Guild Wars 2

They said any excess skillpoints will go to mats. But it wont be a direct conversion of skillpoints to hero points. Seeing as hero points are only from leveling and skill challenges.

This is where I think the confusion lies. I don’t recall them saying that hero points will ONLY consist of level up and skill point challenges. I do recall them using those as examples of where you get skill points. However I don’t ever recall anyone saying that skill points gained from books and scrolls would not be counted towards hero points.

I do know that they specified that HP will be a currency. All currencies are account wide.

I re watched the ready up and I did notice that the devs said the way to know the maximum amount if Hero points available is to add (all the character levels + the skill challenges available)>=(characters actual level + actual skill points possessed)=number of excess hero points. If the second term is larger than the first term, you have excess points. If not, then you’ll be fine. Any excess points in this instance will be converted to mats. Now what we need to know is once the initial conversion takes place, do the additional hero points earned go towards your HP total or are they converted to mats immediately? I don’t know. But it seems unlikely that SP will be converted to mats until 6(80(465)) is reached

Ralanost.8913:

And it won’t. If you took a few minutes to read the blog you would know that wasn’t the case. This whole thread is people being lazy and paranoid and blowing things out of proportion.

Not really anet have been ambiguous otherwise we wouldn’t have this thread, anet should make a categoric statement. If it is as ppl are now saying in this thread that we will get hero points for every ability and trait already unlocked thats fine.

Derenek.8931:

That’s just silly. Why would all your characters immediately have all the additional powers and traits from the new expansion without even playing it? Level 80 might be the level cap, but seriously if you never did any skill challenges and stopped playing once you hit lvl 80, your toon wouldn’t have all the core skills, elite skills, and traits unlocked anyway. So why should a character who didn’t have enough skill points to even be maxed out in the first place suddenly get enough points to get all the expansion skills as well?

Have you been reading the previous posts?

People have been able to do that through PvP, Dungeons, Fractals, and WvW. Map completion is not the only part of the game, and the idea of playing how you wish to was core to selling the game.

Forcing people into the map completion style of play in order to unlock things that aren’t entirely map completion centric (i.e. Map completion needed to unlock gliders is fine, as it’s useless for anything other than map completion) goes against that philosophy. It’s like if, instead of getting them from skill challenges, you could only get hero points by raising your WvWvW rank.

I have noticed that Anet loves changing things for absolutely no reason (cough THE ENTIRE NPE cough)

Eponet.4829:

Derenek.8931:

That’s just silly. Why would all your characters immediately have all the additional powers and traits from the new expansion without even playing it? Level 80 might be the level cap, but seriously if you never did any skill challenges and stopped playing once you hit lvl 80, your toon wouldn’t have all the core skills, elite skills, and traits unlocked anyway. So why should a character who didn’t have enough skill points to even be maxed out in the first place suddenly get enough points to get all the expansion skills as well?

Have you been reading the previous posts?

People have been able to do that through PvP, Dungeons, Fractals, and WvW. Map completion is not the only part of the game, and the idea of playing how you wish to was core to selling the game.

Forcing people into the map completion style of play in order to unlock things that aren’t entirely map completion centric (i.e. Map completion needed to unlock gliders is fine, as it’s useless for anything other than map completion) goes against that philosophy. It’s like if, instead of getting them from skill challenges, you could only get hero points by raising your WvWvW rank.

I seriously doubt Anet will take your maxed out character and immediately remove 65 points worth of upgrades from it because you leveled with scrolls and not with skill challenges. In the end, skill points are skill points. As long as those skill points are in your character, the easiest method for them to convert your HP from your SP is just to do a one for one swap. Outside of the standard checks to make sure you didn’t somehow cheat the points you earned for that character will stay on that character.

Take for instance my Mesmer. She is maxed out with all possible traits and skills unlocked. In addition to that I have 100+ skill points sitting on her that I haven’t spent.

I definitely haven’t done every single skill challenge, and many points were earned through exp, tomes, scrolls, you name it.

If what the devs said on their video is accurate, I would get 465 points for her HP, and the remaining 120 points would either go to my wallet as HP, or if for some reason I was over my account HP maximum, the excess would convert to some sort of crafting material.

I know there’s at least 30 skill challenges I haven’t completed on the Tyria map, however I simply don’t see it as a wise business decision to give me 435 points instead of 465 because I am missing those skill challenges. Whether I gained the skill points from challenges, leveling, or tomes. Those were all earned points.

I’ll be willing to wager that every skill point you have will be converted into HP until you reach a maximum of (#of characters on your acct)(465)=HP cap.

As many times the rewards that gained you those bonuses were bought with real world money from black lion store type things, and Anet has no way of tracking what was bought with game currency and with real money, legally to avoid potential lawsuits they’d have to consider all skill points as having been bought with cash. So even if you only have two lvl 80 characters and the rest if your slots were empty, but you still had more than 6*465 skill points, they’d still give you up to the maximum your account could possess. It would cost NCsoft and Anet more money than it’s worth just to attempt to respond to potential lawsuits whether or not they would win. It’s just simony easier to give the maximum.

Derenek you have misunderstood this new system now.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/specializations-part-two-reward-tracks-and-elite-specializations/

In Specialization Part Two blog post there is a paragraph where stands:

" Hero Points will be limited, and they’ll be earned strictly through what are currently called skill challenges (these will become known as hero challenges) and leveling up. A level 80 character that’s done none of the hero challenges should be able to unlock more than enough skills, specializations, and traits to make several unique full builds. A single character who’s done a fair amount of the hero challenges should be able to unlock all of the core specializations, skills, and traits.

Old skill points in excess of those earned by leveling and skill challenges will be converted into crafting materials for the Mystic Forge. "

Here is link to the video where Jon Peters is telling about Hero Points:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=757&v=WPqYpcteqac

In this video he says:
220 Skill Challenges are in the game
400 points you will get by leveling (lvl 80)
465 points you need to get all core traits and skills

It means literally that you need to do 65 skill challenges to get all traits and skills from core game. Those characters what have done map completion will get extra points what are saved to elite skills.

So when we know this information this is what happens to my level 80 character who now have opened all traits and skills from core game, but haven’t done any Skill Challenges:

My Level 80 character will get 400 points, so I am not able to get all my traits and skill from core game. I need to hunt those 65 Skill Challenges/Hero Challenges to get all traits and skills open. I need to do extra work for character who already have opened all traits and skills. Only because Hero Points will be earned only from leveling and Skill Challenges.

