Guild Wars 2

Distribute it like 100 HP to unlock all skills/traits and 300HP to unlock the skins, then I might feel okay about it.

Day 1 job for me is to worry about holloween. Why bother rushing through HoT. It not going anywhere, have fun, it a game, if you have to force your self to rush, are you having fun?

That’s barely a grind IMO. You will get all hero points in a couple of hours of NEW area exploration.

Tapioca.9062:

So essentially, if you have world completion, you get half an elite spec?

I don’t even know how to put into words how completely awful this is.

+1 this is exactly what I was thinking. The original story they gave us was that a map-completed character could unlock the full elite spec immediately.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Runiir.6425:

Doesn’t matter what the rate is when you take into account you need every single point in the old maps as well. That x9 is too much.

Except you don’t! There are enough hero challenges in the jungle you don’t need to do any in the core tyrian world – those simply speed you up on day one if you already got them.

So much for “no grind”, eh?

Oh right, I forgot about the claim that every single player in this game loves smashing their face against AI using whatever arbitrary build is preferred to get them though it instead of playing the game for what is was marketed as in regards to allowing everyone to progress in any and every way at reasonable rates. I forgot that everything released lately has been about gating progress and preventing players from accessing the game at their own pace and instead forcing them to play the game the way you want them to. I forgot that directly singling out and insulting a player on livestream calling them an “exception” because they played the game the way they wanted to happened. I forgot that those involved in the design of the game are and have been completely oblivious to the actual concerns of its players for the past several years. I forgot that the announcement for this content was announced eight months ago and that some of the most critical details have been kept secret until after the majority of sales has been generated.

And I’m sorry. I truly am sorry, that I’ve been so naive as to expect anything different.

Sorry, but this attitude change from release is disgusting. Consider the principles that have made this franchise successful. Consider the initial manifesto. Consider why you are where you are.

You got here on quality single-player story-driven content in GW1 and by letting people play the game as they want to in GW2. We’re barely seeing that quality here as it is. And that quality is definitely not there for those who don’t want to grind or merely want to become engrossed in the story, not get stuck behind walls and artificial content gates that are completely arbitrary or designed to force players into particular facets of the game. Hell, the only real quality gameplay in this game that’s making it stand out from the competition is the fact that there is next to competition, and that your programmers, systems engineers, and people behind the curtains actually making this shindig work are doing the best work out there right now. Be thankful they’re still there, because of everything released over the past few years, the solidity of the gameplay itself is one of the few reasons many people have been here to stay instead of going home after a day at the theme park.

Tell me, why does exploring the jungle turn a necromancer into a reaper? Why does a mesmer innately learn how to summon more clones and use wells by flying around on a kite? Where does the engineer find the strength to wield a massive hammer and the inspiration to make drones in a resource-scarce environment after a harsh impact?

“No grind” in HoT? I’m sorry, but that’s only valid from maybe your perspective. Gating the way the game is played so substantially through menial tasks is the very definition of this, especially when those tasks are also locked behind even more menial tasks, such as leveling masteries to be allowed to explore the jungle further, or the need to do this on every single character a player owns.

Thanks for finally giving us the info Colin. The requirements don’t seem too bad overall. I definitely called peoples reactions though :P. Only thing I would change is to slightly lower the cost of the skills/traits and put it on the cosmetic/runes.

LanfearShadowflame.3189

To be fair, they told us that elite specs would require Hero Points to unlock, all the way back when they did the last trait system change (to specializations). People have speculated that we would need at least 145 points (the current cost of a spec and skill line that contains an elite skill) for the elite spec. They never retracted that statement, only further enforced it, that HPs would be necessary. So people have been doing hero challenges in preparation.

We just weren’t expecting it to cost quite that much….

Yes, I knew it would require hero points but I didn’t realize I would have to have every other thing trained before even starting on the Elite spec, right? For example I only ever use my elementalist’s Fire and Water skill lines and have never trained heavily in the Earth or Air areas. So, the skill points I assumed I could use for the Elite will now have to be flushed down the lines I have desire for or need of.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

That’s barely a grind IMO. You will get all hero points in a couple of hours of NEW area exploration.

I highly doubt it. If you played any of the BWEs you will need gliding and mushroom jumping to get around the map properly, and these will take a lot more than a couple of hours to achieve.

