have a life or loved ones based on two days is, well…rather presumptuous and rude to be honest.

My biggest concern for Elite Specs is currently the lack of sustainability.

Like Masteries, Elite Specs were to be one of the hot drop additions to the game where they can drop in new Elite Specs with Expansions and Living Story. At 400 HP, this is impossible. 400HP is honestly and insane amount of points when compared to the other trees. I was expecting somewhere around 200 HP at most.

My biggest worry is that everyone will be spending HP on this expansion not thinking of what elite specs may come out of the next expansion, and when you end 100% world completion (Tyria Core+HoT) and spend all HP, and come up with about 29(?) HP left, that is a problem. There is no way that ANET could fit 400 more HP into the next XPAC.

ANET, for the sake of allowing people to unlock all Elite Specs looking into the future, reduce the Hero Points necessary. If for nothing else than to allow people to really play those Elite Specs sooner, which for many people was one of the core reasons they got HoT.

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!

My full birthday booster I popped for my revenant expired last night right before I went to bed, so I played for about 24 hours this weekend. Not having access to the Elite spec made the HoT content completely unenjoyable, who wants to see so much of the new content with the spec you don’t want to play?

Saturday afternoon, I decided to just give up on the new stuff and on getting old world hero points one at a time and just went to Edge of the Mists. Just following the zerg in EotM for another 20 hours or so with boosters, I should have enough hero points to make the spec I want and then play the new stuff.

The new stuff seemed pretty fun, when it was there for long term goals like exploration, masteries and legendaries. Making me spend 30+ hours in EotM before being able to experience HoT seems like it can’t be working as intended though right?

Lastly, you’ve done so much to make this game alt friendly in the past; it is a real strength of the game. I can’t imagine devoting this kind of EotM time for each alt is where you want the game to be.

For the sake of feedback, I’ll put it in my two cents. I am fine with it the way it is. I don’t have the elite spec yet, nor am I even close. But it is just something to work towards and I am okay with that.

Good point about being called “elite”. They don’t really seem elite, though. Just more variety, which is definitely a good thing. Either way, Since I have a level 80 in the ach class, I’m gonna have to make some hard choices about who gets played and who gets benched.

Fade.5904:

pepsis.5384:

“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?

Actually like probably a lot of people i booked Friday off, Saturday was my day off anyway so i’ve had 2 binge days of playing, it’s not an everyday occurrence.
As hero points go, on the first map alone there are 9 hero points you can get with just gliding 1 and mushroom jumping… those take so little time to get if your joining in on events (ie playing) that’s 90 hero points right there out of your 400.
Presuming i don’t have a life or loved ones based on two days is, well…rather presumptuous and rude to be honest.

You’re still missing the point. You did the grind and enjoyed it, I dont do it and I certainly dont enjoy it even If I have all the free time in the world. And it wouldnt even be an issue if they made their plans known beforehand. But they didnt. I could’ve easily postponed purchasing HoT till I get 100% map completion and all 214 Tyria points. By the time I was done the expansion might’ve even dropped in price. Bottom line is they were hoping we’d pay for something now and at the same time they were fully aware we wont be getting the said thing till much later ( or till we commit to days of senseless grind ).

So sorry if you felt offended, wasnt my intention ’cause this post is really not about you. Its for Arenanet.

pepsis.5384:

You’re still missing the point. You did the grind and enjoyed it, I dont do it and I certainly dont enjoy it even If I have all the free time in the world. And it wouldnt even be an issue if they made their plans known beforehand. But they didnt. I could’ve easily postponed purchasing HoT till I get 100% map completion and all 214 Tyria points. By the time I was done the expansion might’ve even dropped in price. Bottom line is they were hoping we’d pay for something now and at the same time they were fully aware we wont be getting the said thing till much later ( or till we commit to days of senseless grind ).

I went back from work at 6PM and see that my 38 hero points will not be enough to unlock the Elite Specialisation.
I open gw2 cartographer and did all central Tyria challenge in few hours.
Waypoint, challenge, waypoint, challenge.
When I didn’t had the closest waypoint, I ran to it.
Now i can waypoint nearly anywhere too!

Tchating with friends on TeamSpeak to not be bored (or listening music), I end my lone journey accross central Tyria only some hours later (few hours after midnight).
I showered and eat too, and take short breaks.

