Guild Wars 2

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Honestly, if you want to pull that phrase out of context, any balance change could be stated as going against that statement. Any core system change could be claimed as going against that statement. A lot of things can be applied when you take a single phrase out of context.

This isnt “any” balance change, it’s a core part of the game that could force thousands of players to spend a crapload of hours grinding to recover lost progress.

It also violates the whole “play how you want” that this game was sold with. Leveling thru WvW was an important marketing selling point for this game, it’s like taking a dump on people who trusted’em with their money.

If that phrase doesnt apply to setting back a crapload of characters then I dont know what it applies to.

They aren’t gonna refund points, they aren’t gonna refund gold and they sure as hell aren’t gonna let your legacy character retain the traits.
They want you to grind, and they want you to do it their way – which is, open world “challenges”. They want you to engage in this awesome, “new” content and possibly do map exploration on all of your toons, because… because.
I’d be extremely surprised if it happened otherwise.
How do I know? That bad feeling I have at the back of my throat.
The more I hear about HoT “features”, the crankier I get.

Oh, and about the people saying “naaaah, it would make no sense, they wouldn’t reset players’ progress because they want to change SOMETHING in the system!” Yeah?
Check my signature…

They’re not going to let people keep trait points, because Arenanet never adjusts their plans. They said they’re going to make you do skill challenges, and so they are. They’re completely severed from their playerbase, no matter how loud you yell.

Apparently they are banking on the expansion drawing in new players and more casual PvE-ers who have left the game. Veteran players who have been here since pre-launch, especially those with many alts, are getting a cucumber sandwich.

If we just do enough hero challenges on all our characters we’ll all finally see their true value and learn to love them. Communing with places of power and ingesting random food and drink just can’t be matched by any other gaming experience. I know the challenge of doing those things will make me feel like a hero who’s really earned the right to get my skills and traits back. Silly me, I deserve to have my progress reset for dinking around in WvW instead of PvE, where the real challenge is!

Daddar.5971:

If we just do enough hero challenges on all our characters we’ll all finally see their true value and learn to love them. Communing with places of power and ingesting random food and drink just can’t be matched by any other gaming experience. I know the challenge of doing those things will make me feel like a hero who’s really earned the right to get my skills and traits back. Silly me, I deserve to have my progress reset for dinking around in WvW instead of PvE, where the real challenge is!

This post seems too exagerated and hyperbolic, it doesnt make you seem to be someone you should take seriously.

anyhow, as i have told you before, skill challenges are not supposed to be challenging content. They are the ABCs of playing a charachter. Just like getting level 10 is no huge achievement or a symbol of anything challenging. Its just progression.

Daddar.5971:

If we just do enough hero challenges on all our characters we’ll all finally see their true value and learn to love them. Communing with places of power and ingesting random food and drink just can’t be matched by any other gaming experience. I know the challenge of doing those things will make me feel like a hero who’s really earned the right to get my skills and traits back. Silly me, I deserve to have my progress reset for dinking around in WvW instead of PvE, where the real challenge is!

pve a challenge.?yeah bashing a mob by spamming 11111111 is sooo challenging right hahaha

selan.8354:

Daddar.5971:

If we just do enough hero challenges on all our characters we’ll all finally see their true value and learn to love them. Communing with places of power and ingesting random food and drink just can’t be matched by any other gaming experience. I know the challenge of doing those things will make me feel like a hero who’s really earned the right to get my skills and traits back. Silly me, I deserve to have my progress reset for dinking around in WvW instead of PvE, where the real challenge is!

pve a challenge.?yeah bashing a mob by spamming 11111111 is sooo challenging right hahaha

and yet you dont want more challenging AI anyhow, so why do you even bring it up?

phys.7689:

selan.8354:

Daddar.5971:

