Guild Wars 2

With all the controversy and arguments over the new system for earning earning traits and skills through hero challenges, I have a proposal:

Reset all traits and skills for every character in the game to zero when HoT releases.

That will eliminate the perceived unfairness in allowing PvE players to keep their progress, while denying it to players who leveled their characters in WvW, dungeons or fractals (or some other way). Reset everyone’s number of hero challenges to zero, and teleport every character to their starting city. Those with map completion will easily find the challenges, so they still have a leg up. Those without map completion will have to explore more, but at least it’s the same for everyone.

I anticipate that some fellow players would think this solution is somehow unfair, but I think it would be ideal. It’s actually the only fair way to handle it.

This is most probably what they will do anyway, not because it’s fair but because it work differently.

Beside there is nothing such as unfair since most (if not all) the point you’ll need will be given by the level of your character and not by the skill challenge.

I’d also say that everybody is free to complete any skill challenge until HoT or even just the new "core specialization* system goes live. Why complaint while doing every skill challenge take you maybe 1 hour to complete them all? (well let’s say 2hour with travel time)

Dadnir.5038:

Why complaint while doing every skill challenge take you maybe 1 hour to complete them all? (well let’s say 2hour with travel time)

This would be true if you had them mapped already. Those without much map completion will have to search for the hero challenges, so they will take longer.

As someone who’s used quite a bit of game time in the past couple of weeks running around grabbing skill challenges, I can say it takes a lot more than an hour especially if you have a lot of alts. I did one cycle of getting everyone to 65 challenges soon after they first announced and now am on my last alt to get to 100 challenges done.

Thankfully ANet already said this will be retroactive. They’ve provided a ton of advance notice so players can get ready. If doing the challenges is so painful that you want to put it off until the new system arrives, that’s your prerogative. But as the challenges will have to be done at some point I fail to see why it’s fair to strip away the unlocks from those who did them previously so they have to repeat it all while others only have to do them once.

Do you think everyone should be reset to level 1 as well, so that those who have not yet gained their 80th level can start out even with those who have?

Daddar.5971:

With all the controversy and arguments over the new system for earning earning traits and skills through hero challenges, I have a proposal:

Reset all traits and skills for every character in the game to zero when HoT releases.

That will eliminate the perceived unfairness in allowing PvE players to keep their progress, …..

You said it yourself. The keyword here is perceived. Perceived unfairness is miles away from factual practiced unfairness. There is plenty of time between now and the expac to raise a character to level 80 and do map completion— twice, maybe thrice times over.

So then you would be in agreement with the proposal, I’m guessing… Since it would be no big deal.

Daddar.5971:

It’s actually the only fair way to handle it.

Uhm… No, it’s not.
IMO, you should instead be arguing for there to be more WvW and PvP methods of getting those extra ~65 points needed after you hit L80. Perhaps the option to convert WvW rank points into these points. Add a PvP reward track to earn extra points. That seems pretty fair to me. Much more fair than resetting everyone’s map completion, essentially out of spite.

I’ve floated both of those ideas myself, only to be trolled by PvE players with a million reasons why they would never work. Everyone keeps arguing that getting the hero challenges will be no big deal for us WvW players, so why wouldn’t that be true for everyone? Let’s have a level playing field. No one can disagree with a level playing field, right?

I see no point in reseting, do to the fact that the PvE community is vastly larger in this game than the WvW community, doing such a method would cripple a player base and make out for horrible PR for an Expac with great hype. I do WvW day in and day out but I took the time to do map completion, so in my opinion if you don’t wanna feel behind then get off your lazy bum and go do those skill challenges ahead of time before HoT hits.

why anyone would want all of their skills and traits taken away from them so they can do ‘busywork pve’ to get them back is beyond me. I would rather play the game and have fun rather than have to do hours and hours (7+ alts here) of work before i can have fun.

I have 13 level 80 alts. They all have to do hero challenges to get their traits and skills back. Surely everyone should be in the same boat.

Reset everyone’s skill challenges? Okay, but as a side effect, map completion rewards are also reset.