It’s not a grind of many months! Just use wiki, maps, waypoints.

Here’s where the disconnect is: Some people want to “work” to play a game, and others (like me) want to simply play the game.

I’m here to have fun. To explore. See new sights, kill new people in new lands, find adventure, solve puzzles.

In base GW2, building your character was a simple part of doing just those things, and by the time you had all your skills and traits, you’d only scratched the surface of the vast world.

In HoT, we have a tiny new world and a grind that requires us to trudge thru the almost all of the new content before we can fully use our new skills and traits. Boring and unfun.

What I wanted is more Tyria-in-general, and what I got was hyper-Orr. Except in the original game, by the time I reached Orr, my characters were basically finished. They hit the hard stuff fully capable. In HoT, I have to grind masteries, I have to grind skills and traits while playing the content that uses them.

One more point: ANet has done a VERY poor job moderating these forums and keeping white knights polite and honest. People like me are not against all of HoT; we’re very unhappy with specific aspects.

The new world is very pretty, challenging, and has an interesting story. Sadly, those high points are worn down for many of us by senseless grind created to artificially make the expansion look bigger than it is. I have plenty of real-world challenges; I don’t need grind in my games.

GW2 has a remarkably broad player base. Sadly, I think I’m part of that base no longer desired by ANet. Much as I’ll miss it, GW2 is just a game, and quite optional.

My two cents:
I feel ive been cheated, not totally screved over but cheated. New maps and the masteries are in my opinnion pretty good. Tho they might need a be tuned bit lower. Glad to have something to work for ingame between pvp/pve and other stuff.
But the reason i feel cheated is that i was assuming(yeah i know, stupid to assume anything) that i’d be able to play and explore the new places and events with the new elite spec. Thus my trust in Anet is totally gone. And here i thought i found something worth playing.
Flame On!

The things I most enjoy in GW2…
-Creating / testing new builds
-Playing WvW
-Exploring open world

With this expansion, all of those activities are trapped behind a bunch of gates that I don’t enjoy and that feel painfully slow. Trapping the fun behind big time sinks and a single method of gaining experience (grinding events in the new zones) is not cool, and was never the way GW2 was designed originally. Remember “play how you want to play”?

I want to create builds with elite specs using my 18 characters, and try them out / play them in WvW. I want to explore new zones… not run into constant gates that require a certain event state or a certain mastery. To add insult to injury, in most of the cases where I’ve finally done the grind and waited and passed the gate, I’ve found nothing, or something disappointing, on the other side. Not good.

Maybe the 400 hero points might be somewhat reasonable if people only play one character and only ever want to try one elite spec. For people who have many characters, enjoy all professions, and want to try all elite specs… it’s miserable. Reduce the point cost please, and scale the events so that when I finally manage to get to one, I don’t have to wait six hours for a group in order to complete it.

I feel like a much better flow to the expansion would have been if people could finish their elite spec by the end of the first zone…and start playing with their new toys in the second zone. So…I’d say 250-300 HP would be more appropriate to complete the elite spec…and scale the events so most can be done solo. It’s personal advancement. Expecting me to find 2-3 other people who are willing to do the same hero points 17 times in a row is silly.

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

Would you have been so happy if your HoT maps had been empty?

Here is my experience:

Friday, VB is empty on 5 out of 5 occasions I logged in.
Saturday, VB is empty on 7 out of 7 occasions.
Sunday, VB is reasonably active and I played PvE HoT – 7 hours worth (quite happy but annoyed about a few minor things).

Now it may have been ill luck or a bug or a bias towards fully populated home servers, but that is not good experience for a expansion launch – totally contrary to anything I have ever seen.

I happen to think the main reason VB was empty* was because of people’s disappointment with the Elite Spec gating and that they couldn’t immediately play the new specs – I btw have no problem with it, it would have been nice but fine, whatever. If VB is lowly populated, VB is a grind (entirely subjective I know) to casuals, it’s as simple as that.

Empty HoT maps however I am not fine with! This is gating of a horrid sort.

Surely if people are preferring repeative WvW zergs and/or CoF sessions, or just simply logging out or switching to core content instead of playing entirely new expansion content, something must be wrong with the game design.

And if doesn’t take three days to work that out, it was obvious by the end of day one!