If we just do enough hero challenges on all our characters we’ll all finally see their true value and learn to love them. Communing with places of power and ingesting random food and drink just can’t be matched by any other gaming experience. I know the challenge of doing those things will make me feel like a hero who’s really earned the right to get my skills and traits back. Silly me, I deserve to have my progress reset for dinking around in WvW instead of PvE, where the real challenge is!

pve a challenge.?yeah bashing a mob by spamming 11111111 is sooo challenging right hahaha

and yet you dont want more challenging AI anyhow, so why do you even bring it up?

i hate ai cause it has nothing to do with wvw. wvw is pvp so yeah i wann kill players im not scarred of ai but i dont wanna fight ai if i wanna fight ai ill go pve and braindead spam 111 in my war on a boss that spawns every 2 hours!

Hyperbolic? No, not at all. I’ve decided that I I totally agree with you. I need to do my ABC’s again on all my characters. Besides, reciting your ABC’s for hours on end is just plain fun. I’m really glad you’ve shown me how wrong I was to think that progress already earned in WvW should count for anything. I mean, it’s not nearly as valid a method of earning progress as reciting your ABC’s ad infinitum. In fact, I think they should make Barney a world boss. Wouldn’t that be cool?!

Daddar.5971:

Hyperbolic? No, not at all. I’ve decided that I I totally agree with you. I need to do my ABC’s again on all my characters. Besides, reciting your ABC’s for hours on end is just plain fun. I’m really glad you’ve shown me how wrong I was to think that progress already earned in WvW should count for anything. I mean, it’s not nearly as valid a method of earning progress as reciting your ABC’s ad infinitum. In fact, I think they should make Barney a world boss. Wouldn’t that be cool?!

i already told you that i dont disagree with grandfathering, but you were also talking about skill challenges as progression, so my posts were about that.

and you only have to do your skill challenges once per charachter. much like you only had to level from 1-80 once per charachter. Anyhow, sounds like you ve lost it now. Go ahead and go crazy, when you are not even sure they dont already have a plan for grandfathering/wvw.

I admit it’s been a little grindy working on skill challenges on my alts, especially the ones that leveled without a lot of map exploration (hi there, Mad King events). I have 2 at world completion, 11 at 100 challenges done per the map (could be a few more if they got some in DT/SW/etc), 1 in the upper 60’s that I’ll work on next, and a level 43 that will get them over time. Otoh I’ve gained waypoints, unfogged maps, and made sure all my alts can get to at least the start of the DT and SW zones so as to be ready to push further into HoT.

I have a lot of skill challenges available to boost them further, especially in Orr. One thing that has just occurred to me: the WvW maps are changing. Would it be wise to grit my teeth and go get the skill challenges from the current maps on my 13 alts that don’t have them? Or with those removed from the world when the maps change, will they no longer give credit towards Hero Points? Will the new WvW maps have hero challenges in them?

Donari.5237:

I admit it’s been a little grindy working on skill challenges on my alts, especially the ones that leveled without a lot of map exploration (hi there, Mad King events). I have 2 at world completion, 11 at 100 challenges done per the map (could be a few more if they got some in DT/SW/etc), 1 in the upper 60’s that I’ll work on next, and a level 43 that will get them over time. Otoh I’ve gained waypoints, unfogged maps, and made sure all my alts can get to at least the start of the DT and SW zones so as to be ready to push further into HoT.

I have a lot of skill challenges available to boost them further, especially in Orr. One thing that has just occurred to me: the WvW maps are changing. Would it be wise to grit my teeth and go get the skill challenges from the current maps on my 13 alts that don’t have them? Or with those removed from the world when the maps change, will they no longer give credit towards Hero Points? Will the new WvW maps have hero challenges in them?

they probably will, however why rush out? you will likely not have any need for more hero points. 155-165 will probably be all you need for elite specs, and by the time elite spec available, you will have skill challenges in the new zone.

overall i would say needing a ton of skill challenges is a bit tedious, but leveling to 80 is actually a lot more tedious.

