Guild Wars 2

I made a post about this too. If each challenge is ten times more efficient for hero points, why even bother? I could totally deal with 2 times, but 10 times? Seriously, if I wanted to get my mesmer 200 hero points to prepare for heart of thorns, I would put in a dozen or more hours to get that. Instead, I could put in a 2-4 hours and find 40 skill points in Maguuma for far less effort and time.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Why did they change it so e-specs are something you had to work for only after HoT went live? Good question. How are they going to handle future elite specs when the entirety of map completion only buys 1.5 of them? Another good question. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that, in a year after HoT we get another expansion pack where the new map awards 100 hero points per achievement, and the new elite spec costs 4000.

Anet didn’t want everyone getting their entire elite spec track unlocked at day 1. The final cosmetics, sigils and runes are supposed to be goals to look forward to. If you have prepared by getting all of the central Tyrian hero points it is likely that the entire spec will be unlockable instantly, though you may still need a few hero points for some healing/utility/elite skills.

I also doubt that the next expansion will have 100 point challenges. Elite specs are more expensive than core specs because they are additional progression to that of the core profession. They also add new mechanics and have more than just the trait line to unlock. It wouldn’t make sense to make the second generation of elites more expensive, because only 1 elite can be equipped at a time. Anet will likely want to give new players a choice for which elite to get first on each character, instead of making a linear progression for specs that can’t be even used together. In addition, 100 pt challenges would make the acquisition of the first gen elite specs way too trivial.

The only thing that concerns me with this system is that central Tyrian exploration is massively devalued for new characters, because it is much more efficient to go straight into Maguuma when you get to level 80. It is likely that many of the hero challenges will require masteries, but making them give 10 hero points is too much in my opinion. 3-5 hero points for each challenge would have probably been fine.

Ganathar.4956:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Why did they change it so e-specs are something you had to work for only after HoT went live? Good question. How are they going to handle future elite specs when the entirety of map completion only buys 1.5 of them? Another good question. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that, in a year after HoT we get another expansion pack where the new map awards 100 hero points per achievement, and the new elite spec costs 4000.

Anet didn’t want everyone getting their entire elite spec track unlocked at day 1. The final cosmetics, sigils and runes are supposed to be goals to look forward to. If you have prepared by getting all of the central Tyrian hero points it is likely that the entire spec will be unlockable instantly, though you may still need a few hero points for some healing/utility/elite skills.

I also doubt that the next expansion will have 100 point challenges. Elite specs are more expensive than core specs because they are additional progression to that of the core profession. They also add new mechanics and have more than just the trait line to unlock. It wouldn’t make sense to make the second generation of elites more expensive, because only 1 elite can be equipped at a time. Anet will likely want to give new players a choice for which elite to get first on each character, instead of making a linear progression for specs that can’t be even used together. In addition, 100 pt challenges would make the acquisition of the first gen elite specs way too trivial.

The only thing that concerns me with this system is that central Tyrian exploration is massively devalued for new characters, because it is much more efficient to go straight into Maguuma when you get to level 80. It is likely that many of the hero challenges will require masteries, but making them give 10 hero points is too much in my opinion. 3-5 hero points for each challenge would have probably been fine.

They already confirmed, with world completion you will need to do approximately 20 hero points in the Maguuma areas.

Ganathar.4956:

The only thing that concerns me with this system is that central Tyrian exploration is massively devalued for new characters, because it is much more efficient to go straight into Maguuma when you get to level 80. It is likely that many of the hero challenges will require masteries, but making them give 10 hero points is too much in my opinion. 3-5 hero points for each challenge would have probably been fine.

I suspect it’s a question of numbers. With 3-5 hero points per Maguuma challenge, they would’ve had to put a lot more challenges into the HoT maps to make sure people with core Tyria completion will get a decent headstart but won’t trivialize the Maguuma progression or make newer players/characters feel seriously disadvantaged.

People with full core Tyria exploration will have about a 50% headstart on progressing through their elite spec, and I suspect that all later elite specs will again be priced at a point where there will be new hero points available at or slightly above the amount needed for the whole spec, with the total of “unused” points in the older maps (the core Tyria points as well as any HoT points beyond the 40 needed for the elite spec) making up about half of the cost of the new specs to give veterans a headstart.

