Guild Wars 2

When Elite specs were announced, I remember reading somewhere (it escapes me where) that if you completed map completion, that should be enough to ensure you can purchase the elite specialization upon release. People even complained about having to complete map completion on every character, describing the experience as awful and repetitive. I realize that everything’s fluid and that we never really had a set in stone number. I am miffed about the huge amount of hero points (that I will have to grind over a dozen times) that it takes to unlock the elite spec. but that is not what this thread is about.

There has been a pattern established that’s concerning, where players such as myself were “punished” for preparing for Heart of Thorns. I, like many, many others, have spent a great deal of time preparing for Heart of Thorns. Since the announcement, I made 2 legendaries and prepared the mats for one of the new legendaries. I completed map exploration on a few toons, and I thought I was ready for Maguuma. The problem is that for all of my preparation, I can look back today and say it wasn’t worth it.

Let me clarify. It has been said that each Hero Challenge in Maguuma will be worth 10 hero points. That means if I wanted to prepare my character for Heart of Thorns, any preparations I do now are absurdly inefficient. There are probably only a handful of maps that even have 10 Hero Challenges on them. Many have less than 10. Meaning for each Hero Challenge I might stumble across in Maguuma, I would have to explore an entire map’s worth (or more) in Tyria for the same reward.

Why is this a problem? Because it trivializes all the effort the many players like myself put into preparing for Heart of Thorns. How many hours did it take me to do map exploration? How many hours would it take me to get the same amount of Hero Points in Maguuma? I would wager it would be less than a tenth the effort and time. Maguuma has 4 maps with an unknown amount of Challenges all worth 10 points each. I don’t have to travel to the far corners of each map in Tyria to grab 10, they are all right there, bundled together.

So to break it down. Anet announced heart of thorns almost a year ago. I wanted my account to be ready to dive in and enjoy the experience. So I spent many hours of my time grinding away at map completion and grinding for legendary components. Mere days before Heart of Thorns was released, we are told that it will require 400 Hero Points to unlock everything with the Elite specializations. We are also told that we essentially wasted hours of time grinding those hero points the longest way possible because the new hero challenges are worth 10 times the amount as the old hero challenges. We are also told that these new legendaries will require mats previously nonexistant. While that one shouldn’t be such a shocker, we had no reason to believe that the recipe would be 100% different than the old recipe but would still require some of the base components. So when I made my Gift of Mastery, I might as well have deleted the components, because I can no longer use them.

I, fortunately, didn’t make the gift of fortune I have all the pieces for, but regardless, I basically lost 250 obsidian shards, map exploration, 500 wvw badges and 200 spirit shards. I decided to make my wife a Bolt, because I don’t want or need any of the current legendaries, I already have 9 of them. I might have been hasty, I’ll admit, but we had no info about how to make legendaries and there wasn’t any real reason to believe that Heart of Thorns would change the recipe that every legendary has used thus far. So all that effort I spent was trivialized in that endeavor too.

This post won’t change anything, Heart of Thorns airs tomorrow. But as a loyal player, I feel downright punished for spending 8 months riding the hype train, preparing my account for Heart of Thorns. I wouldn’t even be upset if Anet had made my time commitment worthwhile. If Hero Challenges didn’t give 10x the hero points, my hours of grinding Tyria would have been worthwhile. Also if my map completion gave me enough Hero Points to enjoy the new elite specialization, that would have been great. But instead, they made it to where my hours of map completing would only make up about half of the total I need. Not to worry, the other half would take less than a tenth the time. If that had been their plan, I wish they hadn’t encouraged us to spend such a large amount of time working the most inefficient way possible.

I mean sure, I have 200 hero points on a few toons, but that saves me, what, 20 skill points? I may have saved myself as much as an hour of my time? Anet has every right to demand and encourage us to play Heart of Thorns content to receive the Heart of Thorns elite specs, but this was just a huge disappointment. Had I known that this would be the case, I wouldn’t have pounded out so many hero challenges.

I should also add that I’ve seen several posts talking about people who saved up guild influence… and are once again trivialized in their effort. It’s pretty pointless to put in effort to prepare for this expansion. It’s just frustrating. Many of us were hoping to put in some effort now, and enjoy less time grinding in HoT and more time enjoying the things we love.