So I do understand why people are worried. They have now at this moment opened all those skills and traits, but if they are not doing those needed 65 skill challenges, they are not able to open them all after the Specialization update.

Well, I do enjoy PvE the most, even with all its imperfections…but I’m pretty frustrated too. I have 13 characters, 12 of which are level 80. Getting skills for all of them will take some time. Maybe it’s a good thing. It might be interesting. I just hope that they will include an alternative in case it’s not.

Yoroiookami.3485:

Well, I do enjoy PvE the most, even with all its imperfections…but I’m pretty frustrated too. I have 13 characters, 12 of which are level 80. Getting skills for all of them will take some time. Maybe it’s a good thing. It might be interesting. I just hope that they will include an alternative in case it’s not.

It’s not going to be interesting because there is only 1 (ONE) method to get those skill points, and it’s a trivial, boring one that you will have to repeat across every single character who doesn’t have at least 65 skill challenges done (and that’s probably the majority of your 80s – probably the majority of most people’s 80s outside of real hardcore map completition obsessives).

So if that is the only way that is really bad, and it is a breach of trust.

I mean, I’ve got a new 80 just now, and I’ve been doing skill challenges as and when I find them, and I have to say, it absolutely is as much of a pain as I thought it would be. Many of them take quite a while to reach, some of them are hard/impossible to get to unless certain events are done/live, others have non-instant respawn times (admittedly not many), and/or are hard to get a tag on even with a few people doing them.

I’d guess, conservatively, that it will take an average of 5 minutes per Skill Challenge, including all the travel time (sometimes requiring long detours around obstacles or elaborate jumping/climbing) and that some will take moments to do and others will be kind of annoying. This means if you say, needed an average of 30 Skill Challenges per character, you’d be looking at 2.5 hrs/character, which in your case would be at least 30 hours. I dunno how long you have to play per-day, but for me, that’s weeks.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Yoroiookami.3485:

Well, I do enjoy PvE the most, even with all its imperfections…but I’m pretty frustrated too. I have 13 characters, 12 of which are level 80. Getting skills for all of them will take some time. Maybe it’s a good thing. It might be interesting. I just hope that they will include an alternative in case it’s not.

It’s not going to be interesting because there is only 1 (ONE) method to get those skill points, and it’s a trivial, boring one that you will have to repeat across every single character who doesn’t have at least 65 skill challenges done (and that’s probably the majority of your 80s – probably the majority of most people’s 80s outside of real hardcore map completition obsessives).

So if that is the only way that is really bad, and it is a breach of trust.

I mean, I’ve got a new 80 just now, and I’ve been doing skill challenges as and when I find them, and I have to say, it absolutely is as much of a pain as I thought it would be. Many of them take quite a while to reach, some of them are hard/impossible to get to unless certain events are done/live, others have non-instant respawn times (admittedly not many), and/or are hard to get a tag on even with a few people doing them.

I’d guess, conservatively, that it will take an average of 5 minutes per Skill Challenge, including all the travel time (sometimes requiring long detours around obstacles or elaborate jumping/climbing) and that some will take moments to do and others will be kind of annoying. This means if you say, needed an average of 30 Skill Challenges per character, you’d be looking at 2.5 hrs/character, which in your case would be at least 30 hours. I dunno how long you have to play per-day, but for me, that’s weeks.

I’m guessing that now is the time to unlock all your core skills and traits by whatever means necessary (gold, skill scrolls, etc…) then. Because I’m fairly certain those unlocked skills/traits on a max 80 character will be grandfathered in when the changes hit. For Anet to not do so would bring an avalanche of bad publicity and player backlash that to be honest simply wouldn’t be worth it from a business stand point.

Acquiring 65 skill points is not a big issue at all. You are just required to travel only 8-10 maps to get those number of skill points. Pretty easy, right? But the Specialization may require you to do a bit more exploration. The latter one makes sense as it is a HoT implementation.

Before the first trait system overhaul you would get all the traits for free, so all my original characters have all of them.

Then I made a second generation of characters, which did not have all the traits, so I had to spend a lot of AP and Golds to get the traits unclocked.

Now all that money is gone to waste (43g per toon) and I won’t get all my traits back, because I didn’t do the map completion.

Not only this, but even my first generation of characters won’t get all the traits back as it stands now.

Kinda feels unfair?

What should be done is to give to characters created before the change all 465 Hero Points by default, and all newly created characters will have to follow the new rules, which is exactly what they did the first time they did an overhaul of the trait system.

Easy decision in my opinion and will also save us a lot of complaining.

Lady Minuit.3186:

Kinda feels unfair?

What should be done is to give to characters created before the change all 465 trait points by default, and all newly created characters will have to follow the new rules, which is exactly what they did the first time they did an overhaul of the trait system.

Easy decision in my opinion and will also save us a lot of complaining.

Definitely can feel unfair, especially if someone invested skill scrolls and gold. I feel bad for those folk. Conversely, I have plenty of characters that the change-over will be a boon for. My latest alt is level 61 and has.. two traits. One that I bought, because I can’t stand warrior walking speed, and one I got by accident and had no interest in. I’m doing no investment in his traits until the system changes over, and by then, he’ll have a ton of extra points, because I’m working on it now.

Grandfathering hero points isn’t such an easy decision, from a programming perspective.Hero points are tied to challenges, so when the change-over does happen, the code will read which ones were completed, give points on those, and add the number granted from leveling.
If they did decide to go with a matched-progression unlock system, they run into the problem of having fewer traits and the traits themselves changing. There is no comparing them to decide which skills/lines unlock.
And what about non-80s? What trait lines do they open? Is it still all of them or just Adept and Master? The game just can’t give the players what they “want” because there’s no way to code something that nebulous.

Not to mention, the opposite side of “fair.” Is it fair the players who do the challenges and traveling end up on the same footing as the players who bought their way into early access before the system changed and then fussed when told what the new system was instead of putting in the same work?

The most reasonably fair compromise I’ve seen so far is negative hero points, and even that is unfair to some degree. What if I don’t want all my core skills unlocked? My fresh level 80 with 400 hero points ends up with -65 when I just wanted a few focused skills and my class specialization right off the bat. But, no, all my core traits and skills are unlocked, and now I have to grind not only the extra 65 I was “given,” but the hoard of other points just to unlock my specialization.