Imo – as stated repeatedly during Beta – it was not a good idea to make the HoT Maps so heavily depended on population count.

All said and done, giving the advertisements I can fully understand why many people are disappointed with not being able to use the Elite specs from the off. It was very cruel to gate these specs for WvW and PvE so harshly without significant warning BEFORE purchase. Afterall there is nothing ‘Elite’ about them – that said the gating may be required for performance issues (they are pixel high to say the least), hence the late decision.

*There is also the possibly that for the launch a fixed number of HoT maps were provided – rather than the normal dynamic load scheduling – and given the low uptake many of these were empty. If you played early you map got full, later and it never got off the ground. Whatever.

After realizing the total at the end of the new weapon training is how many points you need total, not the points needed for just the one skill (a tooltip would’ve helped clear that up)

It’s not THAT bad.
You could fully master the new elite skill if you get them all in the first zone and a bit in the second (I don’t know how much you need total from start to finish), so there are more hero points in the zones than needed at the moment.
Though I suppose being able to do it all in one zone would be nice.

Also them putting in more hp than what is required for the elite specialization leads me to believe they will have another hp dump somewhere.

The simplest solution to “elite” specs, which are anything but except in effort required:

Remove the requirement to fill all base specs before we can use the “elite” spec.

Easy. Let us assign hero points to any trait line in any order.

Grinders and completionists can “work” toward having everything unlocked.

Casuals and explorers can use the new “elite” now without grind.

Fair, simple.

It truly would have been better had they allowed for the specializations to be fully trainable in VB and used the remainder of the hero points to serve a dual purpose. What do I mean, well it should be a choice once you do the hero challenge to accept the hero points or possible karma or gold as a secondary choice, heck even an unlock for a skin could be a viable alternative.
This would allow people to play using their elite skill and take their time on the remainder of the content not blast through it out of shear frustration. I hope they realize this before people have torn through the maps and end up being bored silly within a week or two.

I logged on a bit before work today, and twice I got the pop-up window about joining a new map because there aren’t many players around. This is just 3 days into the xpac.

That doesn’t bode well for completing hero challenges with champ mobs guarding them. My concern is that it will become more and more difficult to find people to group with, and some of that content will be out of reach for many players.

I hope they will consider scaling those challenges based on the number of people attempting them. Got a large group? Take on a hard-hitting champ. Going solo? Face a veteran.

Dreader the Seventh.6895:

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.

I was avoiding a lot of stuff too. I liked what I did see though and did the preorder, not so I would have access to the BWEs (I did not want to spoil too much of the surprise so completely skipped BWE3 and only played BWE2 long enough to WP out of the jungle). I was looking for mechanics, not content. We were essentially doubling our professions and when you have plenty of characters having them do different things is somewhat appealing.

Dreader the Seventh you must have read my mind and saved me the trouble of posting my thoughts. Some of us like playing games but don’t want to play in groups, don’t want to use TeamSpeak and don’t have the mouse and keyboard dexterity to be competitive. I’ve tried dungeons and fractals and my skill level makes me a liability and only the most patient (and there are some) of people would put up with me and take the time to explain and teach. So I avoid those things.

I love the game and have supported it since Guild Wars 1 by buying every expansion and I didn’t even think twice about this one. But other than the Revenant, there isn’t much here for me.

I’ll play with the Revenant a bit, but I can’t imagine ever getting into the group play so that will end my run. Still many enjoyable hours spent and I’ll constantly keep telling everyone I know that this is worth every penny. It’s just not a game for someone like me.

RedBaron.6058:

Seera.5916:

RedBaron.6058:

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!

If ANet takes more than 1 week to fix the Hero points requirements a lot of players will give up on GW2.

As ANet knows better than us, once you lose the big hype train there is nothing to do…remember FF XIV.

It is a pitty that the HoT expansion can be ruined by just 1 aspect of the game, 1 wrong decision made by the wrong person at the wrong time.

1 week, please make it happen ANet!

I’d rather them take a month to get the right solution than to have 4 weeks worth of solutions until they get to the right solution. Or a buggy solution because they rushed it that stops everyone’s progression instead of it just being a slow progression.

Don’t get me wrong, I do think the system needs changing. But I’d rather the best fix than any fix. They do need to keep us posted and release more information than usual if the fix isn’t a quick one.