You made hasty preparations based on early release, vague, non-finalized information.

Honestly, there really wasn’t much in the way of “preparation” that needed to be done for Heart of Thorns. It’s mostly busy-making.
You basically made up work for yourself to do, spent time doing that work, and then were disappointed that the work didn’t pay off as much as you wanted it to.

For example, “making 2 legendaries” has nothing to do with preparing for Heart of Thorns. And preparing mats for the new legendaries before we even knew what they were, let alone what they’ll be made of, is risky no matter how you look at it.

And the hero point situation was handled fairly appropriately. The priority should be on systems that will have you actually play the xpac, not cater to people who “prepared” prior to it’s release so that they can skip the xpac’s content. You aren’t being punished for preparing, you’re just not being explicitly rewarded for it. Which sounds right to me.

My advice would be to be careful of hypetrains, make informed decisions, and keep in mind that things which are in-development are very much subject to change.

I get where you’re coming from. There’s nothing wrong with being excited for the new content, and it’s natural to look for things to do while you wait. I just don’t think your expectation on how the developers should handle it are warranted.
I do however admit that not knowing the cost of elite specs for so long left us in a bit of an awkward situation.

Arewn.2368:

You made hasty preparations based on early release, vague, non-finalized information.

Honestly, there really wasn’t much in the way of “preparation” that needed to be done for Heart of Thorns. It’s mostly busy-making.
You basically made up work for yourself to do, spent time doing that work, and then were disappointed that the work didn’t pay off as much as you wanted it to.

For example, “making 2 legendaries” has nothing to do with preparing for Heart of Thorns. And preparing mats for the new legendaries before we even knew what they were, let alone what they’ll be made of, is risky no matter how you look at it.

And the hero point situation was handled fairly appropriately. The priority should be on systems that will have you actually play the xpac, not cater to people who “prepared” prior to it’s release so that they can skip the xpac’s content. You aren’t being punished for preparing, you’re just not being explicitly rewarded for it. Which sounds right to me.

My advice would be to be careful of hypetrains, make informed decisions, and keep in mind that things which are in-development are very much subject to change.

I get where you’re coming from. There’s nothing wrong with being excited for the new content, and it’s natural to look for things to do while you wait. I just don’t think your expectation on how the developers should handle it are warranted.
I do however admit that not knowing the cost of elite specs for so long left us in a bit of an awkward situation.

Hearing the exact number of hero points 3 days before launch when the number required for 1 elite spec given what players were asking and talking about doing on launch day for weeks now is appropriate? When at this point even if ANet wanted to change it, they couldn’t change it in time for launch most likely? Not giving more details out on the system or even a simple explanation on the why they chose the numbers they chose is right? When neither of those options caters to the players who have an issue?

I hear your argument, but I don’t think grinding hero points “skips” content. That’s actually precisely what I want to avoid. I want to enjoy the Elite spec I’ve been hyped about for a year while enjoying the story and new maps etc. I put time in to achieve just that goal. Let’s face it, finding 20 hero challenges won’t take long and if I didn’t have to do that, I wouldn’t be “skipping” content.

That said, I realize I was hasty with the Gift of Mastery. I also realize that I should play the xpac to reap xpac rewards. It’s just I could swear I’ve read somewhere, (I’ll look it up when I’m not so tired) that people with map completion should have access to their elite specs from the get-go. I realize this was too early and that plans change. No biggie. I still am frustrated that I put in so much time because I wanted to have the aforementioned instant access to the elite specs just to find out that I only finished half of what I need in the most inefficient way possible.

sharkswithlazers.7632:

I hear your argument, but I don’t think grinding hero points “skips” content. That’s actually precisely what I want to avoid. I want to enjoy the Elite spec I’ve been hyped about for a year while enjoying the story and new maps etc. I put time in to achieve just that goal. Let’s face it, finding 20 hero challenges won’t take long and if I didn’t have to do that, I wouldn’t be “skipping” content.

That said, I realize I was hasty with the Gift of Mastery. I also realize that I should play the xpac to reap xpac rewards. It’s just I could swear I’ve read somewhere, (I’ll look it up when I’m not so tired) that people with map completion should have access to their elite specs from the get-go. I realize this was too early and that plans change. No biggie. I still am frustrated that I put in so much time because I wanted to have the aforementioned instant access to the elite specs just to find out that I only finished half of what I need in the most inefficient way possible.