TJgalon.5012:

Day 1 job for me is to worry about holloween. Why bother rushing through HoT. It not going anywhere, have fun, it a game, if you have to force your self to rush, are you having fun?

Again, you are missing what was said, or just not understanding, or not caring yet you keep posting so you must.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/elite-specializations-how-many-hero-points/5628681

of course, I could spend a lot of time finding posts by countless numbers of people, expressing the concerns that you need to read to understand why we are questioning this decision, but I really don’t think you will read it, and don’t worry, I’ll try to remember not to bother responding to your questions and statements.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

That’s barely a grind IMO. You will get all hero points in a couple of hours of NEW area exploration.

No you won’t… not if some of those hero challenges are gated behind mastery completion (for example, you may need gliding or mushroom jumping to reach some hero challenges in the HOT jungle).

I am very sad about this. In my view, elite specs are not content, they are a way to enjoy the content. I was really looking forward to trying out the specs in Halloween and new HoT content. Now I will be largely incentivized to rush through as many hero points as possible and then finish up in WvW first, just so I can get my spec. I really wanted to take my time through the jungle, but I want to play the elite specs while doing it…

Vague Memory.2817:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

That’s barely a grind IMO. You will get all hero points in a couple of hours of NEW area exploration.

I highly doubt it. If you played any of the BWEs you will need gliding and mushroom jumping to get around the map properly, and these will take a lot more than a couple of hours to achieve.

New personal story gives you quite a bit of exp. Just do first mission on all your characters and you will already have gliding, shroom jumping and probably even updraft in a couple of minutes.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Vague Memory.2817:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

That’s barely a grind IMO. You will get all hero points in a couple of hours of NEW area exploration.

I highly doubt it. If you played any of the BWEs you will need gliding and mushroom jumping to get around the map properly, and these will take a lot more than a couple of hours to achieve.

New personal story gives you quite a bit of exp. Just do first mission on all your characters and you will already have gliding, shroom jumping and probably even updraft in a couple of minutes.

Still won’t be the “couple of hours” you predicted though.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Vague Memory.2817:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

That’s barely a grind IMO. You will get all hero points in a couple of hours of NEW area exploration.

I highly doubt it. If you played any of the BWEs you will need gliding and mushroom jumping to get around the map properly, and these will take a lot more than a couple of hours to achieve.

New personal story gives you quite a bit of exp. Just do first mission on all your characters and you will already have gliding, shroom jumping and probably even updraft in a couple of minutes.

What about players who don’t particularly care for the personal story? Or were wanting to get through the original personal story and LS2 before doing HoT personal story (more true for new players than veteran players)?

i wanted my elite specs to play through the jungle…. not be forced to finish the entire xpac to have nothing of interest to do but grind raids for the next best thing there is
as a wvw player who finally got hyped for pve, this is pretty disgusting

there’s already a mastery grind
this is an unnecessary gate since it’s the class we’re playing with , not a way to get to someplace else in the jungle

Why was this info released 3 days before launch and not month or two ago?

Doug.4930:

Come on, even you guys that enjoy pve content have to admin this is a bit ludicrous.

Oh, we do. Even people with world completion (including the HPs in WVW and the wastes) are steaming. Those of us altoholics with ‘only’ 100ish points are fuming. That is just the forum people. Wait until everyone finds out about it.

400 wouldn’t be a bad idea if one had to do it once. But, it would seem like people with alts were not taken into consideration. I’m not even talking like about having 20 alts; just one of each class. It’s kind of like exploring the map in general. It’s fun the first time or so, but when you can do it with your eyes closed because it’s the 9th time, that’s another story.

Sure, we shouldn’t have everything immediately. Sure, elite specs aren’t mandatory. However, when one of the draws of the expansion is all these elite specs, we’ve been severely gated if we want to see a lot the new class mechanics. This is especially true when one’s most frequently played characters (and thus have more points) have terrible elite specs I don’t want to see, such as the Dragonhunter, but that’s an issue for another day.

Mala.3861:

LanfearShadowflame.3189

To be fair, they told us that elite specs would require Hero Points to unlock, all the way back when they did the last trait system change (to specializations). People have speculated that we would need at least 145 points (the current cost of a spec and skill line that contains an elite skill) for the elite spec. They never retracted that statement, only further enforced it, that HPs would be necessary. So people have been doing hero challenges in preparation.

We just weren’t expecting it to cost quite that much….

