Guild Wars 2

I’ve been following the development of the expansion for some time, having decided not to buy into any of the pre-purchase hype as that’s not the sort of business model I wish to support. However now that the expansion has been released, I’ve been weighing the possibility of giving it a go. Naturally, I came to the forums to see what the general consensus was about the expansion.

Now that I’ve wiped the puke from my keyboard, allow me to make a couple of observations.

It is apparent that Arena Net have (as usual) gotten a little ahead of themselves with the way they have designed the game. They appear to have erroneously made the assumption that what most players of Guild Wars 2 wanted was an actual game. You know? Something with stuff to do that cannot merely be unlocked by staring at it, or by throwing Dads (or Mums!) plastic at the screen.

For some reason, it seems players were expecting to gain access to everything immediately, including Elite specializations which are… well, they’re Elite. I’m not sure what was to be expected from something that by definition, exudes exclusivity. Yes, some things need to be earned.

It seems likely that there is a vocal minority of players complaining on the boards (all with thousands of hours clocked on their characters, and thousands more to come), I imagine that those happy with the game are currently playing it, or making excuses to skip date night to play it, or sleeping because they played it for too long. However for those folk who are up in arms about having to actually play the game to progress I have a question to ask:

It’s a game… So… What did you expect?

[Right then, I’ll get the marshmallows, someone else bring the sticks.]

What Anet assumed was they could stretch what little they had out to make it look like a fully fledged Expansion. Locking and time gating a bunch of stuff to make it feel like it was more than it was.

Sicarius.4639:

What Anet assumed was they could stretch what little they had out to make it look like a fully fledged Expansion. Locking and time gating a bunch of stuff to make it feel like it was more than it was.

This was my concern and why I’ve not bought the game. I’m still trying to get a grasp on how much new content there actually is. The length of time to acquire it isn’t bothersome if there’s plenty of it and it’s fun to play. I shall have to hop on and actually see the zone sizes before making the ultimate choice, $50 is not cheap afterall!

nosleepdemon.1368:

Sicarius.4639:

What Anet assumed was they could stretch what little they had out to make it look like a fully fledged Expansion. Locking and time gating a bunch of stuff to make it feel like it was more than it was.

This was my concern and why I’ve not bought the game. I’m still trying to get a grasp on how much new content there actually is. The length of time to acquire it isn’t bothersome if there’s plenty of it and it’s fun to play. I shall have to hop on and actually see the zone sizes before making the ultimate choice, $50 is not cheap afterall!

It’s the impression I’ve had for a while, and the main reason I have not bought it. After seeing guildmates complain about having difficulty finding (or getting to) events and having hero challenges that are designed as group events, I’m doubting its value even more.

I don’t mind working for something, but not when it requires doing the same events over and over just to be able to get to a hero challenge or story chapter. And the time it takes to unlock an elite spec seems to be quite long compared to character leveling, even if it were done through more varied and interesting gameplay.

nosleepdemon.1368:

This was my concern and why I’ve not bought the game. I’m still trying to get a grasp on how much new content there actually is. The length of time to acquire it isn’t bothersome if there’s plenty of it and it’s fun to play. I shall have to hop on and actually see the zone sizes before making the ultimate choice, $50 is not cheap afterall!

My initial thoughts… the masteries make it worth it. So far it seems like there will be a LOT of cool stuff to play around with, especially as you get into higher level masteries. And you will likely feel a lot more powerful with those masteries (the one caveat is, the maguuma masteries are gonna be maguuma use, as far as I know, so you use them in maguuma maps and that’s it).

Elite specs are a wash due to being gated and basically worthless until you’ve got it all unlocked, cause who wants to operate on half an elite spec, but time will tell what happens there.

The first map tries to feel big with all its canopy and vine stuff, but it’s not that big. There are a couple that are ginormous though. You will probably be able to see the details once people start putting out screenshots and such.

Story has some refreshing variety to it, takes into account a lot of the complaints from season 2, and overall is good fun + easy XP for masteries. I’m not sure how far the story goes. I did a bunch today, but I imagine there’s quite a bit more.

I have to respectfully 100% disagree. The elite specs are not more powerful, better suited, or designed more effectively than the normal specs. Someone with an elite spec does not have an advantage over any player without it. Anet has said this numerous times, elite specs are simply a new way to play your class. By that logic, they should not cost more than a normal trait tree.

I’m not going to necessarily argue that they should only cost 65 points to unlock entirely, but 400? That doesn’t seem absurd? Let’s say it takes about 20 hours to unlock the entire elite spec. I have 11 characters. I’m expected to play each character for 20 hours, just to play the way I want to? For 220 hours total, I am expected to grind? Explain to me how that seems right, in a game that is marketed as ‘grind free’.

chaosdurza.3291:

I have to respectfully 100% disagree. The elite specs are not more powerful, better suited, or designed more effectively than the normal specs. Someone with an elite spec does not have an advantage over any player without it. Anet has said this numerous times, elite specs are simply a new way to play your class. By that logic, they should not cost more than a normal trait tree.