I wouldn’t want that situation any more than losing progress on a bought-up, tome-leveled 80.

Lady Minuit.3186:

Before the first trait system overhaul you would get all the traits for free, so all my original characters have all of them.

Then I made a second generation of characters, which did not have all the traits, so I had to spend a lot of AP and Golds to get the traits unclocked.

Now all that money is gone to waste (43g per toon) and I won’t get all my traits back, because I didn’t do the map completion.

Not only this, but even my first generation of characters won’t get all the traits back as it stands now.

Kinda feels unfair?

What should be done is to give to characters created before the change all 465 Hero Points by default, and all newly created characters will have to follow the new rules, which is exactly what they did the first time they did an overhaul of the trait system.

Easy decision in my opinion and will also save us a lot of complaining.

first generation charachters spent more skill points on simply unlocking every skill, than new charachters will spend unlocking all core traits, and skills. Doing skill challenges was substantially faster than the only other method which was leveling, and also could not be shared between charachters.

how did you buy 360 skill points worth of skills per charachter and do no skill challenges?
even by eotm/spvp/champ bags that would take substantially longer than just doing skill challenges.

now, charachters created with the first system, who used skill point scrolls from the second system, they might have gotten full unlocks easy, but thats not in either system you describe.

also, many charachters created before the change have not unlocked every skill and trait, why should they benefit?

A few questions/notes:

1. Why does anyone need more than 9 characters? I’m not judging—I’m legitimately curious. Wouldn’t you have rather spent that extra gold/gems/$$ on skins, bank slots, or convenience items? Especially given the system we currently have where it’s relatively easy to unlock all of the skills and traits, and builds are relatively fluid (free trait refunds!), I really don’t understand why you need more than one per profession.
2. Anet hasn’t said that the specialization unlocks will be static. If they allow you to freely change builds, would you be able to refund/reassign Hero Points on a character? If that’s the case, 400 HP would give you access to all possible builds, if not simultaneously.
3. I just did 45 skill points to push my primary alt up to 65 skill points. It took me about an hour and a half. I was also watching tv with my wife at the time, so it’s not like I was devoting all of that time to doing that (Full disclosure: I was on an engineer with speed trait and perma swiftness from kits) I don’t expect it to take more than 4 hours for my 2 other level 80 alts
4. They chose a ham handed way of doing it, but Anet does have reason to push people back in to the main world map: They don’t want giant dead-zones—which spelled death for many an MMO
5. Really, this is the thing that you’re going to get really kittened about? I actually kind of like the fact that in order to fully unlock a character, you are going to have to complete (a very small amount of) PvE content on that character, and this is a much better way to do it than tying traits to arbitrary PvE Accomplishments that people just work around anyways. It’s a way better alternative than rewarding someone who just grinds PvP on their main with umpteen fully unlocked alts.
6. I’d personally be pretty annoyed if someone who either just book leveled or only leveled in sPvP joined a dungeon party I was in (assuming their lack of PvE skill was apparent in their play, which it usually is). Level-gating dungeons is a way of skill-gating them, and if you book-level to 80 and decide you want to run Arah story (or even AC Story) on your shiny new alt, you are probably going to screw something up because you’ve never played that profession in PvE. (Yes, I sPvP leveled my Engineer to 80, and yes, I completed his personal story before I ran a dungeon with him)

Look, I have book leveled 3 alts to 80 (Engineer, Warrior, and Elementalist, respectively—and only the Elementalist because I was told Sylvari would be interesting in HoT), and I got their traits and skills through scrolls, mostly. When I heard of the Hero Point and Specialization changes, I didn’t feel cheated (honestly, because it felt cheap to unlock everything without playing them hardly at all), I went out there and did skill challenges. It didn’t suck, I didn’t rage, I just did it.

phys.7689:

Lady Minuit.3186:

Before the first trait system overhaul you would get all the traits for free, so all my original characters have all of them.

Then I made a second generation of characters, which did not have all the traits, so I had to spend a lot of AP and Golds to get the traits unclocked.

Now all that money is gone to waste (43g per toon) and I won’t get all my traits back, because I didn’t do the map completion.

Not only this, but even my first generation of characters won’t get all the traits back as it stands now.

Kinda feels unfair?

What should be done is to give to characters created before the change all 465 Hero Points by default, and all newly created characters will have to follow the new rules, which is exactly what they did the first time they did an overhaul of the trait system.

Easy decision in my opinion and will also save us a lot of complaining.

first generation charachters spent more skill points on simply unlocking every skill, than new charachters will spend unlocking all core traits, and skills. Doing skill challenges was substantially faster than the only other method which was leveling, and also could not be shared between charachters.

how did you buy 360 skill points worth of skills per charachter and do no skill challenges?
even by eotm/spvp/champ bags that would take substantially longer than just doing skill challenges.

now, charachters created with the first system, who used skill point scrolls from the second system, they might have gotten full unlocks easy, but thats not in either system you describe.

also, many charachters created before the change have not unlocked every skill and trait, why should they benefit?

I’m not talking about unlocking skills here, but just traits. But yes all my characters have their skills unlocked as well. I did some map exploration, but mostly did leveling through dungeons or WvW and then later on skill point scrolls.

When you first would create characters, you didn’t need to unlock traits, they were given to you when leveling. This was changed only later on.

When this change happened, the previously created character got to keep their traits, but all newly created characters would need to unlock the traits by completing tasks or buying them.

By then I had several stacks of skill point scrolls to unlock (earned through daily dungeons) the traits as well as money.. so that’s how I did it.

Only my first 3 characters did 100% map completion, and only a few others did leveling through map, but I have 8 characters with under 10% map completion.

So.. as I previously said, as it stands, I would lose a lot of my hard work with this going through.

As for why people should benefit even though they haven’t unlocked everything? not sure, but that’s how anet did it in the past so why not do the same thing again?

As for me I know I did the grind so I definitely earned it. If not well that’s fine, but at least I told them how I feel. That’s up to them to decide now.

REVOLVET.4807:

Acquiring 65 skill points is not a big issue at all. You are just required to travel only 8-10 maps to get those number of skill points. Pretty easy, right? But the Specialization may require you to do a bit more exploration. The latter one makes sense as it is a HoT implementation.