Yes, I knew it would require hero points but I didn’t realize I would have to have every other thing trained before even starting on the Elite spec, right? For example I only ever use my elementalist’s Fire and Water skill lines and have never trained heavily in the Earth or Air areas. So, the skill points I assumed I could use for the Elite will now have to be flushed down the lines I have desire for or need of.

Lol that would be covered under my “we weren’t expecting it to cost quite so much” statement. Having to have everything else unlocked first is part of the cost.

But, I completely understand where you’re coming from.

jubov.2037:

Why was this info released 3 days before launch and not month or two ago?

Because they most likely dont want to change this at all and this way they have a kittenstorm for a few days instead of a few months, securing alot of preorders that might not have happened otherwise.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Vague Memory.2817:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

That’s barely a grind IMO. You will get all hero points in a couple of hours of NEW area exploration.

I highly doubt it. If you played any of the BWEs you will need gliding and mushroom jumping to get around the map properly, and these will take a lot more than a couple of hours to achieve.

New personal story gives you quite a bit of exp. Just do first mission on all your characters and you will already have gliding, shroom jumping and probably even updraft in a couple of minutes.

Um pretty sure it was mentioned that you need to go to other maps to unlock certain mastery tracks

Tigerlily.3765:

I am very sad about this. In my view, elite specs are not content, they are a way to enjoy the content. I was really looking forward to trying out the specs in Halloween and new HoT content. Now I will be largely incentivized to rush through as many hero points as possible and then finish up in WvW first, just so I can get my spec. I really wanted to take my time through the jungle, but I want to play the elite specs while doing it…

Wait… wait…. wait…. you and many others are thinking about this all wrong. In a role playing sense, we (our characters) are entering new lands. The new land has unexpected challenges which we must evolve and adapt to. The Masteries and Specializations are the result of the time spent in the jungle adapting to it. We’re not supposed to have a magic ^poof^ you’re super now at the beginning.

Colin “Heartbreaker of Thorns” Johanson

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Vague Memory.2817:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

That’s barely a grind IMO. You will get all hero points in a couple of hours of NEW area exploration.

I highly doubt it. If you played any of the BWEs you will need gliding and mushroom jumping to get around the map properly, and these will take a lot more than a couple of hours to achieve.

New personal story gives you quite a bit of exp. Just do first mission on all your characters and you will already have gliding, shroom jumping and probably even updraft in a couple of minutes.

Sorry, but that is false. I did the first part of the story mission and played over 8 hours doing events (when they were available) to get lvl 1 gliding and lvl 1 mushroom jumping. Leveling masteries took a long time in the BWE3 because not many things gave good exp.

DeWolfe.2174:

Tigerlily.3765:

I am very sad about this. In my view, elite specs are not content, they are a way to enjoy the content. I was really looking forward to trying out the specs in Halloween and new HoT content. Now I will be largely incentivized to rush through as many hero points as possible and then finish up in WvW first, just so I can get my spec. I really wanted to take my time through the jungle, but I want to play the elite specs while doing it…

Wait… wait…. wait…. you and many others are thinking about this all wrong. In a role playing sense, we (our characters) are entering new lands. The new land has unexpected challenges which we must evolve and adapt to. The Masteries and Specializations are the result of the time spent in the jungle adapting to it. We’re not supposed to have a magic ^poof^ you’re super now at the beginning.

“magic poof”
you can throw fireballs from your fingertips when shaemoor is under attack, but you can’t jump into a jungle and learn new spells
what even is this argument

I can’t imagine a grinder “no grind” game.

So someone thinks ok I want to raid in GW2 with a druid, looks fun. They first have to grind to 80, grind hero points in the old world, grind masteries so they can grind hero points in the jungle, grind fractals or gold so they can get ascended gear, all before they can even think of doing the content they were attracted to in the first place. See a problem here?

I’ve done map completion on a character, it was horrible and I never want to do it again. I have a character of every profession because that to me is actual content that I enjoy. When you’re putting up these artificial time barriers to content that screams to me that you know you’re light on content and have to make it up by stalling people out.

Thanks for the info Colin but it does present a problem.

What about those of us who want to carry on the ‘good fight’ and help the community? IE, be mentors, which means being in central Tyria most of the time. I was already struggling with 170: by what I have seen about 140 they would be ones that soloing would mean dying many times to get the challenge done, especially on characters who have to fight in tight quarters but wear light armor (ie, they can not do the usual staying as far back as possible).