If I need 155, I’m 55 shy on most alts … so I hope you’re wrong there. I wasn’t going to rush, per se, I’ve just found the skill challenge collection to be a manageable piecemeal project to fill some game time.

My idle curiosity lies in the issue of whether getting the WvW challenges would be wasted effort. I really don’t enjoy WvW when I’m not there for the fight, any more than I enjoy walking down a city street at night wondering if a mugger is sizing me up. Adrenaline isn’t fun for me. So I’d hate to put myself through that only to learn that the current skill challenges in WvW don’t count because they’re getting removed and all hero points must come from the same pool available to everyone.

Leveling isn’t the tedious part for me, or wasn’t pre trait revamp. That’s why I have so many 80’s; I always had an alt cooking along until the change. I only have one alt made since the change (other than a name placeholder that likely shan’t be leveled). Which doesn’t mean I’d be as sanguine about a level rollback as I am about the rework of trait point acquisition!

In theory, I think this change makes skill challenges more rewarding.

In the current system, there comes a time where you gain so many skill points for free, that the whole skill point hunting becomes meaningless. Current skill challenges end up being pretty much a glorified version of points of interest.

Similarly, obtaining traits with the current system is either obscure and unintuitive, or pretty much a copycat of gear, runes and sigils, where you spend gold to buy power.

The distinction between obtaining traits and obtaining gear, and the distinction between collecting skill challenges and collecting points of interest, is currently blurred. Those changes will make it clearer and stand out more.

GW2’s map completion is generally boring and repetitive after a while. It needs more rewards, which we are going to get, it needs more unique things to hunt for, which this changes improve upon, and it needs more challenge, which I don’t have much faith that it’ll ever happen.

The real issue is how the new system interacts with WvW.

Alright, so I’ve tried to just deal with this change without complaining, and I’ve done 65 skill challenges on 4 of my alts so far (of 12 characters minus my two 100%‘s), but if I still need 60 more skill points to get the new elite specialization on those 4 and 125 skill points on my other 6 characters, I think I’m going to be sick.

So far I’ve done 260 skill points out of 1250 needed to be back to where I was, and I’m completely exhausted. I’ve been doing this for about 5-6 hours, and the thought of putting 20-25 more hours (especially with classes I don’t like as much) of raw map completion grinding just to be back to where I started before this makes me shudder, not only for me but for everyone else who hasn’t even attempted this yet and especially for newer players who hardly know the maps, much less can map complete 10-15 of the areas without traits.

This should definitely be redone or removed. I’d even prefer the “go read a book” method that’s currently in place to having to continue this mind-melting work, and would further prefer the original system. My condolences to WvW’ers, this is much worse for you.

Vakrir.4829:

Alright, so I’ve tried to just deal with this change without complaining, and I’ve done 65 skill challenges on 4 of my alts so far (of 12 characters minus my two 100%‘s), but if I still need 60 more skill points to get the new elite specialization on those 4 and 125 skill points on my other 6 characters, I think I’m going to be sick.

Do you really think you will need the same hero points to get the new elite specialization? That would be lame as kitten.

Neox.3497:

Vakrir.4829:

Alright, so I’ve tried to just deal with this change without complaining, and I’ve done 65 skill challenges on 4 of my alts so far (of 12 characters minus my two 100%‘s), but if I still need 60 more skill points to get the new elite specialization on those 4 and 125 skill points on my other 6 characters, I think I’m going to be sick.

Do you really think you will need the same hero points to get the new elite specialization? That would be lame as kitten.

IIRC they said you’d need level 80 + ~65 skill points to get the main specializations, and since the main specializations are 60 points each I’m assuming that the elite will be as well.

Vakrir.4829:

Alright, so I’ve tried to just deal with this change without complaining, and I’ve done 65 skill challenges on 4 of my alts so far (of 12 characters minus my two 100%‘s), but if I still need 60 more skill points to get the new elite specialization on those 4 and 125 skill points on my other 6 characters, I think I’m going to be sick.

