Guild Wars 2

Easiest but probably not the best Solution:
Leave things as they are and change nothing. Expect vitriol and negativity from one side of the camp (The “Entitled and Spoiled Casuals”) but praise and positivity from the other camp (The “ANet Fanbois and White knights”).

Another easy but probably not the best Solution either:
Do nothing but lower the overall cost of Elite Specializations, thus invalidating all the hard work put in by those of us who have already worked to unlock them and leaving us with surplus Hero points that we cannot use at all.

Not the Easiest Solution:
Lower the Cost of Elite Specs, refund players who already finished their Elite specs and give us a vendor that trades neat stuff for Hero Points, including satchels of them that can be given to alts.

Still Not the easiest solution:
Remove the new Healing, Utility and Elite skills from the Specializations training Line. With them removed, the cost will have gone down to 240 in total (Total cost of the Utility Skills currently: 25*5+45=125+35=160) which translates to 24 Skill Challenges in Maguuma overall. Anyone with world completion will have the entire Traitline save 2-3 Grandmaster Traits from the Get-go.

Meanwhile, each Elite Specialization, once the Adept Minor Trait has been unlocked, is given a set amount of missions to earn their Utility Skills. This could be like “Complete X Events in Verdant Brink” or “Gain 2 Bronze rewards in Adventures in Auric Basin”. The Healing Skill is earned in Verdant Brink, 2 Utility Skills are earned in Auric Basin, 2 more Utility Skills in Tangled Depths and the Elite is earned in Dragon’s Stand.

There will also be alternate missions surrounding events and places in the new Borderlands Maps, if people don’t wanna run around Maguuma to collect their Utility Skills.

not bad suggestions. i agree they need to do something to decrease the grind factor as it’s a huge departure from the original game.

elite specs were pretty much the only reason i bought the expac and as a professional with kids my game time is very limited as it is, the last thing i want to do is grind hero points in PVE or WVW.

the most obvious question is: why can’t i play an elite spec while playing through the new maps gaining mastery XP? seems really poorly thought through in my view. it’s not reasonable to expect players to play an elite spec for the new weapon with no traits.

I would just half the amount needed so you can skip the ones gated behind masteries, it would help so much.

Or they could could start work on GW3….