Alone.1784:

I can’t imagine a grinder “no grind” game.

So someone thinks ok I want to raid in GW2 with a druid, looks fun. They first have to grind to 80, grind hero points in the old world, grind masteries so they can grind hero points in the jungle, grind fractals or gold so they can get ascended gear, all before they can even think of doing the content they were attracted to in the first place. See a problem here?

I’ve done map completion on a character, it was horrible and I never want to do it again. I have a character of every profession because that to me is actual content that I enjoy. When you’re putting up these artificial time barriers to content that screams to me that you know you’re light on content and have to make it up by stalling people out.

I’m not defending the decision, I’m very critical of it for a number of reasons I’ve stated, and some I haven’t, but you won’t have to do any map completion of central tyria, as apparently there are 40+ jungle challenges. You’ll just have to have the masteries to get to them.

400 points?? This is worse than my worst fear. Do you know how many toons I have to level the new spec for? Did you know that most of the elite specs arent even as good as the old specs?? I dont know…. Do you guys have contests over how much hate you can generate with your content releases? Do you even think these numbers through or just arbitrarily grab one out of the air?

Ordin.9047:

Do you guys have contests over how much hate you can generate with your content releases?

You are not a WvW player, I guess. xD

The million dollar question that no one is asking…

So are the medium armor skins on ranger another trench coat/duster and pirate hat?

Vague Memory.2817:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Vague Memory.2817:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

That’s barely a grind IMO. You will get all hero points in a couple of hours of NEW area exploration.

I highly doubt it. If you played any of the BWEs you will need gliding and mushroom jumping to get around the map properly, and these will take a lot more than a couple of hours to achieve.

New personal story gives you quite a bit of exp. Just do first mission on all your characters and you will already have gliding, shroom jumping and probably even updraft in a couple of minutes.

Sorry, but that is false. I did the first part of the story mission and played over 8 hours doing events (when they were available) to get lvl 1 gliding and lvl 1 mushroom jumping. Leveling masteries took a long time in the BWE3 because not many things gave good exp.

In BWE3 I got them after going through available story with 4 beta characters and doing like 3 events.

Ok, based on the screenshot earlier in the post and icons for utility skills posted on Wiki, as well as previous posts by developers we have:

Unlocking elite specialization:
1) 400 HP total.
2) Unlocking order is ? – Utility 1 – Healing skill – Adept minor – 3 adept traits – ? – Utility 2 – master minor – 3 master traits – ? – Utility 3 – GM minor – 3 GM traits – Elite skill – ? – ? – ?
3) It has been stated that last unlock is elite-locked weapon skin. I am extrapolating this to state that next-to-last is elite specific armor skin.
4) In the past the higher tier unlocks took more points than earlier unlocks
5) The bottom line will be the weight assigned to the last skins
6) On a personal level I am disappointed at the unlock setup. I have no problems in requiring 400 HPs, but let me pick what to unlock first. At least split the line into trait and utility lines with one skin being locked behind each line.

ColinJohanson.2394:

PlatinumMember.5274:

Unless I am mistaken just to unlock half of the training line, we need 212 hero points?

It’s 400 points total to unlock everything in an elite spec training line – I just can’t remember off hand how many points folks have currently if they have done all the existing ones, but it’s right around 200. The rest you’ll need to earn in jungle to unlock the deeper skills/traits/etc. in the training line.

You only need 60 hero points to begin using your elite spec, the points you spend after that continue to unlock more skills, traits, skins, etc.

Again, hero challenges are worth 10 points each in the jungle. So no you don’t need to go do 200-400 jungle challenges.

Hi Colin, I have a question regarding this in relation to the rate of gain in WvW.

How many Proof of Heroics are granted on a rank gain? Does this system take in to consideration the balance between different WvW types of play? Will I, as a solo and small group (5 or less) roamer, be able to progress in the Elite Specialization track at a fair rate against someone who participates in zerg play or karma / WXP farming in EoTM?

I guess what I’m really asking is have the WvW rewards been balanced or does it still only reward one type of play (zerg)?

My concern is that it’s going to take me 6 years to unlock these Elite Specializations across all of my different classes. I think that’s an honest and fair question given that I have at least 1 level 80 of every class and regularly play at least 5 of them, and while WXP is account bound these Hero Points and Specialization unlocks are not.