So far I’ve done 260 skill points out of 1250 needed to be back to where I was, and I’m completely exhausted. I’ve been doing this for about 5-6 hours, and the thought of putting 20-25 more hours (especially with classes I don’t like as much) of raw map completion grinding just to be back to where I started before this makes me shudder, not only for me but for everyone else who hasn’t even attempted this yet and especially for newer players who hardly know the maps, much less can map complete 10-15 of the areas without traits.

This should definitely be redone or removed. I’d even prefer the “go read a book” method that’s currently in place to having to continue this mind-melting work, and would further prefer the original system. My condolences to WvW’ers, this is much worse for you.

^ forcing this suffering on all players just so they can get their builds back will make people quit. It’s a long time to earn back what you just had pre patch. I have 10+ hours of skill challenges waiting for me, and u gotta say it’s making me question if gw2 is worth it.

Vakrir.4829:

Alright, so I’ve tried to just deal with this change without complaining, and I’ve done 65 skill challenges on 4 of my alts so far (of 12 characters minus my two 100%‘s), but if I still need 60 more skill points to get the new elite specialization on those 4 and 125 skill points on my other 6 characters, I think I’m going to be sick.

So far I’ve done 260 skill points out of 1250 needed to be back to where I was, and I’m completely exhausted. I’ve been doing this for about 5-6 hours, and the thought of putting 20-25 more hours (especially with classes I don’t like as much) of raw map completion grinding just to be back to where I started before this makes me shudder, not only for me but for everyone else who hasn’t even attempted this yet and especially for newer players who hardly know the maps, much less can map complete 10-15 of the areas without traits.

This should definitely be redone or removed. I’d even prefer the “go read a book” method that’s currently in place to having to continue this mind-melting work, and would further prefer the original system. My condolences to WvW’ers, this is much worse for you.

new players will get them while leveling, killing multiple birds with one stone, and they will have WAY more traits than new players under the current system have. The system is way less annoying than the last system. They will actually get skills, and traits, from leveling, and skill points will just push them over the top, or allow them more power than people used to have per level.

from a grandfathering standpoint, you may have some points, but game design wise, your crazy, having to play a charachter for 3 hours to achieve the maximum core skill cap is far from insane.

and playing for 4 hours before fully unlocking the new skill progression in an expansion is also comparitively nothing.

Has Anet said anything on this?

>ANet
>Communicate something other than the size of their table

Hah.

phys.7689:

from a grandfathering standpoint, you may have some points

We’re talking here about nothing else except grandfathering. We seem to have reached agreement that the system is good for new players long ago. It’s the old players where it breaks.
Hint: do you know which type of players is more represented in this game?

Astralporing.1957:

phys.7689:

from a grandfathering standpoint, you may have some points

We’re talking here about nothing else except grandfathering. We seem to have reached agreement that the system is good for new players long ago. It’s the old players where it breaks.
Hint: do you know which type of players is more represented in this game?

the guy i responded too brought up new players and how its worse for them, it not. Its not even worse than the first system, because you get full unlock of skills/traits for slightly less skill points than you used to need for full unlock of just skills.

yeah, might be annoying have to go back for skill challenges, but we re going to end up doing them anyhow. 100, or 165, you will be going back regardless(for elite spec points) at the end of the day it isnt that big a deal.

and to be honest, although it was anets fault, the skill challenge system for progression was broken for some time. People never should have been able to have fully unlocked charachters who have never played any content in the game at all.

choovanski.5462:

Vakrir.4829:

Alright, so I’ve tried to just deal with this change without complaining, and I’ve done 65 skill challenges on 4 of my alts so far (of 12 characters minus my two 100%‘s), but if I still need 60 more skill points to get the new elite specialization on those 4 and 125 skill points on my other 6 characters, I think I’m going to be sick.