4 weeks is an eternity for a newly released MMO expansion.

The amount of negative feedback produced during 4 weeks all around the Web will completely undermine ANet future efforts to save HoT.

If I was ANet I would immediately greatly reduce the hero points requirements and then work with a bit more time in other less positive aspects of the game.

Like I said, they would need to keep us posted and post more information than usual if the fix isn’t a quick one. Like in 1 week, if a solution isn’t found go:

“Hey, we’re still working on a solution. We’ve decided to do an optional story mission unlock that will reward you with 40 Notarized Scrolls of Maguuma Heroics (they complete 1 one random hero challenge in Heart of Maguuma). This is going to take some time as we need to get the voice actors in studio for recording. And write scripts. And code the story mission. We’re also trying to figure out how to keep both methods in game for those who don’t mind the hero point challenge and want it to be a challenge. This is going to take a week or two to make sure we have as few bugs as possible and we may need more time if a voice actor isn’t immediately available.”

Then weekly updates on the progress if it isn’t out within the week.

It would also be a different story if they never plan to add anymore elite specs. But they do. Their solution to the elites now sets a precedent for all future elite specs. Future ones can’t be any easier or harder on average than the ones we’ve got now. I’d rather not have the quick solution be found and it just be a tolerable one. Because then we’ll have to tolerate it for future elite specs as well.

Ok i just wanted to know, straight up no more smoke and mirrors. No more arguments no more conjecture, please save me some time and sanity.

Will Elite Specs (to be clear to staw manners, ONLY elite specs, not asking for anything else but ELITE SPECS) Will elite specs be made more easily attainable in a PVE way? I dont care if its removing mastery grind from getting to hero points removing champ mobs, making , giving more points per challenge, nerfing the number of points needed to progress, changing the lines to the standard seperate trait and ability lines.

Is there ANY plan to implement ANY of this? Please, just let me know so i can either move on for good or just take a break and come back when its fixed.

If they change (alot) i might purchase HoT again.
If not, i’m awaiting my refund already, and won’t look back.

With this, i’ve also said my last thing on these forums, goodluck to Anet and all their customers.

+1
I agree, the game has always been a ‘play how you want to’ game and they went back on that with 0 warning. I bought the xpac for elite specs, nothing else. I don’t enjoy PvE, I should not be forced to grind it for hundred of hours just to play how I want to. Elite specs should cost the same amount as regular specs, the skins can cost the extra points.

Even another option, reduce all HP challenges to 5 each, reduce amount needed for elite specizalations to 200 (those with world completion already do deserve it) and allow all HP to be soloable as they should be and accessible without having to farm so so so sooooo much xp for masteries.

Sylent.3165:

Even another option, reduce all HP challenges to 5 each, reduce amount needed for elite specizalations to 200 (those with world completion already do deserve it) and allow all HP to be soloable as they should be and accessible without having to farm so so so sooooo much xp for masteries.

i dont mind this either, even if they didnt change the difficulty of the new ones, by reducing it to 200 i could do it all in old world and not worry about it, im fine with that

What is the problem? You can play right away with elite specs, not fully explored but you won’t get something without work, right? I think it is pretty normal to level up to get the new stuff, or do I miss something? An MMO shouldn’t hand out everything on a silver platter or people will leave in masses after burning through the content when they realize there is nothing to do.

After 3 days I am well over 50% into the elite spec. I hope though they will do some things more accessible like the hero point challenges: make them veterans or easier to kill champs: it’s frustrating to wait for a party/group to fight them.

Also: masteries are account bound. You do that once and never again (well for people with multiple accounts not).

No, haven’t heard any plans to make getting Elite specs easier.

ProtoGunner.4953:

What is the problem? You can play right away with elite specs, not fully explored but you won’t get something without work, right? I think it is pretty normal to level up to get the new stuff, or do I miss something? An MMO shouldn’t hand out everything on a silver platter or people will leave in masses after burning through the content when they realize there is nothing to do.

After 3 days I am well over 50% into the elite spec. I hope though they will do some things more accessible like the hero point challenges: make them veterans or easier to kill champs: it’s frustrating to wait for a party/group to fight them.

i honestly dont think i could have been any clearer, i honestly dont

im not asking for EVERYTHING as you put it. im asking to play the new spec i paid for.
and as you so eloquently put it, i DID work for the elite spec, i went to work and made 50 dollars and bought the expansion. Im here to play a game not work. Now all im asking is if its going to change, or im going to take another 50 dollars i worked for and buy a different game.