I’m not going to necessarily argue that they should only cost 65 points to unlock entirely, but 400? That doesn’t seem absurd? Let’s say it takes about 20 hours to unlock the entire elite spec. I have 11 characters. I’m expected to play each character for 20 hours, just to play the way I want to? For 220 hours total, I am expected to grind? Explain to me how that seems right, in a game that is marketed as ‘grind free’.

I imagine Arena Net’s justification is that they want players to play the game, instead of getting all the toys right at the very beginning. It seems to me that the Elite specializations are the equivalent of a traditional MMO’s leveling requirement to the new cap, with the caveat that you can also spend your experience on other aspects of the game should you so choose. As for the 220 hours of grind, that’s eleven characters you’ve got there, you’ve more or less generated the grind for yourself by setting the requirement that all of those characters need their specializations unlocked. For example, for me the grind would be 40 hours, since I have two main characters and the rest are just mules.

Yes, you do have to play this thing to get anywhere. Good luck having any fun with this Silverwastes retread grindfest.

That’s the part Anet keeps missing—the fun part. Keep making “games” that are nothing but makework chores identical to all the other content we are all burned out on by now only make it harder and more grindy as if that magically makes it fun.

I suppose we run into the argument then of who is the majority, the player with about one of every class (for a total of nine) that they want the elite spec on, or the player who has just one or two characters. If I was just worried about getting the elite spec on one toon, I probably wouldn’t be too worked up but I would still be able to see the point of others unhappiness.

As for being handed the toys right at the beginning, I don’t think we should just get it for free by any means. Yea, we should have to unlock it. But I think 100 points seems far more reasonable. That would be 10 challenges in the HoT maps, which are NOT simple or easy. A great deal of them are gated behind masteries, which I wouldn’t have a problem with if they were soloable. A lot of them seem to spawn a champion monster that is not soloable, often not even able to be killed by 2 players. You need a group. This would all be perfectly fine if you didn’t have to do it 40 times.

I think the undeniable fact of this xpac SO FAR is that it is not alt friendly, not solo friendly, and VERY grindy.

• I have full access to Elite specialization instantly in sPvP upon the purchase of HoT. Did my enjoyment of sPvP drop? No it didn’t.
• I have to grind to get all the elite specs in PvE. Is it annoying? Yes it is.

I can’t play it though. I have to grind for a million hours to then finally be able to play it.

chaosdurza.3291:

I think the undeniable fact of this xpac SO FAR is that it is not alt friendly, not solo friendly, and VERY grindy.

Pretty much sums it up.

nosleepdemon.1368:

chaosdurza.3291:

I have to respectfully 100% disagree. The elite specs are not more powerful, better suited, or designed more effectively than the normal specs. Someone with an elite spec does not have an advantage over any player without it. Anet has said this numerous times, elite specs are simply a new way to play your class. By that logic, they should not cost more than a normal trait tree.

I’m not going to necessarily argue that they should only cost 65 points to unlock entirely, but 400? That doesn’t seem absurd? Let’s say it takes about 20 hours to unlock the entire elite spec. I have 11 characters. I’m expected to play each character for 20 hours, just to play the way I want to? For 220 hours total, I am expected to grind? Explain to me how that seems right, in a game that is marketed as ‘grind free’.

I imagine Arena Net’s justification is that they want players to play the game, instead of getting all the toys right at the very beginning. It seems to me that the Elite specializations are the equivalent of a traditional MMO’s leveling requirement to the new cap, with the caveat that you can also spend your experience on other aspects of the game should you so choose. As for the 220 hours of grind, that’s eleven characters you’ve got there, you’ve more or less generated the grind for yourself by setting the requirement that all of those characters need their specializations unlocked. For example, for me the grind would be 40 hours, since I have two main characters and the rest are just mules.

It’s basicvally raising the level cap, without having to raise the level cap.

It’s grinding to 80 in disguise – but I don’t even have the story to alleviate the boredom. I don’t have the masteries to even get that far.

MashMash.1645:

It’s basicvally raising the level cap, without having to raise the level cap.

It’s grinding to 80 in disguise – but I don’t even have the story to alleviate the boredom. I don’t have the masteries to even get that far.

All it’s missing is having to replace/upgrade your gear to match a new level cap. But they could just as easily have made masteries 10-20 new levels, and replaced the process of getting hero challenges for the elite spec with a grind to upgrade gear to level 100 stats.

They’ve already made some existing content (dungeons and fractals) largely irrelevant by nerfing the rewards, and it’s hard to claim that increasing the level cap would really be any worse than that.

Not that I think this is actually a good idea. I don’t want to see this kind of thing happen. And it would have a devastating impact on wvw. But it is somewhat comparable to HoT’s grind.

op completely missing the point of peoples criticisms.