So far I’ve done 260 skill points out of 1250 needed to be back to where I was, and I’m completely exhausted. I’ve been doing this for about 5-6 hours, and the thought of putting 20-25 more hours (especially with classes I don’t like as much) of raw map completion grinding just to be back to where I started before this makes me shudder, not only for me but for everyone else who hasn’t even attempted this yet and especially for newer players who hardly know the maps, much less can map complete 10-15 of the areas without traits.

This should definitely be redone or removed. I’d even prefer the “go read a book” method that’s currently in place to having to continue this mind-melting work, and would further prefer the original system. My condolences to WvW’ers, this is much worse for you.

^ forcing this suffering on all players just so they can get their builds back will make people quit. It’s a long time to earn back what you just had pre patch. I have 10+ hours of skill challenges waiting for me, and u gotta say it’s making me question if gw2 is worth it.

yep i agree with u. i hate pve. its so boring! and now i have to run with a brain dead karma zerg in pve to get my hero points . i think im looking at around 30 hours because my mesmer wont be able to keep up because of pve war meta…. ill buy hot isnt that enough for u anet so i can have an option to unlock my new traits and skills right away? ill even pay gems for it! as long as i dont have to grind stupid pve mobs on each character!

Theres also going to be hero challenges in the new maps. So you really dont need to suffer through more than 65 hero challenges in the base game. I suspect there will be close to enough in the new maps to unlock the elite spec. And no matter what you say about PvE. Im sure you WvW’ers will want to at least try the new content.

spoj.9672:

Theres also going to be hero challenges in the new maps. So you really dont need to suffer through more than 65 hero challenges in the base game. I suspect there will be close to enough in the new maps to unlock the elite spec. And no matter what you say about PvE. Im sure you WvW’ers will want to at least try the new content.

i doubt it, unless its a lot less points.

even if each map has 10 challenges, that would need 6-9 new maps.
unless Hot hero challenges give more points (which is possible) i doubt you can get enough just from hot.

my guess is there will probably be like 30 or less new hero challenges.

15 challenges per map. And im fairly certain there will be more than 3 maps. Anyway. Even if its only 45 challenges in the new content. Thats a fairly big contribution towards the elite specs. Which will probably be about 100 hero points maximum.

spoj.9672:

15 challenges per map. And im fairly certain there will be more than 3 maps. Anyway. Even if its only 45 challenges in the new content. Thats a fairly big contribution towards the elite specs. Which will probably be about 100 hero points maximum.

did the last beta have 15 in it? i thought orr was from 9-12 per map. i would be expecting about 3 maps.

Why does everyone think its only going to be 3 maps. They said less maps but more content per map. That doesnt mean its going to be that few. I doubt they would be able to do a complete story if its only 3 maps.

spoj.9672:

Why does everyone think its only going to be 3 maps. They said less maps but more content per map. That doesnt mean its going to be that few. I doubt they would be able to do a complete story if its only 3 maps.

well they already said its only going to be a region, regions usually have like 6-8 zones, and we got 2 already, and they said that they were going to have less maps but more verticality, and more packed content.

So i would assume it would be very few maps.

As far as telling a story, almost all of living story 2 takes place in only two new maps. I doubt we will get much more story than last season was. In fact my guess is we ll get like half the story, with the rest to be released as living story updates.

Im predicting about 5 maps. Verdant Brink doesnt even have much of multiple biomes as far as we can see. And im guessing most maps are going to be more focused around one biome with a bit of branching into the others. Which means we need more than 3.

Besides we have an idea of where we will be going in the jungle. And based on the maps we have in gw1. It looks like a lot more than 3 even if they are big. We need to go to the heart of the jungle which is quite far from verdant brink. And weve seen from the trailer we are probably going to see the balth temple. Which is also far off from current maps. Theres also the bloodstone north of verdant brink which is very likely.