Regardless of what they do, you will have to PvE if you want enough hero points. Unlocking the new elite spec will require ~100 of them. If they wanted to cater to WvW-only players, they could make skill challenges in WvW award 5 points each, but that creates another problem. The simplest solution is to either not support WvW-only players or make WvW less PvE-casual friendly by using the SPvP mode. Trying to cater to both sides will cause bloat, and if they do that, they may as well stick with farmable points and simply cap them.

Do you even use every single trait and skill? Those missing 65 points are only 13 unlocks. A single trait line is 60 points and you’ll only be able to use 3 at a time.

I have every single skill and trait unlocked on 14 toons. If I have to redo all my work on them, others can do the same on their toons. I payed for extra character slots, put in the work to level and unlock, and yes, I’ll be glad to redo it if everyone else also does. There is no reason why PvE players deserve special treatment. Since you’d be redoing the skill challenges, you could re-earn your map completion at the same time. Resetting all progress would mean that everyone is treated the same. And, yes, that’s what I’m asking for. It’s pretty simple.

Daddar.5971:

I’ve floated both of those ideas myself, only to be trolled by PvE players with a million reasons why they would never work. Everyone keeps arguing that getting the hero challenges will be no big deal for us WvW players, so why wouldn’t that be true for everyone? Let’s have a level playing field. No one can disagree with a level playing field, right?

The playing field is already leveled. What is stopping someone who has only played in wvw or sPvp from doing wvw? Lets reverse it. Lets say that ranks in WvW are now what give hero points. Would it be fair to say… reset everyones wvw ranking just because the pve people and the sPvp people didnt do it?

No

Since there was nothing stopping you before from doing all three playstyles, it is your own fault that you haven’t done any map completion. The same way its my fault I have no rank in WvW or have ever finished a sPvP track.

IF and only IF these things were exclusive, and then suddenly aNet decided to make pve count for everyone, then I would support something like this. But since its not. I dont

I seems PvE players only think the system is fair when they’re on the winning end. The moment anyone suggests that PvE players lose anything they get very testy. Hypocrisy seems very contagious.

This is some strange usage of the word fair I’d obviously not heard before.

The OP’s argument is that a minority of the playerbase (not just WvW players, but WvW players who don’t PvE, which is probably less than one would think) are disadvantaged. So his proposal is that a vast majority of people (people who PvE and PvE and WvW) should be inconvenienced for his perceived fairness.

I don’t really mind if there’s a way to get points in WvW, but since these points are capped, you’d have to pick one way or another. And that’s part of the problem.

However, what’s really happening here is that a guy goes into a restaurant, and he’s a vegetarian. He complains he’s at a disadvantage because he can’t eat everything.

That may be true, but the restaurant isn’t going to take away everyone’s meat, just to be fair.

It’s more like a guy paid for a 5 course dinner for 14 (characters) and then gets told he’ll need to do dishes for hours before he can get what he paid for. It’s like we’re playing golf, and PvE players start with a 10 stroke handicap, for no reason. It’s amazing how different things seem when you’re the one who loses what you’ve worked for.

so how do people finish their skill and traits if they already did the skill challenge?

The skill challenges all get reset to ‘not done’ and everyone redoes them. It doesn’t matter how players earned their unlocks, since all players earned them fairly. The new system changes how traits are unlocked for everyone. Since there’s now only one way to unlock skills and traits, everyone should start in the same position.

laokoko.7403:

so how do people finish their skill and traits if they already did the skill challenge?

in PvP its not a problem, because you get them all unlocked for free, with the exception of 1 GM trait for each line, which you can buy from a pvp trainer.

in WvW, i have no idea.

Back to the OP:

Untill you can prove that pvp and wVw players are at a disadvantage NOT OF THEIR OWN CHOICE, you have no case.

WvW players like me have been focusing on WvW for a looooooong time. The new system was announced only recently. Without a crystal ball, none of us could have known what A-net would do. The’choice’ was not ours to make. If it were, traits would be unlockable in WvW (just as they have been).

Once again, we are starting in the same position. We have all been told, far in advance, that we need the skill challenge unlocks to progress in the new system, and that any we have by the time the new system comes will count.

Let’s assume the new system shows up on June 30 (totally made up date for purposes of this discussion). That is five weeks from now. You can a) take time during the five weeks to gather your 65 challenges or b) wait until the system debuts and then begin gathering them. The time it takes you to gather them will not be any different whether you do it now or later.