If you look at it, it’s not much different than regular leveling. Characters I level through map exploration do get to use a wider range of traits and utilities earlier than characters that level through other means that only get hero points on level-up. The headstart usually isn’t as massive as the 50% for HoT (since you can only pick up so many points before leveling to 80 automatically), but it’s the same concept.

Personally, I’m looking forward to sending some of my favourite characters into the jungle to progress their elite spec. The other characters (of currently 15, possibly 16 by tomorrow since one’s at 76 right now) will get to their elite specs whenever I feel like taking them. I’m in no hurry, it took me three years to level that many characters, and there’ll be enough new content to discover to keep me busy without having all elite specs available day 1.

reapex.8546:

Ganathar.4956:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Why did they change it so e-specs are something you had to work for only after HoT went live? Good question. How are they going to handle future elite specs when the entirety of map completion only buys 1.5 of them? Another good question. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that, in a year after HoT we get another expansion pack where the new map awards 100 hero points per achievement, and the new elite spec costs 4000.

Anet didn’t want everyone getting their entire elite spec track unlocked at day 1. The final cosmetics, sigils and runes are supposed to be goals to look forward to. If you have prepared by getting all of the central Tyrian hero points it is likely that the entire spec will be unlockable instantly, though you may still need a few hero points for some healing/utility/elite skills.

I also doubt that the next expansion will have 100 point challenges. Elite specs are more expensive than core specs because they are additional progression to that of the core profession. They also add new mechanics and have more than just the trait line to unlock. It wouldn’t make sense to make the second generation of elites more expensive, because only 1 elite can be equipped at a time. Anet will likely want to give new players a choice for which elite to get first on each character, instead of making a linear progression for specs that can’t be even used together. In addition, 100 pt challenges would make the acquisition of the first gen elite specs way too trivial.

The only thing that concerns me with this system is that central Tyrian exploration is massively devalued for new characters, because it is much more efficient to go straight into Maguuma when you get to level 80. It is likely that many of the hero challenges will require masteries, but making them give 10 hero points is too much in my opinion. 3-5 hero points for each challenge would have probably been fine.

They already confirmed, with world completion you will need to do approximately 20 hero points in the Maguuma areas.

You need around 400 hero points in order to unlock the entire track. However, some of the unlockables of the track are runes, sigils and skins. It is likely that these items will be at the end of the track, which means that the traits and abilities will probably be obtained earlier. For this reason, it isn’t a stretch to believe that you will be able to unlock all of the traits if you already have 200 hero points.

However, in order to unlock the abilities and the items, you will need more hero points than 200.

IchbinVol.5407:

Now, the hero challenges of yore, will be replaced with the new content. Why scour Tyria, for 1pt each, when you can just power level, and go straight to Maguuma Jungle?

There was no reason to scour Tyria for hero points anyway since you just ended up with 200+ that sat in your menu unspent. I guess you could argue there’s a small amount of power creep happening here with regards to hero point acquisition for new characters being made from here on out, but since it’s such a minor thing I have a hard time really being bothered by it. The only real purpose most of your hero point completion served in Central Tyria was progress towards map completion, and they will continue to serve that purpose going forward.

Ehra.5240:

IchbinVol.5407:

Now, the hero challenges of yore, will be replaced with the new content. Why scour Tyria, for 1pt each, when you can just power level, and go straight to Maguuma Jungle?

There was no reason to scour Tyria for hero points anyway since you just ended up with 200+ that sat in your menu unspent. I guess you could argue there’s a small amount of power creep happening here with regards to hero point acquisition for new characters being made from here on out, but since it’s such a minor thing I have a hard time really being bothered by it. The only real purpose most of your hero point completion served in Central Tyria was progress towards map completion, and they will continue to serve that purpose going forward.

Except that they encouraged us early on to do map completion so that we could start out with our elite specs. I realize that beta games are fluid, but I put in a lot of wasted effort.

People were even mad for months at the idea of Elite specs costing ~170-200 HP. Go back and read the forums. Many people threatened to quit if they had to grind that much up for all of their toons. Now, it’s actually double that.

I made like five characters to be themed for the elite specs. Their whole character design is bent towards the elite spec. If I can’t get that spec, and have to grind for many, many hours to obtain it all, it becomes very frustrating.