Usually expansions bring a whole continent of maps. Which is more than 10. So getting about 10 could still be considered “fewer maps”. Although i dont think it will be quite that much either. But 3 is way too little.

spoj.9672:

Im predicting about 5 maps. Verdant Brink doesnt even have much of multiple biomes as far as we can see. And im guessing most maps are going to be more focused around one biome with a bit of branching into the others. Which means we need more than 3.

Besides we have an idea of where we will be going in the jungle. And based on the maps we have in gw1. It looks like a lot more than 3 even if they are big. We need to go to the heart of the jungle which is quite far from verdant brink. And weve seen from the trailer we are probably going to see the balth temple. Which is also far off from current maps. Theres also the bloodstone north of verdant brink which is very likely.

Usually expansions bring whole a whole continent of maps. Which is more than 10. So getting about 10 could still be considered “fewer maps”. Although i dont think it will be quite that much either. But 3 is way too little.

well i wont complain if there are more maps, and it would be good for elite skill attainment, in terms of entertainment if they had like 60 or more new challenges in the new area.

butttt when it comes to this type of stuff, in the past it seems like the lower limit of expectations is the best bet.

I really feel like this goes against mike Obrien talking about not wanting to invalidate the work we put into our characters.

Agreed. Thanks for bringing it back up to page one. It’s a real issue.

Yeah these hero points need to be obtainable in other game modes except PvE. IE new PvP reward tracks and something within WvW. Its getting old that people who come to play this game competitively are forced to endure the PvE crap. I like fighting things that can react to what Im doing and give a real challenge rather than running world boss runs pressing 1 at some giant dragon. Its already bad enough I tend to endure guild missions because I need the commendations.

Can we please just allow each game mode its own way of unlocking and while youre at it, exclusive high level gear and legendary gear to those game modes.

Why would you need them in PvP? You have everything unlocked. WvW has hero challenges. Maybe they will just add extra ones to the new borderlands maps so you can get your extra 65 purely from WvW.

spoj.9672:

Why would you need them in PvP? You have everything unlocked. WvW has hero challenges. Maybe they will just add extra ones to the new borderlands maps so you can get your extra 65 purely from WvW.

Are they forcing everybody to also lose their abilties and grind out 65 hero challenges to get those skills back.

I expect that my alts will keep ALL of their skills and traits they currently have – if not – I will request a compensation for every single skill that was taken from them (and I encourage everyone to do the same) beacause I’ve spent time and money to make their builds look how I want and I’m not going to do that again because someone after 3 years of development thought “hey, let’s turn everything upside down!”.

Thaia.5146:

I expect that my alts will keep ALL of their skills and traits they currently have – if not – I will request a compensation for every single skill that was taken from them (and I encourage everyone to do the same) beacause I’ve spent time and money to make their builds look how I want and I’m not going to do that again because someone after 3 years of development thought “hey, let’s turn everything upside down!”.

But … the current skills and traits won’t exist. They’re all getting changed and moved around. The compensation will be that you get the new ones instead. You might have to think a bit on how to pick your traits to get the same effect of your build — the devs said they want to let you still be a style of build even if you have to achieve it differently, and they have a thread somewhere asking for people to list builds that cannot be duplicated. Not exactly the same but if you’re a bunker you should still be able to be a bunker, if you’re a glass cannon that should still be available, etc.

You didn’t get the point – I’m not against so called “ballance”. I’m against taking something from me I’ve already earned. I’m not going to grind through four hundred and fifty-five skill challenges (on 7 alts) to get my viable builds back. It’s not gonna happen.

Thaia.5146:

You didn’t get the point – I’m not against so called “ballance”. I’m against taking something from me I’ve already earned. I’m not going to grind through four hundred and fifty-five skill challenges (on 7 alts) to get my viable builds back. It’s not gonna happen.