We will. I highly doubt you have to get all 400 hero points before you start spending the points on the elite spec. They just won’t have all traits or skills yet.

Seera, I agree with you. That’s why I’m frustrated. It was such a last minute let down. To find out that I didn’t have enough, was frustrating, but to know that if I want all the elites I’ll be spending weeks or months grinding is no fun at all. If they had announced it months ago, I would have still been bummed, but I would have just spent more time doing dungeons or something, knowing that grinding hero points in Tyria was a huge waste of time.

What most people don’t seem to realise or are ignoring is that there will probably not be more new content for a very long time. ANET will milk and drag out every minute of HOT until we have all done it to death, just like todays dungeons.

The precedent has already been set. Look at the amount of content this game has received in 3 years and compare it to other leading mmo’s.

Are you really surprised you have to grind hero points?? All the signs were there.

I doubt it will be months unless you’ve got limited time. While the first character you take through will take longer due to masteries blocking access to hero challenges, you only need 40 of them. Just think of how long it takes you to complete the maps currently and see how many hero challenges are on the map and judge from there.

There may be some skill involved if the challenges are more difficult on average than the average current hero challenges.

I have no idea how long it’ll take, true.

Mitch, they took 3 years because they had to change direction. Originally there wasn’t supposed to be xpacs for gw2. They wanted to accomplish all of that with Living Story. So it’s not exactly so simple as what you make it to be.

sharkswithlazers.7632:

I have no idea how long it’ll take, true.

Mitch, they took 3 years because they had to change direction. Originally there wasn’t supposed to be xpacs for gw2. They wanted to accomplish all of that with Living Story. So it’s not exactly so simple as what you make it to be.

Well, I never said it was simple. I just said there hasn’t been much content compared to other MMO’s, for whatever reason and that’s pretty much a fact. And if they “had to change direction”, who is to say they won’t have to again?

I will make a prediction that they will go back to the monthly updates, but these will be things like, here is an extra wing or boss of the raid. I wouldn’t expect to see any non HOT related content at all next year. Will that be enough? Who knows.

Well, we’ll see. I dunno man. You could be right. I hope you’re dead wrong, but… track records.

Mitch.4781:

sharkswithlazers.7632:

I have no idea how long it’ll take, true.

Mitch, they took 3 years because they had to change direction. Originally there wasn’t supposed to be xpacs for gw2. They wanted to accomplish all of that with Living Story. So it’s not exactly so simple as what you make it to be.

Well, I never said it was simple. I just said there hasn’t been much content compared to other MMO’s, for whatever reason and that’s pretty much a fact. And if they “had to change direction”, who is to say they won’t have to again?

I will make a prediction that they will go back to the monthly updates, but these will be things like, here is an extra wing or boss of the raid. I wouldn’t expect to see any non HOT related content at all next year. Will that be enough? Who knows.

It’s not like other MMOs give content for free to non-expansion players…

Also the MMO expansions in the last 18 months didn’t got more content

I really don’t get the “prepare for the new content” thing. The journey is part of the game. Just chill and let it all happen at a natural pace.

Gosh, it’s almost like they want you to play the expansion to progress in the new expansion mechanics.

Submit your refunds now.

If you have map completion you should be able to access it on release. The point you’re missing is that “access” and is not the same as completing it.

So instead of posting your thoughts in each different thread on the topic. You ended up posting them all in one thread, brilliant.

Zypher.7609:

So instead of posting your thoughts in each different thread on the topic. You ended up posting them all in one thread, brilliant.

I posted this thread first, then lurked the forums for hours. Got sucked in, can’t escape. Send for help.

sharkswithlazers.7632:

Zypher.7609:

So instead of posting your thoughts in each different thread on the topic. You ended up posting them all in one thread, brilliant.

I posted this thread first, then lurked the forums for hours. Got sucked in, can’t escape. Send for help.

lol welcome to foruming

sharkswithlazers.7632:

So to break it down. Anet announced heart of thorns almost a year ago. I wanted my account to be ready to dive in and enjoy the experience. So I spent many hours of my time grinding away at map completion and grinding for .