It’s not hard, it’s tedious/repetitive and a waste of my playtime. You need 3 hours to gain 65 skill points (so, before any elite specializations) which doesn’t sound so bad unless you have 17 alts. Then suddenly it’s 50+ hours (more than an entire full-time work week) just to catch up to where we already are now. That’s just not how I want to spend my limited playtime for the next however many weeks.

The elite specs will prob require about 100 more hero points. So if you want to avoid annoying grind on that many alts i think you are going to have an issue regardless. Better start cracking now. :>

spoj.9672:

The elite specs will prob require about 100 more hero points. So if you want to avoid annoying grind on that many alts i think you are going to have an issue regardless. Better start cracking now. :>

The way I see it, working for new content is to be expected and it’s great, working for old content you’ve already been through, not so cool.

MattyP.6954:

I went out there and did skill challenges. It didn’t suck, I didn’t rage, I just did it.

I think a lot of people could learn from this. I’m planning on making sure my level 80’s will have at least 65 Skill challenges when HoT lands. It’s a better use of my time than raging on the forums that I don’t want to have to play the game in order to be able to… play the game.

I’m kidding there, of course, I’m happy doing that but I fully understand that a lot of people won’t want to go out into the PVE world and do skill/hero challenges to do that in order to get back to where they currently are. Grandfathering existing level 80’s through a “negative skill points” idea sounds like a good one for people who have already unlocked everything through tomes, skill scrolls and so on.

MattyP.6954:

A few questions/notes:

1. Why does anyone need more than 9 characters? I’m not judging—I’m legitimately curious. Wouldn’t you have rather spent that extra gold/gems/$$ on skins, bank slots, or convenience items? Especially given the system we currently have where it’s relatively easy to unlock all of the skills and traits, and builds are relatively fluid (free trait refunds!), I really don’t understand why you need more than one per profession.

To answer this question about alts, no, I don’t need more that one per profession but I do want more than one.

I have 9 level 80’s already, two guardians, I levelled a human guardian first but I wanted a heavy armour asura too so I levelled an asura guardian too. Personally, I like levelling alts so I’m sure I’ll end up with more race/profession combinations in the future (for example, I have a sylvari ranger, but I want a norn ranger too) I don’t mind spending rl money on gems to support that.

I have 14 lv 80 toons because I want to have 2 of each profession with completely different specializations, playstyles and builds. I’m pretty tired of people who say or imply that their way of playing is the right way, and everyone else is wrong. A-net’s mantra has been ‘play the way you want’. If I have worked to unlock everything on 14 toons it should not matter how I did it, as long as it was within the allowed system. Giving a huge advantage to players who replay each map on every toon, doing pointless completion ‘heart’ tasks and ‘skill’ (LOL!) challenges, while disadvantaging players (with actual skill) who spend their time in PvP and WvW instead of PvE would be absolutely maddening.

PvE requires little skill. It’s pretty ironic if you ask me.

looks like Anet just need to make a total of 65 heroes challenge location in WvW to satisfy those who live in WvW only

azizul.8469:

looks like Anet just need to make a total of 65 heroes challenge location in WvW to satisfy those who live in WvW only

There’s 13 skill challenges in WvW, and 13 * 5 is 65. The theory is that the WvW one will be good for 5 hero points each while the PvE ones will only give 1 each.

Totally made up, but the numbers fit nicely, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what was about to happen.

That would soften the blow somewhat for WvW players, although it really won’t help nearly enough if you need 100 more on top of the 65 per elite specialization.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

azizul.8469:

looks like Anet just need to make a total of 65 heroes challenge location in WvW to satisfy those who live in WvW only

There’s 13 skill challenges in WvW, and 13 * 5 is 65. The theory is that the WvW one will be good for 5 hero points each while the PvE ones will only give 1 each.

Totally made up, but the numbers fit nicely, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what was about to happen.

That would soften the blow somewhat for WvW players, although it really won’t help nearly enough if you need 100 more on top of the 65 per elite specialization.

oh, didn’t realize the number in WvW now there. that make sense if they grant 5 heroes point per challenge.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

azizul.8469:

looks like Anet just need to make a total of 65 heroes challenge location in WvW to satisfy those who live in WvW only

There’s 13 skill challenges in WvW, and 13 * 5 is 65. The theory is that the WvW one will be good for 5 hero points each while the PvE ones will only give 1 each.

Totally made up, but the numbers fit nicely, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what was about to happen.

That would soften the blow somewhat for WvW players, although it really won’t help nearly enough if you need 100 more on top of the 65 per elite specialization.

yes, this would be a bad long term design, for many reasons, one of which you mention.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

azizul.8469:

looks like Anet just need to make a total of 65 heroes challenge location in WvW to satisfy those who live in WvW only

There’s 13 skill challenges in WvW, and 13 * 5 is 65. The theory is that the WvW one will be good for 5 hero points each while the PvE ones will only give 1 each.

Totally made up, but the numbers fit nicely, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what was about to happen.

That would soften the blow somewhat for WvW players, although it really won’t help nearly enough if you need 100 more on top of the 65 per elite specialization.

Won’t that cause lots of PvE people coming in just to do these skill points and taking the places of WvW players?

Of course, it does rather depend on when they put in the new WvW map. It might not have any skill points at all. They could have removed all the PvE type content such as events and skill points since it no longer counts for 100% map. Or if the new WvW map does have some, there is no telling how many it will have. No reason to think it will have the exact same number.

Hexalot.8194:

I’m guessing that now is the time to unlock all your core skills and traits by whatever means necessary (gold, skill scrolls, etc…) then. Because I’m fairly certain those unlocked skills/traits on a max 80 character will be grandfathered in when the changes hit. For Anet to not do so would bring an avalanche of bad publicity and player backlash that to be honest simply wouldn’t be worth it from a business stand point.

If they do grandfather stuff in, this conversation/thread is moot.

But here’s the thing – the reason this thread is here is that they indicated (vaguely, but still) that they would not be grandfathering stuff in, but rather resetting you to the number of Hero Points you “should” have (i.e. for an 80 that’s 400 + number of Skill Challenges done, and you need 465 just to get back to where 99% of 80s already are).