This^

All this reminding me of the NPE/Trait change. Anet never consulted us on these changes. Yet when the community backlash kicked it, we went ignored until they were ready to reveal an expansion. ..

i am starting to believe this change is being done to make the game more grindy to appeal to the asian market where it failed at so far.

PVE is boring? It is the spine of the game.
Just get map completion. And the argument is over.
Play WvW. And the argument is over.
If you don’t want to (another valid argument), then don’t.

Just sounds like a lot of people here don’t like the game. I can do without those.

spoj.9672:

Why would you need them in PvP? You have everything unlocked. WvW has hero challenges. Maybe they will just add extra ones to the new borderlands maps so you can get your extra 65 purely from WvW.

Because you may use the some toons in both game modes. I play both and do use the same toons and would like to level my toon while I play it in any game mode.

Currently PvP is the best place to get Tomes of Knowledge. I have several stacks of tomes right now because of PvP. If I want to roll a new character, I just roll it and insta level it and dont worry about PvE content at all. You dont really need em there, but they were put there so PvP players can level their toons though level really doesnt matter in PvP.

Same philosophy.

There are many players that dont PvE in this game, I mean to me yes PvE is boring compared to the real challenges of PvP and non-logical driven opponents give a far better game play to me. If others feel differently thats cool and why there are different game modes.

Take map completion. They took out the WvW maps because PvE players QQ’d so much about it, yet there is no way for you to accomplish this completely in the PvP game modes. So you still have to PvE if you want a legendary but not vice versa.

Thaia.5146:

You didn’t get the point – I’m not against so called “ballance”. I’m against taking something from me I’ve already earned. I’m not going to grind through four hundred and fifty-five skill challenges (on 7 alts) to get my viable builds back. It’s not gonna happen.

That’s what I’m saying. It’s ridiculous to think that they would do this to us. They made it sound like this isn’t the type of thing they want us to be forced to do.

If you do both gametypes then you dont really have an excuse. Earn the hero points for PvE. Dont need to for PvP. Thats how it is currently. Except for skills being too easy to obtain in PvE.

Also some of you are misunderstanding. You wont need to grind out 400 hero challenges. If you havent done any hero challenges on an alt then you will need to do 65 to unlock everything (you will have 400 hero points already just from being level 80). If you have done more than 65 on a character you will have more than enough to unlock everything immediately when you log in.

Im saying its possible the new WvW map will have enough hero challenges for WvW exclusive players to get the extra 65 points they need without PvEing. Surely thats a good enough compromise?

If you cant even understand what they are actually doing then you shouldnt be complaining. Its pointless. Make sure you fully understand the change before you start throwing kittens.

PS. Yes it does suck for insta leveled PvE/WvW alts. But if you go do those 65 challenges now you actually make a profit. 65 bonus skill points that get turned into spirit shards and you automatically get your needed hero points as well.

Thaia.5146:

I expect that my alts will keep ALL of their skills and traits they currently have – if not – I will request a compensation for every single skill that was taken from them (and I encourage everyone to do the same) beacause I’ve spent time and money to make their builds look how I want and I’m not going to do that again because someone after 3 years of development thought “hey, let’s turn everything upside down!”.

Wait… unless I’m mistaken, you can’t buy skill points in the gem store with real money. Are you saying that you were so bereft of gold that you had to put real money into gems and lose some of that money in the conversion to gold to buy skill points? That’s just crazy dumb…

Also, there is no single build that you won’t be able to use on a level 80 character. There’s being over dramatic, and there’s just being silly. This whole conversation has moved well into the latter category.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

While I understand the general sense of concern here, I have to wonder from which it stems precisely. Thus far, Anet’s track record has been to “grandfather in” existing 80s for these types of changes. Low level alts might get a little shafted, but we’ll see. Maybe I missed a red post or a blog somewhere stating that the slate will be wiped completely clean on all of us?

