Guild Wars 2

Before people go ranting at me, let me provide the scenario:

I’ve owned GW2 since launch, been playing MMOs since 1999 and mostly prefer to solo the open-world content. Like the rest of us, I was pumped to play my reaper in HoT and with the old content, especially considering the boost the base necro still needs.

I log in and, to my amazement, my hero points from map completion were only enough to unlock a piece of the reaper. Come to find out, the only way to unlock the rest of it was to do these hero challenges in Maguuma. Was I peeved – a bit – but I sucked it up, equipped what little of the reaper I had, and went into the Jungle.
“Okay, let’s try this.”

As expected, the content was more difficult. I could solo some regular events and most of the mobs, then I got to my first hero challenge. Champion spawned, got totally annihilated while only bringing him down to 75% health.
“Okay, maybe it’s just this one hero challenge.”

Went to find another one, turned out it was buried under one of those nuhoch things. The only way to unlock it was to travel ALL the way to tangled depths, unlock that mastery line, and level up that specific mastery. At this point I was peeved, I was all for playing new content but having it crammed down my throat in order to obtain a specialization I thought I’d have at the start?
This is the point I think most of you are at.

I logged off an took a couple hours to go do life-crap. As I was out and about, I thought back and decided that I should look at the quest to obtain my reaper similar to my quest initially to get to level 80; a lengthy-ish trek but much more rewarding at the end than simply obtaining it from the get-go. I logged back on, changed my build to a more survival setup, and tried again.

With this mindset it instantly became WAY better to play the expo. I was able to solo all the hero challenges I did attempt (though it wasn’t easy) and I actually took the time to explore the world and do the story, which has been great up until this point. The masteries are unlocking as I play and I’m almost finished unlocking the full reaper, but I still feel inclined to play.

So relax, people. It’s a process no doubt and I’m sure most of you are like me and don’t have tons of time to play the game, but this is the first time in a while many of us have felt we have a goal. Do I think the challenges are a little hard considering many people prefer to solo? Probably. Do I think this should be the total solution when you have so many players who don’t enjoy PvE content? Probably not, but there are other ways for other players. Does it need work? Most definitely, but it’s been three days and these things take time. Besides, if we were able to unlock everything already, people would be complaining about “not enough content.”

TL;DR, relax, put your leveling face on and look at it like a new level cap. Enjoy the content, learn to play with what time you have, and let ANet work and fix what needs to be fixed. They’ve heard you guys, I’m sure they’re qualified to figure it out.

You’re missing the point of the people who have voiced their displeasure.

They don’t want to play through the new content (excluding elite specs for those who consider them content) with the core specs. They want to play through the new content with fully unlocked elite specs.

ANet has also removed the player’s choice of what order they get to experience the new content. They’ve made map completion and masteries have to be the first two looked at.

I hate to harsh your mellow, bro, but if it was like a leveling cap, the elite specs would require XP. I have never heard of a level cap increase that requires you to go do special challenges across four different maps, some of which are gated behind XP just to access them at all, to level up your character.

If you compare it to a level cap increase, then it’s kind of like this: Level up a few times in layer one of level cap increase, so that you can go do a special challenge to level up once in layer two of level cap increase. If you put it in the framework of a level cap increase, it would be horribly convoluted.

It’s definitely a lot different than the core game. I’m having to learn a whole new build and find some armor that’s a little more forgiving. I admit that I’ve gotten frustrated and rage-quit a few times, but I get over it and try again. It’s daunting and a little frustrating, especially since the “elite” specialties aren’t any more powerful than the core ones. I certainly won’t be unlocking the elites on every character (I’m an alt-oholic).

At least the Masteries are account-bound!

@OP, does it occur to you that the one who needs to chill….is you?

Seera.5916:

You’re missing the point of the people who have voiced their displeasure.

They don’t want to play through the new content (excluding elite specs for those who consider them content) with the core specs. They want to play through the new content with fully unlocked elite specs.

ANet has also removed the player’s choice of what order they get to experience the new content. They’ve made map completion and masteries have to be the first two looked at.

To be fair, if you did previous map completion you can unlock enough of the elite spec to still be viable in the new content.

Nonetheless, I agree with you that there needs to be other ways to unlock the elite specialization than what we currently have – I thought that from the beginning. I just think a lot of people are agitated that they aren’t having everything given to them in the first 5 minutes of logging on and it’s a little crazy cause if we got everything from the get-go, we’d run out of stuff to do fairly quick.

Labjax.2465:

I hate to harsh your mellow, bro, but if it was like a leveling cap, the elite specs would require XP. I have never heard of a level cap increase that requires you to go do special challenges across four different maps, some of which are gated behind XP just to access them at all, to level up your character.

^This.

Labjax.2465:

I hate to harsh your mellow, bro, but if it was like a leveling cap, the elite specs would require XP. I have never heard of a level cap increase that requires you to go do special challenges across four different maps, some of which are gated behind XP just to access them at all, to level up your character.

If you compare it to a level cap increase, then it’s kind of like this: Level up a few times in layer one of level cap increase, so that you can go do a special challenge to level up once in layer two of level cap increase. If you put it in the framework of a level cap increase, it would be horribly convoluted.

I didn’t mean to literally compare it, my bad.

When people level from 1-80 “the first time” it’s usually somewhat fun because people aren’t so focused on the end goal, they’re actually enjoying the content and getting to 80 is simply a byproduct of their questing/exploring. If people viewed the unlocking of an elite mastery in the same way, it wouldn’t be as painful.