Oh look a non casual player is now kittening on the other side of the argument. He’s not only upset that he won’t get the eiire Elite Spec at launch, but also miffed that they are going to award 10 hero points per challenge in HoT making it so those of us smart enough not to grind will still be able to unlock.

Look kitten kitten, its like this. You probably have 218 hero points (because that’s the cap) you’re going to spend 60 of those just to unlock the elite panel (not traits awarded for that unlock) then you’re going to only have to do 3-4 hero challenges in HoT to get your full trait line unlock. So before the first map is done you’ll get to have your Elite Spec usable. By time you’re 50% done with HoT you should have everything. That’s your reward for all that grind. Deal with it. Think about all that work you put into getting a legendary. Hundreds of hours of game play just for a little weapon skin (now the most redundant weapon skins in the game it seems) with an insignificant stat advantage over it’s exponentially cheaper exotic counterparts. In GW2 core game grind doesn’t award you much and it’s been a very good thing that it doesn’t. It’s unfortunate that’s all about to change.

Those of us who have not done map completion won’t even be able to create a viable Elite Spec build until we’re about 70% into HoT

BTW it was not confirmed we would even spend hero points on unlocking the Elite Specializations until this week. It was all speculation before, they never confirmed how these would be unlocked. Data miners were tossing numbers like 170 out months ago but nothing was confirmed or denied. Although grind doesn’t award you much in the core game, when it comes to the HoT it will be all about the grind for hero points and xp for Mastery’s nothing else will matter to most of the PvE fan base because of how they have structured this.

How is it anyone’s fault but your own that you grinded before knowing the details?

Zeppelin.6832:

How is it anyone’s fault but your own that you grinded before knowing the details?

This. You’re totally right, you know. It’s a bummer that I spent so much time for so little payoff, but I could swear I remember reading a dev say somewhere that if a toon has map completion, they should have enough for the elite spec.

The reality is that I just wanted to prepare for Heart of Thorns so I could do precisely this: I wanted to enjoy the content on my elite spec and avoid the grind to get my elite spec. I would rather grind now than tomorrow when Heart of Thorns is released and there’s so much good stuff I want to do.

Maybe it was hasty. In the end, I proved to be an idiot for putting so much effort in, before I knew the specifics. But really, Anet could have done a better job with transparency. If I had known that 400 gets me everything and each hero challenge is worth 10 points, I might have just waited. But it’s upsetting that they dropped the bomb on us so late. It halted my hype train.

Ironic that someone who couldn’t be bothered to even read the first post made a reference about “blind eyes and deaf ears”.

Elden Arnaas.4870:

Ironic that someone who couldn’t be bothered to even read the first post made a reference about “blind eyes and deaf ears”.

lol

Alright, well look…. I get the disappointment about not being able to have instant access to your elite spec, but at the same time i feel like it’s healthier to the game and adds more playtime. ( even if that playtime is an annoying grind) The fact that it was an elite spec meant it was going to take some effort though.

As for pre making legendaries, someone already said it above that it was your own fault so I will not beat a dead horse by repeating that, but I get the sense you know they are right. If you made two legendaries though, I don’t see why you are so disappointed, you have two legendaries! That’s a feat in and of itself!! Be proud of it, because either way, you’d still have to have spend just as long to get one of the new legendaries regardless.

The one to Rule.2593:

Alright, well look…. I get the disappointment about not being able to have instant access to your elite spec, but at the same time i feel like it’s healthier to the game and adds more playtime. ( even if that playtime is an annoying grind) The fact that it was an elite spec meant it was going to take some effort though.

As for pre making legendaries, someone already said it above that it was your own fault so I will not beat a dead horse by repeating that, but I get the sense you know they are right. If you made two legendaries though, I don’t see why you are so disappointed, you have two legendaries! That’s a feat in and of itself!! Be proud of it, because either way, you’d still have to have spend just as long to get one of the new legendaries regardless.

Yeah sorry, I wasn’t clear. I made legendaries to prepare for the elite spec. My guardian has been holding Kudzu for months, my Engineer has a Juggernaut and my wife also made one, she made the flameseeker prophesies for her mesmer. Yeah I have the skin, but like… I was so hyped to equip it on the characters I made them for, but now I’ll need to wait longer.