Not really true…. when they changed the trait system, existing characters got access to almost all traits. Almost being the operative word. They added some new 60-80 ones, that you had to unlock. Which meant once again doing content you either hated with a passion or had already done a zillion times.

And of course, newly created characters AFTER the change, even on ‘been there, done that’-accounts, had to unlock each and every trait separately.

So er yeah… consider this a vote of no confidence in the whole grandfathering in thing…

Raziel.4216:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Honestly, if you want to pull that phrase out of context, any balance change could be stated as going against that statement. Any core system change could be claimed as going against that statement. A lot of things can be applied when you take a single phrase out of context.

This isnt “any” balance change, it’s a core part of the game

Please note the second sentence that also includes any core system change.

Raziel.4216:

that could force thousands of players to spend a crapload of hours grinding to recover lost progress.

This is the whole kitten point of an MMO though. They want you to waste hours and hours and hours in it. Admittedly, not the best way to go about doing it, but this change may be for the better. What we have right now, and what we had before weren’t the best designs. They didn’t easily lend themselves to expansion/progression options.

Raziel.4216:

It also violates the whole “play how you want” that this game was sold with.

So does the entire ascended tier
So did the fractal reset
They have shown us that if they feel something needs revamping, they are going to do it. It’s not our call to make; we don’t have to like it.

Raziel.4216:

Leveling thru WvW was an important marketing selling point for this game, it’s like taking a dump on people who trusted’em with their money.

You can still level through WvW, you just can’t (as far as we are presently aware) get those last 65 hero points; however, some may find that they really don’t need them. Not precisely the point, I know, but still a factor to consider.

I get it, people are kittened off because they won’t have everything after the patch. Neither will I, but you don’t see me on here kittening and moaning about it. They told us with plenty of time to go out and take care of the issues we might have, and that’s what a lot of us have done. Considering a lot of the people griping about this have also been griping about ‘content drought’ and ‘nothing to do,’ you obviously have nothing better to do so just go do it. You need to gather more for the elite anyway.

Broom.2561:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

While I understand the general sense of concern here, I have to wonder from which it stems precisely. Thus far, Anet’s track record has been to “grandfather in” existing 80s for these types of changes. Low level alts might get a little shafted, but we’ll see. Maybe I missed a red post or a blog somewhere stating that the slate will be wiped completely clean on all of us?

Not really true…. when they changed the trait system, existing characters got access to almost all traits. Almost being the operative word. They added some new 60-80 ones, that you had to unlock. Which meant once again doing content you either hated with a passion or had already done a zillion times.

And of course, newly created characters AFTER the change, even on ‘been there, done that’-accounts, had to unlock each and every trait separately.

So er yeah… consider this a vote of no confidence in the whole grandfathering in thing…

Yes, and I’ve addressed grandfathering in other posts and in other threads regarding this topic. At this point, especially since they’ve now posted a blog that this will be coming in the next patch, they haven’t mentioned grandfathering, so I’m assuming it will not happen. And that makes sense from logic perspective in regards to the code. There is no elegant way to grandfather existing characters in that doesn’t result in some distinct imbalance between existing characters and new ones and some potentially very complex multilevel calculations (for which they may not actually retain all the data they need). Especially considering hero points are a finite resource. As such, they have seemingly opted to keep is simple (something of a mantra in coding), which results in some of us getting a boot to the kitten . I am in the same boat as everybody else. In fact, give me 20 minutes or so and I’ll attach an image (of a spreadsheet) with all of my characters, their levels, and number of skill point challenges they presently have.

Edit: Here is a screenshot of my spreadsheet for skill point hunting across my characters. The characters in orange still need the base 65 points for the core unlock. The yellow totals are those that meet the base 65, but not the guesstimated 125 necessary for core and elite, the ones that do are green. As you can see, I’m very impacted by the incoming change, but instead of hemming and hawing over it, I’m simply doing something about it. Very slowly since I do other things too (like wvw or pvp), but I’m working on it.