Lol i love these fake quitting threads. Always the same thing, people say they will quit if some change they want isnt implemented when 9/10 times they dont or just come back after a week when they realize stubbornly stonewalling got them nowhere but behind everyone else

Kayberz.5346:

Lol i love these fake quitting threads. Always the same thing, people say they will quit if some change they want isnt implemented when 9/10 times they dont or just come back after a week when they realize stubbornly stonewalling got them nowhere but behind everyone else

this isnt the past where it was wow or die and that sterotype comes from.
black desert, blade and soul, wildstar SWTOR expac, WoW Legion soon, these are just games that are new or recently updated. dont be so hasty to usher people out the door when there is so much competition. YOU may not care if i quit, but i assure you Anets bottom line does when my 50 bucks in gems goes to buy Legion or heck fall out 4

I know people who had their elite spec on the 2nd day. So OP, I think you are the one who should cut the bullcrap and begin farming. Plus, as I said before, masteries are account wide. So after having most of them, all alts should have a more easy time doing hero challenges.

Ps: Bye! 0/

Eomunae.2814:

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.

Lolwut. Everybody could have done them in the months prior… for one, you say that as if it’s something people should have done. As if preparing for an expansion so you can enjoy it properly is part of the expansion. Second, nobody in their right mind, even hardcore players, has the time to go do map completion on 6-9 characters for an expansion. And third, the fact that you are encouraging speedruns of core tyria hero points so you can get HoT elite spec… I don’t know how you don’t see what’s so messed up about that. That it’s arguably better to go do non-HoT content, so that you can enjoy HoT content.

Skolops.2604:

Frankly, I can’t rationally look at the complaints about elite specializations as anything other than entitled whining, and I am not quick to use the term. I can absolutely cut slack to those who haven’t recognized the impact of masteries being account wide. However, the truth is that the kinds of changes people are asking for about elite specialization unlocking come from a place of wanting everything for free, up front.

Sigh… no, they are not. Yes, they are some people who would have preferred to have elite specs free, from the start, but even then, it’s a case of people wanting to be able to play the new content with their elite specs, rather than having most of it done before their elite specs are unlocked. This hyperbole about wanting everything for free is so tiresome and insulting.

You’re not asking for everything, you’re just asking for one of the biggest selling points of the expansion to be handed out easily.
I’ve yet to see a MMO expansion where players log in and have all of their new skills in day 1 and I sure hope this isn’t the first one, don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

Pezz.4758:

ProtoGunner.4953:

What is the problem? You can play right away with elite specs, not fully explored but you won’t get something without work, right? I think it is pretty normal to level up to get the new stuff, or do I miss something? An MMO shouldn’t hand out everything on a silver platter or people will leave in masses after burning through the content when they realize there is nothing to do.

After 3 days I am well over 50% into the elite spec. I hope though they will do some things more accessible like the hero point challenges: make them veterans or easier to kill champs: it’s frustrating to wait for a party/group to fight them.

i honestly dont think i could have been any clearer, i honestly dont

im not asking for EVERYTHING as you put it. im asking to play the new spec i paid for.
and as you so eloquently put it, i DID work for the elite spec, i went to work and made 50 dollars and bought the expansion. Im here to play a game not work. Now all im asking is if its going to change, or im going to take another 50 dollars i worked for and buy a different game.

Have you ever played WoW? You pay monthly, you pay the new expansion (similar price to here btw) and you lose all your best gear’s value upon buying the expansion be cause it becomes useless with the new content. You have to level your 10 year old character to the new level cap and even crafting/professions get a new tier. Yes, you pay real money to get a game. A game that you spend time. If you get everything handed out immediately why play it then? The journey is the reward (at least an old saying where I live).

ColinJohanson.2394:

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 for considering this. I’ll reiterate my previous feedback:

The biggest issue for me personally is not the 400 point requirement to complete the whole Elite spec but rather the fact that I have to replace a full Core Spec trait tree with a sparsely-populated Elite Spec trait tree.