Xstein.2187:

Ya, I understand why you are upset, particularly with the hero points. However, its not really Anet’s fault and they shouldn’t/can’t be blamed. I think in any kinda situations like these, a little bit of patience is required.

“Sometimes things aren’t clear right away. That’s where you need to be patient and persevere and see where things lead.” – Mary Pierce

“The methods by which you’ll craft these legendary weapons are similar to the existing system, but we’ve refined it into more of a journey, similar to precursor crafting.”
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/a-legendary-journey/
March 26th, 2015

They told us fairly early that crafting the new legendary weapons would be slightly different than the old ones. You also didn’t know what they looked like. For all we new they could have looked terrible. Yet, you couldn’t blame them if this was the case either.
Same things with hero points. Am I a little upset that you can’t unlock everything right away? Ya, a little. However, I understand that they want to make the story and expansion a growing experience for all players (even if you have map completion), just like gw2 was a growing experience to unlock your core class traits as you leveled and gained hero points throughout the map.

Yeah I’m right about where you are. I’m bummed, but not furious. I’ll admit, building my gift of mastery was a bit dumb. I decided instead to just make my wife a bolt so she can have another legendary. What would have made this a 100 times better is if we had some communication before hand. I feel like telling the player base about the high gate between them and the elite specializations (the things that were by far the most popular aspect of the xpac) 3 days before the expansion was just poor decision making. They should have introduced them as something you’d work towards in your journey into the heart of Maguuma, but it came across as “this is what you’ll get if you purchase Heart of Thorns”.

I might be wrong, maybe I had the wrong impression. I knew there’d be some effort to unlock everything, but I’m just frankly daunted at the idea of earning several thousand HP to unlock the elites on all my alts.

Anyways bros and broettes, I’ll be seeing you in Heart of Thorns. I wish you all the best in unlocking your elites and enjoying the new experience. I’m off the forums for a bit, it’s dampening my hype too much. Take care everyone!

sharkswithlazers.7632:

I hear your argument, but I don’t think grinding hero points “skips” content. That’s actually precisely what I want to avoid. I want to enjoy the Elite spec I’ve been hyped about for a year while enjoying the story and new maps etc. I put time in to achieve just that goal. Let’s face it, finding 20 hero challenges won’t take long and if I didn’t have to do that, I wouldn’t be “skipping” content.

That said, I realize I was hasty with the Gift of Mastery. I also realize that I should play the xpac to reap xpac rewards. It’s just I could swear I’ve read somewhere, (I’ll look it up when I’m not so tired) that people with map completion should have access to their elite specs from the get-go. I realize this was too early and that plans change. No biggie. I still am frustrated that I put in so much time because I wanted to have the aforementioned instant access to the elite specs just to find out that I only finished half of what I need in the most inefficient way possible.

Technically, if you look at everything they said, they did NOT lie. You will have ACCESS to your elite specs if you have map completion. Access is not ‘everything’. Access is, technically speaking, just having the door open.
You will be able to unlock half the elite spec wheel, which…looking at the daredevil screen cap is enough to have your new weapon, new class mechanic, the first section of traits, and the unknown is most likely the elite runes, with hopefully a utility (your new heal) and one regular utility unlocked.
Which is enough…as long as you aren’t a revenant to at least be able to use the elite spec. Rev’s are just screwed as they are only allowed to use utilities that match their attunement, meaning they cannot make use of herald until they have all 3 utility skills, the heal, and the elite for glint.

While I mention hat technicality, it still annoys me to no end that the elite specs cost so bloody much and they slow down skill acquisition and trait acquisition with runes and skins not being placed firmly at the end of the line.

I am of two minds here:

1) I sympathize with your efforts feeling diminished. It’s no fun to feel like you’ve wasted time.

2) Anet’s expansion goals can’t be centered around pleasing people who prepare.

Trying to be one step ahead of the competition, trying to be ahead of others out of the gate, in general, in life, is something that can easily waste your time. There is risk in trying to be ahead – the risk of going in the wrong direction.

It’s one of those things in life that comes with the territory, unfortunately.

400 Hero points is for everything including the 2 profession specific reward skins. For all we know, the reward skins could be the last few parts of training the spec, and could cost 200 hero points. We simply don’t know how many hero points are required for all of the traits and utilities yet.