You seem to believe that tons of PvE players have all the skills already done. Why? As I’ve mentioned before, of my 14 80’s, all leveled via PvE, most all of the levels gained via map exploration, only 2 have world completion. Most of them had less than 30 challenges done when ANet announced these changes. In the many weeks since the announcement, I have spent time on each alt gathering more challenges, so now they are all at 100 (except one guy at 78 or so, but I’m working on him).

That time spent gathering challenges only happened because of the new system and because I chose not to wait to the last minute to be ready. Having alts at 100 done isn’t a byproduct of my normal play. I’d wager plenty of PvEers never bothered getting all the skill challenges done and have been gathering them in reliance on this announcement just as you could have been doing.

So you feel that people who have gone to the effort of doing the challenges, either as part of their game play or as a special extra task, should have all that effort undone simply because you haven’t yet done the effort yourself despite plenty of notice? Are you one of those people who can’t stand someone else having nice stuff, but it’s great when you have it because you can show off and be “better” than them? (I’m not saying you are, just that the attitude of “take it away from other people so they don’t have more than me” smacks of that ilk).

Moreover, eventually everyone who wants the unlocks will do all the challenges. You are asking to wreck a lot of people’s enjoyment of the game when we’ll all be equal just a month or two later anyway. Or are you volunteering to have your unlocks, wardrobe skins, map completion, wvw ranks, and levels reset every time a new player joins the game, because you’ll have had a chance to do more than him or her?

It’s an MMO. No one will ever be at exactly the same point as everyone else. Live with it.

Daddar.5971:

WvW players like me have been focusing on WvW for a looooooong time. The new system was announced only recently. Without a crystal ball, none of us could have known what A-net would do. The’choice’ was not ours to make. If it were, traits would be unlockable in WvW (just as they have been).

yeah, problem is you are wrong. before they announced the change, i have two charachters with world completion, and 6 charachters with 10-20% world completion.

Im just willing to accept that if i want to progress the charachters i have not done skill challenges on, i can go out and do it.

While i dont think setting back is going to go over well, the reality is its completely fair(fair in terms of one type of player compared to another type). They give you progress based on work done. Some people did it, some people have not. Its going to also be that way with core mastery points. They will have some that are based on existing achievements, and they will be retroactive.

Every body who wants those mastery points will have to do it once, some people will have already done whatevers needed, and some people will not.

You have this fantasy that everyone who isnt going crazy already has unlocked every skill point on all their alts. Its not really true, people play the system, and the system gave very little benefit or reason to do skill points other than world completion before. Many people who pve dont really focus on world complete, they hunt loot, do dungeons, events, guild activities. There are times i walked right past a skill point.

thing is, its not really too much to ask, if i actually enjoy playing a class, playing it for 3-4 hours isnt going to drive me crazy.

Just so you know it take 2 hours to finish 60 skill challenge.

I don’t know why anyone would be unhappy about the new system.

If it’s so easy to level through pve maps, people wont’ be doing eotm, or switching in dungeons.

OP I have a sincere suggestion: STOP. Stop posting on this issue. On this thread and the “Hero Points and old characters: breach of trust” thread you’ve managed to be the worst spokesperson for this issue. You make it very hard to agree with you.

And I do happen to agree with you to this extent – I think everyone should be able to play their chosen style (PvE, WvW or PvP) and not have core functionality/aspects of the game gated behind another game style they don’t like. Prior to the recent update that removed WvW from map completion I manged to make it through about 18000 AP without having world completion because I don’t like WvW (tried it did not like it I consider nothing more than PvP or ZergvZerg with PvE window dressing). ANet should figure out some method to hold the WvW-only crowd whole – I think is a reasonable request to have some increase in access to hero points (or whatever they will be called) through WvW activities.

. . . and since I cannot resist after two plus years of “delicious PvE tears” and “c’mon try WvW ya wimp” posts from the WvW crowd I have another suggestion: If youze scared of PvE get together with about 40+ other uber-skilz WvW-only players, form a zerg and run from skill point to skill point in the starter zones – it’ll feel just like WvW!

So do i need 65 skill point challenges or 100?

I currently have at least 65 on both my level 80s.