Considering how many builds only become truly effective when they pick a specific GM trait (Daredevils especially stick out in this regard), I feel like I’m hobbling myself if I want to play my Elite Spekittenil I’ve got something like 350 points into the spec, which translates to ~87% Hero Point completion. I need to get through 87% of the new content before I can use an Elite Spec and not feel like I’m downgraded from my base class. C’mon, that’s just not fair.

Fozzik.1742:

The things I most enjoy in GW2…
-Creating / testing new builds
-Playing WvW
-Exploring open world

With this expansion, all of those activities are trapped behind a bunch of gates that I don’t enjoy and that feel painfully slow. Trapping the fun behind big time sinks and a single method of gaining experience (grinding events in the new zones) is not cool, and was never the way GW2 was designed originally. Remember “play how you want to play”?

Other than the “play how you want to play” quote, another great one is the “Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward”.

They have completely shot that idea in the face with HoT.

Really, everyone should go to the Metacritic site and give HoT a low score. Then maybe ArenaNet will feel motivated to fix this faster than the months it took them to improve the trait system.

ok well i guess i got my answer.

just wanted to say though, i came to guild wars 2 after being pushed out of wildstar by the hardcore vs casual argument. i am a casual player, and vanilla GW2 was amazing for that. I watched all the streams, i remember how excited Rubi was explaining the base leveling how everything gives XP and you can really play how you want. That was at the twitch conference.

Everything is changed now, and people are right its your company. But i no longer get to play how i want, and i refuse to take part in another war between casual players and hardcore.

I really hope the raiders and large guilds make up for the exodus of small guild and casual players, i love this franchise but this is not what i signed up for when i read “play your way” and “we dont make grindy games”

and before any of you ask why im still posting in a few minutes, its because i dont WANT to give up, so ill continue to read the forums and hope for changes. ask, heck beg for changes. But as for playing or buying gems? sorry no thanks.

Stop using “casual” as a shield for wanting one of the biggest selling points of the game handed out.
I am a casual, I’m enjoying my elite specialization.

Bye

Everything about this expansion has been done very well. Every difficulty and gate seems tastefully done in good context.

I’m very disappointed with the criticism. I’m sorry, but to be brutally honest, it sounds like a bunch of millennial whining. They’re not getting their trophy after playing a whole weekend…

I’ve mostly played map events and the story. I’ve really enjoyed the story, except for the final which I haven’t completed. I don’t know whether it’s buggy or I’m just not understanding mechanics.

The density of explorable space is fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like it.

In short, I can see myself enjoying this content for a long time. Please, please, please don’t make drastic changes to the gates or difficulty. I can see that you’re already adapting some parts of the game to accommodate short-term, almost arcade style MOBA play. I don’t want instant gratification.

If the short attention span crowd kicks and whines and gets their way with GW2, I’ll need to find a different game. And I want to stick with GW2 for a long time.

Thank you for all you do. Your work is greatly appreciated.

Pezz.4758:

ProtoGunner.4953:

What is the problem? You can play right away with elite specs, not fully explored but you won’t get something without work, right? I think it is pretty normal to level up to get the new stuff, or do I miss something? An MMO shouldn’t hand out everything on a silver platter or people will leave in masses after burning through the content when they realize there is nothing to do.

After 3 days I am well over 50% into the elite spec. I hope though they will do some things more accessible like the hero point challenges: make them veterans or easier to kill champs: it’s frustrating to wait for a party/group to fight them.

i honestly dont think i could have been any clearer, i honestly dont

im not asking for EVERYTHING as you put it. im asking to play the new spec i paid for.
and as you so eloquently put it, i DID work for the elite spec, i went to work and made 50 dollars and bought the expansion. Im here to play a game not work. Now all im asking is if its going to change, or im going to take another 50 dollars i worked for and buy a different game.

Sorry, but your argumentation could be used by anybody for anything in the game. You are not playing this in a vacuum. What if somebody asked only for having instant access to legendaries. He is not asking for everything, just legendaries. And another player asks for instant masteries. He is not asking for everything, just masteries.
Do you see where this is going?
There is a very good reason why in games like legend of zelda or metroid or any adventure/rpg your character isn’t at full strength right from the start. Progression is a very important part of any rpg. It gives the player incentive to keep playing and a feeling of accomplishment when his character gains new skills. The instant gratification of having everything unlocked from the start may feel good at the start but can quickly turn into boredom. That is why this stuff isn’t unlocked right from the start.