To me, I don’t really understand the hoopla with not letting people have stuff day 1. My ego isn’t fragile enough so that seeing people get stuff first will make me cry. Sure, sure it may “trivialize” things but if people really put in the effort to prepare, I think they do deserve it, more so than people who didn’t care.

Then again, if this is about making people do the new content, I guess there is a point to it. As is, you still get about almost halfway there, so it’s not a bad compromise. The only real fault is not telling people sooner.

So much no. I prepared for HoT too. I made sure that I had the skins and transmutation charges I would need for what I want my Revenant to look like. I made his gear and I collected tomes. I made sure that I could play the character I want from day one.

I also farmed influence for my personal guild by running my alts through the personal story so I could unlock the guild weaponsmith before influence went away. I informed myself so that I wouldn’t be wasting resources. I’m actually annoyed with them now that I know influence will be able to be converted into resources for the new system. If I’d known that I would have kept farming it.

I’ve also been running a handful of alts through hero points in tyria. The fact that Maguuma points equal ten doesn’t change the fact that my alts will have 200+ points available to spend on elites immediately, rather than having to unlock twenty challenges for the same effect.

They could have been a little clearer on how Legendaries would work in the new system, but too bad. None of this was ANet’s fault. They didn’t force your hand, nor compel you do make decisions based on half formed information. You chose to do that all by yourself.

I for once did my 200 hero points just today, AFTER I knew we needed 400. Why? So I can be a reaper, the most op class in gaming history before it is nerfed into oblivion. And I’m very fine with it \o/

Your preparations provided half of your elite spec progression. How does that trivialize anything?

You finished half of your expansion character progression before the expansion released

Think about it.

Seera.5916:

Arewn.2368:

You made hasty preparations based on early release, vague, non-finalized information.

Honestly, there really wasn’t much in the way of “preparation” that needed to be done for Heart of Thorns. It’s mostly busy-making.
You basically made up work for yourself to do, spent time doing that work, and then were disappointed that the work didn’t pay off as much as you wanted it to.

For example, “making 2 legendaries” has nothing to do with preparing for Heart of Thorns. And preparing mats for the new legendaries before we even knew what they were, let alone what they’ll be made of, is risky no matter how you look at it.

And the hero point situation was handled fairly appropriately. The priority should be on systems that will have you actually play the xpac, not cater to people who “prepared” prior to it’s release so that they can skip the xpac’s content. You aren’t being punished for preparing, you’re just not being explicitly rewarded for it. Which sounds right to me.

My advice would be to be careful of hypetrains, make informed decisions, and keep in mind that things which are in-development are very much subject to change.

I get where you’re coming from. There’s nothing wrong with being excited for the new content, and it’s natural to look for things to do while you wait. I just don’t think your expectation on how the developers should handle it are warranted.
I do however admit that not knowing the cost of elite specs for so long left us in a bit of an awkward situation.

Hearing the exact number of hero points 3 days before launch when the number required for 1 elite spec given what players were asking and talking about doing on launch day for weeks now is appropriate? When at this point even if ANet wanted to change it, they couldn’t change it in time for launch most likely? Not giving more details out on the system or even a simple explanation on the why they chose the numbers they chose is right? When neither of those options caters to the players who have an issue?

you can unlock your elite spec, that is the mechanic and weapon used for a mere 60 points, there was no lie in saying you could prepare that way.

Op is on point with his argument. It’d be a different case if Anet officials didn’t release relatively specific information on incoming expansion systems, but from what they directly said in interviews it feels like people who were preparing were deceived.

Xbon.9086:

Seera.5916:

Arewn.2368:

You made hasty preparations based on early release, vague, non-finalized information.

Honestly, there really wasn’t much in the way of “preparation” that needed to be done for Heart of Thorns. It’s mostly busy-making.
You basically made up work for yourself to do, spent time doing that work, and then were disappointed that the work didn’t pay off as much as you wanted it to.

For example, “making 2 legendaries” has nothing to do with preparing for Heart of Thorns. And preparing mats for the new legendaries before we even knew what they were, let alone what they’ll be made of, is risky no matter how you look at it.