So right now it does seem more likely that they’re going with the backlash/bad publicity route.

Does it make sense from a business standpoint? No, I agree that it does not, but sadly, much bigger companies than Anet have made much worse business standpoint-type decisions when implementing new systems. All it takes is an internal culture where they make important decisions without thinking them through critically and skeptically (a good example is WoW’s RealID, which caused massive backlash and was eventually completely revised).

REVOLVET.4807:

Acquiring 65 skill points is not a big issue at all. You are just required to travel only 8-10 maps to get those number of skill points. Pretty easy, right? But the Specialization may require you to do a bit more exploration. The latter one makes sense as it is a HoT implementation.

It absolutely is a “big issue”. Only required to travel to 8-10 maps? Yeah, you are, but you’re then required to spend about 5 minutes per skill point travelling around the maps (esp. as you likely do not have all the Waypoints, nor know the routes to the challenges – many of which involve a fair bit of jumping, climbing or spelunking to reach). So 65 × 5 = 325 minutes = nearly 5 and a half hours!

And that could be per-character!

Realistically most 80s have some Skill Challenges, but looking at mine and those of friends, many have in the order of 10-30 done, so that’s still multiple hours per character, just to get back to where you were (you gain nothing – no loot, no XP, nothing else from doing Skill Challenges).

“Pretty easy” – Well, it’s not hard in the sense of “requiring skill”, sure, but it is tedious and time-consuming. By that logic, re-decorating an entire house top to bottom is “pretty easy” – most adults have all the skills they need to do it. But we don’t all have the time required to do it, and you’re aggressively ignoring that part of the equation.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Hexalot.8194:

I’m guessing that now is the time to unlock all your core skills and traits by whatever means necessary (gold, skill scrolls, etc…) then. Because I’m fairly certain those unlocked skills/traits on a max 80 character will be grandfathered in when the changes hit. For Anet to not do so would bring an avalanche of bad publicity and player backlash that to be honest simply wouldn’t be worth it from a business stand point.

If they do grandfather stuff in, this conversation/thread is moot.

But here’s the thing – the reason this thread is here is that they indicated (vaguely, but still) that they would not be grandfathering stuff in, but rather resetting you to the number of Hero Points you “should” have (i.e. for an 80 that’s 400 + number of Skill Challenges done, and you need 465 just to get back to where 99% of 80s already are).

So right now it does seem more likely that they’re going with the backlash/bad publicity route.

Does it make sense from a business standpoint? No, I agree that it does not, but sadly, much bigger companies than Anet have made much worse business standpoint-type decisions when implementing new systems. All it takes is an internal culture where they make important decisions without thinking them through critically and skeptically (a good example is WoW’s RealID, which caused massive backlash and was eventually completely revised).

REVOLVET.4807:

Acquiring 65 skill points is not a big issue at all. You are just required to travel only 8-10 maps to get those number of skill points. Pretty easy, right? But the Specialization may require you to do a bit more exploration. The latter one makes sense as it is a HoT implementation.

It absolutely is a “big issue”. Only required to travel to 8-10 maps? Yeah, you are, but you’re then required to spend about 5 minutes per skill point travelling around the maps (esp. as you likely do not have all the Waypoints, nor know the routes to the challenges – many of which involve a fair bit of jumping, climbing or spelunking to reach). So 65 × 5 = 325 minutes = nearly 5 and a half hours!

And that could be per-character!

Realistically most 80s have some Skill Challenges, but looking at mine and those of friends, many have in the order of 10-30 done, so that’s still multiple hours per character, just to get back to where you were (you gain nothing – no loot, no XP, nothing else from doing Skill Challenges).

“Pretty easy” – Well, it’s not hard in the sense of “requiring skill”, sure, but it is tedious and time-consuming. By that logic, re-decorating an entire house top to bottom is “pretty easy” – most adults have all the skills they need to do it. But we don’t all have the time required to do it, and you’re aggressively ignoring that part of the equation.

I understand people complaining because they are changing the rules, and taking away their progress under the old rules
I understand people complaining that if they mostly play WvW its troublesome to go pve.

However, I cant really get with people implying 3 hours of effort on their pve charachters, is too much effort. If you dont want to spend 3 hours in PVE with your charachter, its likely you dont want to pve with that charachter.

also, as i have said before, the average is 3 minutes per skill point. yeah, some take longer, but you dont need every skillpoint challenge, and some also take substantially less time.

so basically, just go for the easy ones.

like your interior decorating analogy, if you really want a pretty house, you are going to have to put forth some effort into making it pretty, thats not really a crazy concept

phys.7689:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Hexalot.8194:

I’m guessing that now is the time to unlock all your core skills and traits by whatever means necessary (gold, skill scrolls, etc…) then. Because I’m fairly certain those unlocked skills/traits on a max 80 character will be grandfathered in when the changes hit. For Anet to not do so would bring an avalanche of bad publicity and player backlash that to be honest simply wouldn’t be worth it from a business stand point.

If they do grandfather stuff in, this conversation/thread is moot.

But here’s the thing – the reason this thread is here is that they indicated (vaguely, but still) that they would not be grandfathering stuff in, but rather resetting you to the number of Hero Points you “should” have (i.e. for an 80 that’s 400 + number of Skill Challenges done, and you need 465 just to get back to where 99% of 80s already are).

So right now it does seem more likely that they’re going with the backlash/bad publicity route.

Does it make sense from a business standpoint? No, I agree that it does not, but sadly, much bigger companies than Anet have made much worse business standpoint-type decisions when implementing new systems. All it takes is an internal culture where they make important decisions without thinking them through critically and skeptically (a good example is WoW’s RealID, which caused massive backlash and was eventually completely revised).

REVOLVET.4807:

Acquiring 65 skill points is not a big issue at all. You are just required to travel only 8-10 maps to get those number of skill points. Pretty easy, right? But the Specialization may require you to do a bit more exploration. The latter one makes sense as it is a HoT implementation.

It absolutely is a “big issue”. Only required to travel to 8-10 maps? Yeah, you are, but you’re then required to spend about 5 minutes per skill point travelling around the maps (esp. as you likely do not have all the Waypoints, nor know the routes to the challenges – many of which involve a fair bit of jumping, climbing or spelunking to reach). So 65 × 5 = 325 minutes = nearly 5 and a half hours!