And your argument that buying the game gives you the right to have the elite specialization instantly unlocked is so stupid I don’t even know where to start when I want to argue against that. So here is my best try:
1. You didn’t buy the elite specialization, you bought access to heart of thorns
2. You probably don’t complain about not being able to play the last level of a mario game the first time you turn it on.
3. You probably don’t complain that you have to unlock characters in beat’m’up games by playing the game
4. You probably don’t complain that about not having the best equipment in monster hunter, when you start a new game
5. You probably didn’t even complain about your character not being lvl 80 when you started it(which is pretty much what you are complaining about right now)

Again, and again the comment about “Play how I want” does not mean stand around and do nothing. If you quoted the rest of the statement you will see it pertained to not having a set role that you need to fill. Like picking a Guardian because it is the only class that can tank.

In short, stop using “Play how I want” as a reason to not actually “play” the game.

Also, I am casual and almost have a completed Herald elite spec. That is with having to start with no extra HP to boost into the level at all.

Bye.

Seera.5916:

Like I said, they would need to keep us posted and post more information than usual if the fix isn’t a quick one. Like in 1 week, if a solution isn’t found go:

“Hey, we’re still working on a solution. We’ve decided to do an optional story mission unlock that will reward you with 40 Notarized Scrolls of Maguuma Heroics (they complete 1 one random hero challenge in Heart of Maguuma). This is going to take some time as we need to get the voice actors in studio for recording. And write scripts. And code the story mission. We’re also trying to figure out how to keep both methods in game for those who don’t mind the hero point challenge and want it to be a challenge. This is going to take a week or two to make sure we have as few bugs as possible and we may need more time if a voice actor isn’t immediately available.”

Then weekly updates on the progress if it isn’t out within the week.

It would also be a different story if they never plan to add anymore elite specs. But they do. Their solution to the elites now sets a precedent for all future elite specs. Future ones can’t be any easier or harder on average than the ones we’ve got now. I’d rather not have the quick solution be found and it just be a tolerable one. Because then we’ll have to tolerate it for future elite specs as well.

Honestly, they could come up with a good solution in one day’s discussion. It’s not that difficult to lay out a good concept and they are supposed to be experienced at such matters too. The only part that will justifiably take any time is 1) the actual coding/testing of the solution and 2) determining what groups they want to please in what way.

2 is the major hangup because it colors all possible solutions and it’s probably why they haven’t already announced a change. They are no doubt trying to figure out if this is going to blow over, partially or entirely, and whether making a quick change will alienate people who have already spent hours in the existing system.

Personally, I think that if left unattended, it would blow over a little bit in the first few weeks, but it would come back stronger than ever as time goes on and the reality of speccing out alts starts hitting people full force. More and more, it would gather alt rage, just like the old trait system did.

Kulvar.1239:

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 ^^

Ty Kulvar, this is a great idea. Make Hero challenges account-wide. This would solve at least some of the problems. I have 10+ toons on 3 different accounts and want to open elite specs to all of them eventually.

chaosdurza.3291:

+1
I agree, the game has always been a ‘play how you want to’ game and they went back on that with 0 warning. I bought the xpac for elite specs, nothing else. I don’t enjoy PvE, I should not be forced to grind it for hundred of hours just to play how I want to. Elite specs should cost the same amount as regular specs, the skins can cost the extra points.

If you don’t like PvE then go play WvW and unlock them through that, or play sPvP where you already have them. Last I checked, being able to access the elite specs in every game mode was the definition of “play how you want to” but I guess I missed something?

Edit: for everyone quitting in this thread… can I have your stuff? Though if you are that opposed to playing the game to earn stuff I can’t imagine you have much….

Raziel.4216:

I’ve yet to see a MMO expansion where players log in and have all of their new skills in day 1 and I sure hope this isn’t the first one, don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

Factions.

pfanne.9783:

Pezz.4758:

ProtoGunner.4953:

What is the problem? You can play right away with elite specs, not fully explored but you won’t get something without work, right? I think it is pretty normal to level up to get the new stuff, or do I miss something? An MMO shouldn’t hand out everything on a silver platter or people will leave in masses after burning through the content when they realize there is nothing to do.