And the hero point situation was handled fairly appropriately. The priority should be on systems that will have you actually play the xpac, not cater to people who “prepared” prior to it’s release so that they can skip the xpac’s content. You aren’t being punished for preparing, you’re just not being explicitly rewarded for it. Which sounds right to me.

My advice would be to be careful of hypetrains, make informed decisions, and keep in mind that things which are in-development are very much subject to change.

I get where you’re coming from. There’s nothing wrong with being excited for the new content, and it’s natural to look for things to do while you wait. I just don’t think your expectation on how the developers should handle it are warranted.
I do however admit that not knowing the cost of elite specs for so long left us in a bit of an awkward situation.

Hearing the exact number of hero points 3 days before launch when the number required for 1 elite spec given what players were asking and talking about doing on launch day for weeks now is appropriate? When at this point even if ANet wanted to change it, they couldn’t change it in time for launch most likely? Not giving more details out on the system or even a simple explanation on the why they chose the numbers they chose is right? When neither of those options caters to the players who have an issue?

you can unlock your elite spec, that is the mechanic and weapon used for a mere 60 points, there was no lie in saying you could prepare that way.

I see a lot of people arguing this. But being able to unlock the spec vs having enough traits to make the spec viable are totally different issues. I dunno if you did the betas, but beta 1 and 2 were challenging already. I think it’d be far more challenging, maybe even frustrating if I had to do the same content with only 2 trait lines and a minor trait.

So, technically speaking, sure, you’re totally right! But realistically, no one will be satisfied if they can unlock a woefully incomplete version of the thing they dedicated hours to prepare for.

Preparing with hero points wasn’t a hasty action. They directly said somewhere that players with map completion would be able to play their elite specs (and no, not “play” but that we’d be able to unlock everything). This was all beta, no hard feelings if the plans change. But I’m certain that they could have given us some heads up, and not waited until 3 days out to drop that bomb on us.

I personally think that telling people that they can “play” with their elites is like telling someone they can “play” with a deflated basketball. It’s just a limp, flaccid version of the thing we want. Semantically they are the same thing, practically… not even close.

Subjective. I’ve been busting my butt for weeks. Made my first legendary. Trained three crafting professions to 500, made my first ascended weapons and armor. To me, it was worth every bit of effort.

PopeUrban.2578:

Your preparations provided half of your elite spec progression. How does that trivialize anything?

You finished half of your expansion character progression before the expansion released

Think about it.

Sure, half. But considering that I farmed 200+ skill points several times when I could have just farmed 20 skill points several times for the same benefit, they made our preparations dismally inefficient. I put in 10 times the effort for the 200 HP than I would have if I hadn’t prepared (at their bidding). Really, it’s more than 10 times. To my understanding, only 3 maps have 10+ hero challenges, those are all in Orr. If I wanted to complete bloodtide coast, it would only have ~ 8 hero challenges I think. That’s me, running/ swimming all over that map, and I still didn’t even get the same reward as a single hero challenge in Maguuma.

When I said “trivializing”, I mean that they took our efforts and minimalized them. They made it to where our efforts had awful returns. Sure I have half of what I need for the elite specs, but I earned that at >10 times the effort. To me, that’s trivializing my efforts.

Misguided.5139:

Subjective. I’ve been busting my butt for weeks. Made my first legendary. Trained three crafting professions to 500, made my first ascended weapons and armor. To me, it was worth every bit of effort.

This is true, I’ve done stuff that’ll benefit me too. But it’s also a bummer when I made 2 legendaries for characters I was personally excited about and now they’ll continue to just … chill in my character’s inventories while I grind… again.

sharkswithlazers.7632:

They directly said somewhere that players with map completion would be able to play their elite specs

People in this thread keep saying this.

Anyone have a link?

Starfall.6813:

sharkswithlazers.7632:

They directly said somewhere that players with map completion would be able to play their elite specs

People in this thread keep saying this.

Anyone have a link?

I’ve been looking ever since you asked. I honestly can’t find it. I remember reading someone say that players with map completion should be able to unlock everything no problem. Again, everything is subject to change, but it doesn’t make it less frustrating when they don’t just make a really large gate to elites, but also make the new content 10 times more efficient to getting there, thereby trivializing our hard work we put into preparing for the xpac.