And that could be per-character!

Realistically most 80s have some Skill Challenges, but looking at mine and those of friends, many have in the order of 10-30 done, so that’s still multiple hours per character, just to get back to where you were (you gain nothing – no loot, no XP, nothing else from doing Skill Challenges).

“Pretty easy” – Well, it’s not hard in the sense of “requiring skill”, sure, but it is tedious and time-consuming. By that logic, re-decorating an entire house top to bottom is “pretty easy” – most adults have all the skills they need to do it. But we don’t all have the time required to do it, and you’re aggressively ignoring that part of the equation.

I understand people complaining because they are changing the rules, and taking away their progress under the old rules
I understand people complaining that if they mostly play WvW its troublesome to go pve.

However, I cant really get with people implying 3 hours of effort on their pve charachters, is too much effort. If you dont want to spend 3 hours in PVE with your charachter, its likely you dont want to pve with that charachter.

also, as i have said before, the average is 3 minutes per skill point. yeah, some take longer, but you dont need every skillpoint challenge, and some also take substantially less time.

so basically, just go for the easy ones.

like your interior decorating analogy, if you really want a pretty house, you are going to have to put forth some effort into making it pretty, thats not really a crazy concept

I have to chuckle at a lot of the people in this thread. I have …15 or 16 characters now, of which all but 2 are 80 (ones 11 the other 55), and I really don’t have an issue with the incoming system. So I have to go out and actually play the game a bit more on each character to unlock everything. I don’t see the uproar.

Ok, Ok I do see the issue for those that strictly Wvw or pvp mode players. However, I have zero sympathy for WvWers. Just as they once told pvers to “suck it up” for world completion, I guess it’s their turn to suck it up for hero point hunting.

I think it all gets lost in 180+ replies. People who embrace change are a lot happier and regardless of how the add the new abilities in the new xpac everyone will be starting on from the same place. You’re going to be starting a new profession so to speak so don’t be lazy and want to have it all on day one or you’re going to get left in the dust.

If you actually think about it there’s a lot of easy skill points that are going to become something else and those of us who are getting as many as possible before the xpac hits are either going to have a reserve of augur, philos etc. or are going to have a ton of MF conversion.

phys.7689:

However, I cant really get with people implying 3 hours of effort on their pve charachters, is too much effort. If you dont want to spend 3 hours in PVE with your charachter, its likely you dont want to pve with that charachter.

It’s the difference between 3 hours of effort going for a goal you haven’t reached yet and being required to put in 3 hours of effort to earn something you’ve already earned. And multiply that by the number of characters that need to do it.

like your interior decorating analogy, if you really want a pretty house, you are going to have to put forth some effort into making it pretty, thats not really a crazy concept

Except, in this case we already have the pretty house. But the guy who sold us the wallpaper is planning on coming in and stripping about 20% of it off the walls so we have to put it up again. That is a crazy concept.

Re-reading the blog here it seems that if you have done all skill points, or earned enough to cover all needed hero points, you will be ok.

Old skill points in excess of those earned by leveling and skill challenges will be converted into crafting materials for the Mystic Forge.

This to me reads like ’ Any SP’s in excess of the amount you would earn my leveling and skill challenges, will be converted to materials’. This could very well mean that they will calculate how many you would have from leveling and skill challenges, then convert the rest. So if you have earned this amount in WvW for example, you may find you have more than enough hero points to fully unlock your character.

Until Anet clarifies this point, however, we simply cannot know how it will play out. We just need to wait for more information before getting annoyed. I think we are all worrying needlessly.

Muusic.2967:

You’re going to be starting a new profession so to speak so don’t be lazy and want to have it all on day one or you’re going to get left in the dust.

Is anyone asking to have their Revenant fully unlocked on day one?

Is anyone asking to have the new elite specializations unlocked on day one?

Not that I’ve seen. I see two things people are concerned about. 1) We don’t want our current characters set back on day one. 2) WvWers would like ArenaNet to hold to the concept they originally pitched that you could completely progress a character without ever leaving WvW.

I don’t see any examples of lazy here. Except, perhaps, for lazy thinkers who can throw “embrace change and be happy!” out like it’s a meaningful argument.

If you actually think about it there’s a lot of easy skill points that are going to become something else and those of us who are getting as many as possible before the xpac hits are either going to have a reserve of augur, philos etc. or are going to have a ton of MF conversion.

Woohoo for you?

A lot of us are going to be sitting on piles of whatever converted mat. But it looks like some will still have fully unlocked core traits and skills, and others will be set back.

I’m not sure what the mat conversion has to do with that.

Rin.1046:

Until Anet clarifies this point, however, we simply cannot know how it will play out. We just need to wait for more information before getting annoyed. I think we are all worrying needlessly.

Or we need to make it very clear to ArenaNet that resetting progress undermines the player-developer trust, in hopes they will make the wise decision and avoid it.

The “It’s not the right time to complain” cycle.

Gibson.4036:

phys.7689:

However, I cant really get with people implying 3 hours of effort on their pve charachters, is too much effort. If you dont want to spend 3 hours in PVE with your charachter, its likely you dont want to pve with that charachter.

It’s the difference between 3 hours of effort going for a goal you haven’t reached yet and being required to put in 3 hours of effort to earn something you’ve already earned. And multiply that by the number of characters that need to do it.

like your interior decorating analogy, if you really want a pretty house, you are going to have to put forth some effort into making it pretty, thats not really a crazy concept

Except, in this case we already have the pretty house. But the guy who sold us the wallpaper is planning on coming in and stripping about 20% of it off the walls so we have to put it up again. That is a crazy concept.

as i said, i understand that argument.

but the reasoning is different.

the person whose reasoning is, Anet created the system, i followed the rules, they change the rules, and now want to take back what i legitimately earned.
These people have a valid point, but the amount of work is largely irrelevant, the main issue is progress being taken way.

however the person who is multiplying 3 hours per 30 charachters reasoning, is that it is too much work to have to do to get a full unlock in PVE. Even if they get their skills unlocked, they object to the system itself. They will be unhappy when they create new charachters, and when they have get elite specializations.

these are two separate issues in reality. It seems similar because right now, both people dont want to have to get 65 skill points, but the reasoning is totally different.

the solutions are also totally different.

a person who is worried about progress being lost, would theoretically want a full accounting of thier current progress, and for the new system to properly award them that progress back.