After 3 days I am well over 50% into the elite spec. I hope though they will do some things more accessible like the hero point challenges: make them veterans or easier to kill champs: it’s frustrating to wait for a party/group to fight them.

i honestly dont think i could have been any clearer, i honestly dont

im not asking for EVERYTHING as you put it. im asking to play the new spec i paid for.
and as you so eloquently put it, i DID work for the elite spec, i went to work and made 50 dollars and bought the expansion. Im here to play a game not work. Now all im asking is if its going to change, or im going to take another 50 dollars i worked for and buy a different game.

Sorry, but your argumentation could be used by anybody for anything in the game. You are not playing this in a vacuum. What if somebody asked only for having instant access to legendaries. He is not asking for everything, just legendaries. And another player asks for instant masteries. He is not asking for everything, just masteries.
Do you see where this is going?
There is a very good reason why in games like legend of zelda or metroid or any adventure/rpg your character isn’t at full strength right from the start. Progression is a very important part of any rpg. It gives the player incentive to keep playing and a feeling of accomplishment when his character gains new skills. The instant gratification of having everything unlocked from the start may feel good at the start but can quickly turn into boredom. That is why this stuff isn’t unlocked right from the start.

And your argument that buying the game gives you the right to have the elite specialization instantly unlocked is so stupid I don’t even know where to start when I want to argue against that. So here is my best try:
1. You didn’t buy the elite specialization, you bought access to heart of thorns
2. You probably don’t complain about not being able to play the last level of a mario game the first time you turn it on.
3. You probably don’t complain that you have to unlock characters in beat’m’up games by playing the game
4. You probably don’t complain that about not having the best equipment in monster hunter, when you start a new game
5. You probably didn’t even complain about your character not being lvl 80 when you started it(which is pretty much what you are complaining about right now)

EVERY other mmo i have EVER played that introduces new classes (which is essentially what new specs are) starts you at level 1.

and you know what? if i could start a brand new engineer at level 1 with scrapper, i would RATHER do that than the current system. why?

lets use wow. Monk came in MoP, i started one, when i got to 80, i was ON PAR with my players power as the mobs i was fighting in Pandaria.

As it stands now, when i enter HoT maps on a scrapper, i am BEHIND normal level 80 power by a full trait line in a POST level 80 enviroment.

so going back to Mists of pandaria, as i leveled, 80, 81, 82, the world around me got stronger as i did and i PROGRESSED .

as it stands now in HoT im not PROGRESSING im simply catching up to where i SHOULD have been as a level 80.

does it make sense now?

Sorry OP, but this is the point that the “caring” rabid community they brag so much about tells you not to let the door hit you. Or worse.

fireflyry.7023:

Raziel.4216:

I’ve yet to see a MMO expansion where players log in and have all of their new skills in day 1 and I sure hope this isn’t the first one, don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

Factions.

What? I had to unlock skills in factions.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Sorry OP, but this is the point that the “caring” rabid community they brag so much about tells you not to let the door hit you. Or worse.

Feel free to refute the arguments made by people in this topic, instead of ignoring why we’re telling him to not let the door hit him.
Wait, maybe that’s because…. you can’t refute any of it?

I can’t read this entire thread, so apologies if this has been brought up. Just want to get an idea in the devs’ heads.

My main problem with the cost of elite specs is that there are 9 professions. It’s unreasonable to do map completion on 9 characters to be able to use something. I have zero desire to play necro, I want to give reaper a try.

My solution:

• First elite spec can be whatever anet decides. I imagine most people’s mains have map completion. Anet, make a reasonable choice based on feed back.
• Second elite spec can be half (exact amount can vary) cost.
• Third elite spec is quarter cost, and so on.

There is probably a bottom number so you can’t unlock an elite spec on a level 2. But on your 7th profession, who you clearly are not that invested in but would still like to try the elite spec, you probably don’t want to run around Queensdale doing “skill” challenges.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

Sorry OP, but this is the point that the “caring” rabid community they brag so much about tells you not to let the door hit you. Or worse.

eh its cool, if it doesnt get fixed no biggy, watching a BDO alpha test on my second screen and its looking like its got options. yes lots of grinding but the combat looks awesome and the immersion with crafting and trading looks intense