ArchonWing.9480:

To me, I don’t really understand the hoopla with not letting people have stuff day 1. My ego isn’t fragile enough so that seeing people get stuff first will make me cry. Sure, sure it may “trivialize” things but if people really put in the effort to prepare, I think they do deserve it, more so than people who didn’t care.

Then again, if this is about making people do the new content, I guess there is a point to it. As is, you still get about almost halfway there, so it’s not a bad compromise. The only real fault is not telling people sooner.

The trusting part of me says, “They made up their minds at the last minute.” The non-trusting part of me says, “If they’d announced the way that Elite Specs would be unlocked back in late June, I wonder how many less sales they’d have made.”

April 28, 2015: “The new system will come to the live game before the launch of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™, allowing players to experience the changes to core specializations and stockpile Hero Points for their elite specializations. While elite specializations will be available to everyone who purchases the expansion, the upcoming core specialization changes will affect the base game.”

“Most skill and trait unlocks will cost five Hero Points. While the numbers should not be considered final or absolute, Jon estimated that it will require roughly 465 Hero Points to unlock every trait and skill available to a character. The process of leveling to 80 will award about 400 Hero Points, so players will only need to complete a fraction of the available hero challenges to have enough points to unlock everything.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/ready-up-core-specializations-summary/

I thought the expansion spec would cost the same number of hero points. I rounded up and figured 100 points ought to do it. My main has 194 pts, and I felt comfortable that over twice the number of hero points ought to be sufficient to cover any risk. Wrong, the cost is over 4 times as much. Not as simple and painless as stated or at least implied by ANET.

There really is no gaming point in inflating both the hero point rewards and the trait and skill cost. It certainly adds no play value to the game. I can only assume that they established these rewards and costs based on profit projections from their business model.

Bob.7189:

April 28, 2015: “The new system will come to the live game before the launch of Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns™, allowing players to experience the changes to core specializations and stockpile Hero Points for their elite specializations. While elite specializations will be available to everyone who purchases the expansion, the upcoming core specialization changes will affect the base game.”

“Most skill and trait unlocks will cost five Hero Points. While the numbers should not be considered final or absolute, Jon estimated that it will require roughly 465 Hero Points to unlock every trait and skill available to a character. The process of leveling to 80 will award about 400 Hero Points, so players will only need to complete a fraction of the available hero challenges to have enough points to unlock everything.”

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/ready-up-core-specializations-summary/

I thought the expansion spec would cost the same number of hero points. I rounded up and figured 100 points ought to do it. My main has 194 pts, and I felt comfortable that over twice the number of hero points ought to be sufficient to cover any risk. Wrong, the cost is over 4 times as much. Not as simple and painless as stated or at least implied by ANET.

There really is no gaming point in inflating both the hero point rewards and the trait and skill cost. It certainly adds no play value to the game. I can only assume that they established these rewards and costs based on profit projections from their business model.

Just an FYI, there’s a few things you got incorrect about this. The cost 465 hero points and the 400 hero points by getting to lvl 80 were NOT about elite specs but actually about the core specs. At first we were not going to have enough points through hitting level 80 alone to unlock all core specs, however Anet changed that to what we have now. The only thing that relates to elite specs is the part saying that players can stockpile on hero points but that does not say anything about being able to completely unlock an elite spec.

Why do so many of you care about the people who “prepare” for HoT release. You are trying to make it seem like a sin that they want to have their elites right out of the gate. They paid for the new content, anet got their money, they should be considered adult enough to make the decision to skip content. If you don’t want to skip content then don’t skip it, but FORCING everybody to do it for their specs is completely unreasonable. We paid money, we don’t want to pay extra time, that is why we tried to prepare.

In the Anet quote they list both core specs AND elite specs. They then go on to estimate how many hero points would be required to unlock EVERYTHING. Not just elite specs, everything.

I don´t want ro raid, you don´t want to make hero points. Tough luck for the both of us I suppose^^

So the OP spent hundreds of hours to get 2 legendaries (which require map completion themselves), but he is going to complain about the 2 hours (by his words 200 skill points will only take an hour) it will take to get hero points to finish the elite spec just because the hero points he got from the core map completion (which again, he needed for legendaries) took longer than 2 hours to get? Right…………….

Also, gift of mastery will be salvageable. Just fyi.