Someone worried primarily about effort required doing something they dont like, is primarily looking for a solution with substantially less effort, or to be able to achieve it doing something they like.

I reject the concept that 3 hours doing skill challenges is too much effort to expect some one interested in pve to unlock full core on their charachters.

WvW is a totally different situation, but its a different question as well. Which boils down to, does arenanet think WvW should be an autonomous system, where you only should only have to play WvW to progress your charachter.

phys.7689:

However, I cant really get with people implying 3 hours of effort on their pve charachters, is too much effort. If you dont want to spend 3 hours in PVE with your charachter, its likely you dont want to pve with that charachter.

It’s not 3hrs of PVE.

3hrs of PVE would give me several gold, tons of mats, fuel for the mystic toilet, lots and lots and lots of XP (Mastery, here), and so on.

This is 3hrs of LITERALLY WASTED time.

Don’t lie about what it is.

phys.7689:

also, as i have said before, the average is 3 minutes per skill point. yeah, some take longer, but you dont need every skillpoint challenge, and some also take substantially less time.

My calculations make it 5 mins avg.

phys.7689:

so basically, just go for the easy ones.

Every character has different ones done, so not possible without a lot of time/money wasting.

phys.7689:

like your interior decorating analogy, if you really want a pretty house, you are going to have to put forth some effort into making it pretty, thats not really a crazy concept

I already had a pretty house. Why did you set fire to my bedroom and refuse to fix it?

Gibson.4036:

Or we need to make it very clear to ArenaNet that resetting progress undermines the player-developer trust, in hopes they will make the wise decision and avoid it.

I agree, if you are against the idea then you should voice your disapproval. But I stand by my point.

Eurhetemec.9052:

phys.7689:

However, I cant really get with people implying 3 hours of effort on their pve charachters, is too much effort. If you dont want to spend 3 hours in PVE with your charachter, its likely you dont want to pve with that charachter.

It’s not 3hrs of PVE.

3hrs of PVE would give me several gold, tons of mats, fuel for the mystic toilet, lots and lots and lots of XP (Mastery, here), and so on.

This is 3hrs of LITERALLY WASTED time.

Don’t lie about what it is.

phys.7689:

also, as i have said before, the average is 3 minutes per skill point. yeah, some take longer, but you dont need every skillpoint challenge, and some also take substantially less time.

My calculations make it 5 mins avg.

phys.7689:

so basically, just go for the easy ones.

Every character has different ones done, so not possible without a lot of time/money wasting.

phys.7689:

like your interior decorating analogy, if you really want a pretty house, you are going to have to put forth some effort into making it pretty, thats not really a crazy concept

I already had a pretty house. Why did you set fire to my bedroom and refuse to fix it?

Its not a waste of time because it gives you something of value
skills, traits,

and in fact, with the new system it does give you various mats, skins, weapons, etc. Did you not notice the shaky chests that were popping up with each unlock?

the content of skill challenges is not drastically different than the content that gives you gold/mats anyhow. Go to the event, complete the event and kill stuff. Thats not really any different. If you hate going somewhere and killing enemies or interacting with objects, what exactly do you do in this game

Is your beef the loss of progress
or is your beef having to do skill challenges

because these are fundamentally different things, and have different solutions.

There’s just so much misinformation, and doomsaying in this thread. Let’s take a minute to calm down.

First for all, if you only play PvP, then get out. This doesn’t concern you, you unlock everything for free.

If you play PvE, you can’t pick and choose your content, world completion is an integral part of PvE. You don’t even need anything near 100% world completion, only 65 out of 189 skill challenges. My casual 29% world completion toon has 50 already and I wasn’t actively trying to do skill challenges.

So, in the end, this only concerns the WvW players that have no skill challenges complete. We don’t know eveything about the new system, so I’m focusing on what we do know. You get 400 out of 465 skill points. Since skills and traits are now separated in thematic groups (all Cantrips, all Banners, etc.) it means that it’s easy to unlock everything your character needs. Do you run 10 different builds at the same time and change between skills that often? Even if it turns out you do not 465 points based on your current progress, there’s no actual reason to unlock absolutely everything right away, in one sitting, as soon as the expansion rolls out.

Plus, you do not have any elite specializations unlocked right now. One way or another, you will have to put some effort towards acquiring hero points for that. Without the argument of Anet resetting your progress, and if you just hate completing skill challenges, are you going to complain for that, too?

Zietlogik.6208:

I have noticed that Anet loves changing things for absolutely no reason (cough THE ENTIRE NPE cough)

The NPE wasn’t a random development.

ANet has stated it was created in response to feedback other than that in forums.

If ANet designed the game entirely around form posts, GW2 would suck donkey… well, I’ll just say suck.

phys.7689:

Its not a waste of time because it gives you something of value skills, traits,

Nope.

I already had them. Taking my lunch away and making me pay again for it isn’t two lunches.

phys.7689:

and in fact, with the new system it does give you various mats, skins, weapons, etc. Did you not notice the shaky chests that were popping up with each unlock?

No, I didn’t. With non-Elite spec lines? Can you link the right vid?

phys.7689:

the content of skill challenges is not drastically different than the content that gives you gold/mats anyhow. Go to the event, complete the event and kill stuff. Thats not really any different. If you hate going somewhere and killing enemies or interacting with objects, what exactly do you do in this game

SC Content is much easier, and reward is different (i.e. nothing). It’s not remotely comparable.

phys.7689:

Is your beef the loss of progress
or is your beef having to do skill challenges

because these are fundamentally different things, and have different solutions.

The former leading to the latter. Solve the former and the latter isn’t an issue.

Eurhetemec.9052:

phys.7689:

Its not a waste of time because it gives you something of value skills, traits,

Nope.

I already had them. Taking my lunch away and making me pay again for it isn’t two lunches.

phys.7689:

and in fact, with the new system it does give you various mats, skins, weapons, etc. Did you not notice the shaky chests that were popping up with each unlock?

No, I didn’t. With non-Elite spec lines? Can you link the right vid?

phys.7689:

the content of skill challenges is not drastically different than the content that gives you gold/mats anyhow. Go to the event, complete the event and kill stuff. Thats not really any different. If you hate going somewhere and killing enemies or interacting with objects, what exactly do you do in this game

SC Content is much easier, and reward is different (i.e. nothing). It’s not remotely comparable.

phys.7689:

Is your beef the loss of progress
or is your beef having to do skill challenges

because these are fundamentally different things, and have different solutions.