I’m not disagreeing that this “you need this to get this to try this to obtain this” method is right and doesn’t need adjusting to make it better, but if we had it unlocked immediately like everyone wants than it kinda defeats the purpose in my head.

quaniesan.8497:

@OP, does it occur to you that the one who needs to chill….is you?

O.o chill-ception

ANet has also removed the player’s choice of how we want to play the game, they are now forcing players to play the they way want us too, that’s the bigger picture here. For 3 years Anet always said “play your way” well with H.O.T you will “play our way” which goes against everything Anet used stood for and against. If they keep on alienating the player base it will come back and bite them in their wallet. They ignored all the outcry from the last karma boost nerf and act like well we have your money we will do what ever we like no matter what the players say.

Mike O’Brien
“We don’t make grindy games — we leave the grind to other MMOs.”
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/

Seera.5916:

You’re missing the point of the people who have voiced their displeasure.

They don’t want to play through the new content (excluding elite specs for those who consider them content) with the core specs. They want to play through the new content with fully unlocked elite specs.

ANet has also removed the player’s choice of what order they get to experience the new content. They’ve made map completion and masteries have to be the first two looked at.

I used my Elite Spec instantly (the Shield and mechanics were too much to miss out on) and grew more powerful as I went through the content – as I progressed. You really don’t need to do the content in the way you least enjoy.

Coulter.2315:

Seera.5916:

You’re missing the point of the people who have voiced their displeasure.

They don’t want to play through the new content (excluding elite specs for those who consider them content) with the core specs. They want to play through the new content with fully unlocked elite specs.

ANet has also removed the player’s choice of what order they get to experience the new content. They’ve made map completion and masteries have to be the first two looked at.

I used my Elite Spec instantly (the Shield and mechanics were too much to miss out on) and grew more powerful as I went through the content – as I progressed. You really don’t need to do the content in the way you least enjoy.

And some people wanted to test out fully unlocked elites in core Tyria (where they know the difficulty and mechanics) before having to really do too much in Heart of Maguuma. ANet removed that option from players by locking the elite specs behind such a high number of hero points and limiting the number of hero challenges and methods to obtain hero points.

Edit: And no, I’m not advocating that they give out fully unlocked elite specs with no work at all before anyone assumes that. Just because I disagree with the number required and the amount of work needed to get them doesn’t mean I want the number to go down to an amount that most can get it fully unlocked in under a minute.

I just hope ANet doesn’t only listen to the people complaining it’s taking too long. I got my elite spec today and I loved the adventure to get it, it was super fun!

Eneldiar.9670:

Labjax.2465:

I hate to harsh your mellow, bro, but if it was like a leveling cap, the elite specs would require XP. I have never heard of a level cap increase that requires you to go do special challenges across four different maps, some of which are gated behind XP just to access them at all, to level up your character.

If you compare it to a level cap increase, then it’s kind of like this: Level up a few times in layer one of level cap increase, so that you can go do a special challenge to level up once in layer two of level cap increase. If you put it in the framework of a level cap increase, it would be horribly convoluted.

I didn’t mean to literally compare it, my bad.

When people level from 1-80 “the first time” it’s usually somewhat fun because people aren’t so focused on the end goal, they’re actually enjoying the content and getting to 80 is simply a byproduct of their questing/exploring. If people viewed the unlocking of an elite mastery in the same way, it wouldn’t be as painful.

I’m not disagreeing that this “you need this to get this to try this to obtain this” method is right and doesn’t need adjusting to make it better, but if we had it unlocked immediately like everyone wants than it kinda defeats the purpose in my head.

I can agree with you on that, to a point. I would have been, and still am, ok with the idea of elite unlocks that are XP based, even if they were character unlock… then it truly would be like a level cap increase, which I’m fine with because XP is something you can get from just about any game type. The difference between what you’re describing and what it is now, for me, is that when I was leveling my characters, I could easily switch to a different type of content if I got burned out on one type.

I have leveled 8 characters, one of each original class, in that system, where I could avoid burnout by switching content types. Now I am confronted with a system where I can’t do that to get my characters up to speed, which is more or less the same issue I had with the old traits system.

I might be able to “ignore and enjoy the content” for character one, but that won’t fly for 2 or 3 or 4 and so on. Nobody is making me maintain 8 characters, of course, but it is a huge disappointment that the system is more or less anti-alt, when Anet has made so many conscious steps to make the game more alt-friendly, including the mastery system itself… a system that came with the xpac.

You buy a car.

You drive this car for 3 years.
The manufacturer comes to you and says, Hey, we’ll sell you a motor upgrade and a sunroof for $50, and transport you and your car to another continent so you can experience the new ride in style.

You say, holy smokes that’s the best deal since sliced bread.
You pay $50, they upgrade your car and take you to (insert other continent).

You hop in the car. And as you do the salesman says, oh by the way, you have to drive the old car for 50,000 miles to unlock the new features for the car (with a discount to 25,000 miles if you’ve already driven 250,000 miles where you came from).

You say hey wait a second, I thought I was going to be able to use the new features as I drove around the new place??
He says, nah you won’t get a sense of adventure or journey if you aren’t earning the new features on your car by experiencing the new place, so getting to use them is locked behind experiencing the very thing you wanted to experience with the upgrades.

It’s like putting the cart before the horse.
Or locking the key inside the chest.
And yes, it’s just as stupid.