The former leading to the latter. Solve the former and the latter isn’t an issue.

so you have no problem with the idea that you will likely have to do 100+ skill challenges per charachter to unlock the elite spec?
No problem that every alt you create in the future will need 65 skill challenges before they are core complete?

as to the items, its unclear, the video had them but its unclear what he unlocked to trigger them(could have been achieves), so ill withdraw that.

phys.7689:

so you have no problem with the idea that you will likely have to do 100+ skill challenges per charachter to unlock the elite spec?

Not hugely, because I will still at 100% of previous. Elite is extra. I’m okay with that!

My objection is to being forced to ditchwater dull no reward content for stuff I already have, not future stuff.

phys.7689:

No problem that every alt you create in the future will need 65 skill challenges before they are core complete?

I don’t love it but I’ll deal. Can grab as I level. HP system should make leveling more interesting anyway.

phys.7689:

as to the items, its unclear, the video had them but its unclear what he unlocked to trigger them(could have been achieves), so ill withdraw that.

Ah, oh well.

phys.7689:

However, I cant really get with people implying 3 hours of effort on their pve charachters, is too much effort. If you dont want to spend 3 hours in PVE with your charachter, its likely you dont want to pve with that charachter.

To me this is big issue, and bit too much effort too.

I have 11 accounts, and all accounts have 8 characters. So totally I have 88 characters. I have played them one by one and level them all to level 80. I have all traits and skills open, so literally they are ready for next phase of plan. I have level them by opening waypoints and done all hearts and their stories. Only one of my character have done map completion.

Now when I have got my last character in this point I have started to do crafting and I want to do ascended gears to all of them. So I have started to work for it. I am farming materials and money for them. I know, I am totally late for that and maybe I am last person who is doing it, but that is my goal. To do ascended armor and weapons to all of them.

Now, my situation is this. I have 5,5 hours /week time to play this game. That’s why it has taken so long to level up all of my characters and I am in this crafting part.

So, I need to do more or less 65 skill challenges to rest of my 87 characters now. That kind of characters who have already open all skills and all traits. You say that it will take like 3 hours / 65 skill points and I have 5,5 hours / week time to play this game. So lets calculate:
3 hour x 87 Character = 261 hours
261 hours / 5,5 hours/week = 47, 4 weeks to get done those skill challenges.

That means I am just doing next 47,4 weeks skill challenges every hour what I can play, for those characters who already have opened once all skills and traits. That sounds WASTE OF TIME to me. I am not able to work for those ascended armors for 47,4 weeks.

Now someone asks why do I have so many accounts and so many characters. Just for supporting ArenaNet. I have spend to all these accounts big deal of real life money. I admit, it ends now. I will not spent even one dime for this game and I am not supporting ArenaNet anymore. I won’t even buy expansion, just because of those 47,4 weeks what I need to waste my time for doing something what I have already done once before. Just to get all my core game skills and traits open once again.

phys.7689:

so you have no problem with the idea that you will likely have to do 100+ skill challenges per charachter to unlock the elite spec?

I keep seeing this, but haven’t seen anything official indicating it.

Is it simply because 189-165= 124 and we’re assuming that the elite will cost all or most of the remaining HP beyond the core unlock?

Sorry everyone else, but i pretty much didn’t read past the first page.

I understand the problem at hand, although it really doesn’t affect me, i enjoy world completion, and it is a part of how i level all my characters (To me doing that is part of the fun).
But i do understand the problem and appreciate the situation.
Now for me i see 2 easy solutions;
First one (and probably the most simple) would be what someone already suggested, program the game to tally number of skills and traits already unlocked on the character, if the number is less than the hero points the character has earned through lvl and Skill Challenges, then nothing changed, if its greater, the game awards the remaining points, but at a deficit (like you owe those points to the game, so doing a new Skill Challenge will simply reduce your debt by one).

Another way, and this is directed specifically for WvW oriented players, is to award 1 Hero Point with WvWXp levels on the first X Levels (X being equal to the amount of Hero Points required to unlock all core specs), this however could create an imbalance from excess Hero Points in the game.

Tyyni.2954:

To me this is big issue, and bit too much effort too.

I have 11 accounts, and all accounts have 8 characters. So totally I have 88 characters.

Well, that’s absurd, no matter what system they implement. Even restoring your builds, choosing the new traits and re-slotting the utilities will take days.

Tyyni.2954:

I have played them one by one and level them all to level 80. I have all traits and skills open, so literally they are ready for next phase of plan. I have level them by opening waypoints and done all hearts and their stories. Only one of my character have done map completion.

If you levelled them all like that, then how come they don’t have at least 65 skill challenges unlocked already? You must have been actively try to avoid them if you normally levelled up a PvE character like that.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

azizul.8469:

looks like Anet just need to make a total of 65 heroes challenge location in WvW to satisfy those who live in WvW only

There’s 13 skill challenges in WvW, and 13 * 5 is 65. The theory is that the WvW one will be good for 5 hero points each while the PvE ones will only give 1 each.

Totally made up, but the numbers fit nicely, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what was about to happen.

That would soften the blow somewhat for WvW players, although it really won’t help nearly enough if you need 100 more on top of the 65 per elite specialization.

Won’t that cause lots of PvE people coming in just to do these skill points and taking the places of WvW players?

Of course it would.

Gibson.4036:

phys.7689:

so you have no problem with the idea that you will likely have to do 100+ skill challenges per charachter to unlock the elite spec?

I keep seeing this, but haven’t seen anything official indicating it.

Is it simply because 189-165= 124 and we’re assuming that the elite will cost all or most of the remaining HP beyond the core unlock?

because in the video, the dev spent like 60 points unlocking a trait line, and 25-35 points unlocking skills in a line.
they did say somethings may change, and they never said elite would cost the same, but its a fair assumption.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Ok, Ok I do see the issue for those that strictly Wvw or pvp mode players. However, I have zero sympathy for WvWers. Just as they once told pvers to “suck it up” for world completion, I guess it’s their turn to suck it up for hero point hunting.

They already had to for world completion. The majority of the world completion was in PvE areas.