Well I feel like a huge fool for spending the last couple weeks getting all the hero points on several alts with prominent elite specs. I could have just waited and gotten far more per hero point challenge if i did absolutely nothing and waited for HoT. Then I’d just have to do around 40 instead of 254. On six alts. And it’s worse for some of the other altaholics around here.

Rage aside, why are they only telling us this now? We’ve been asking for months about how many hero points, discussing our plans to actually play through the story/jungle with our elite specs, and the devs choose 3 days before launch to tell us.

Maybe its me, but i don’t see any issues with this. I find mapping quite fun.

Inkida.8925:

Well I feel like a huge fool for spending the last couple weeks getting all the hero points on several alts with prominent elite specs. I could have just waited and gotten far more per hero point challenge if i did absolutely nothing and waited for HoT. Then I’d just have to do around 40 instead of 254. On six alts. And it’s worse for some of the other altaholics around here.

Rage aside, why are they only telling us this now? We’ve been asking for months about how many hero points, discussing our plans to actually play through the story/jungle with our elite specs, and the devs choose 3 days before launch to tell us.

You’re going to be using those points on other masteries. Like 400 just to unlock your class specialization, then the others on things like mushroom jumping, precursor crafting, gliding, and etc. So, definitely not in vane to get those HPs.

Fernling.1729:

I know I now won’t be enjoying the HoT content like I should be. I’m going to be focusing on running several characters through the zones getting hero points to unlock elite specializations.

This is going to feel okay the first and second time. This is going to feel terribly grindy the 7th and 8th and 9th time though.

That’s your own fault. You could play WvW and continue mapping the old content just for the HP which doesn’t take too long. If these alts are that important to you and if you really wanted a new spec bad enough you should have some prep work done already.

These are new Elite Specializations coming with the new expansion. We should’ve expected to play the new content to unlock the new specs. Nothing is given away for free in MMO’s.

I will be enjoying the new content and not grinding anything outside of Halloween ofc. Take your time and focus on having fun!. The HoT content isn’t going any where.

The more I think about this, the more I think it is the wrong design decision. People should be able to play the game however they want. If they want to unlock the elite specialization first, they should be able to. A better solution would have been to refund all points used, and let people unlock things however they want.

Sounds like this will be a fun time to play and unlock new things. The more i read, the more I wonder why it bad.
People keep bringing alts into the argument, forgetting it be even easier to unlock hero points on alts, since a lot of the mastery are account bound. Also knowing the map more, make it easier too.

slamfunction.7462:

Maybe its me, but i don’t see any issues with this. I find mapping quite fun.

Exactly! Every time I do world map completion I find something new! I am looking forward to the feeling of exploration and finding new and exciting places on the new maps.

It seems to be just one more thing to bloat play time with working to have fun later rather than sooner, and one more indicator they have little faith in the new content to hold us without all these asinine time sinks.

slamfunction.7462:

Maybe its me, but i don’t see any issues with this. I find mapping quite fun.

I’m an artist and I enjoy drawing.
I don’t enjoy drawing the exact same picture 9 times.

TJgalon.5012:

Sounds like this will be a fun time to play and unlock new things. The more i read, the more I wonder why it bad.
People keep bringing alts into the argument, forgetting it be even easier to unlock hero points on alts, since a lot of the mastery are account bound. Also knowing the map more, make it easier too.

Account-bound masteries are the saving grace to it, sure.

Honestly, I’m not ‘outraged,’ just disappointed that this is the direction they went with. I doubt I would even be chuffed at all if they didn’t make us unload all our points from leveling to start on the elite specs.

Julischka Bean.7491:

So, tell me, what will be the best profession to take into the Jungle???

Guardian, Warrior, Necro, Ranger??

Imho, Necro. Because then you’ll unlock Reaper the fastest! (That said I’m taking my Thief Donari in first for initial exploration and mastery unlocks, simply because he’s got first dibs on all new content even though he’s a low dps squishy man. At least he’s fast and stealthy. … oh and he doesn’t get first dibs on raiding. Thief or Daredevil, he’s not going to be terribly effective in a raid and I won’t bring down 9 other people).

Did I hit a forum bug? I think I hit a forum bug. And it hit back. Stupid retaliation on forum bugs.

ZeroKaos.1682:

Hmm so let me see if I understand all this crying correctly. We go 3 years with just the core game and ask for an expansion that allows us to do more things in game because most of us have completed 90% of what the current game has to offer. Now that we are 3 days away from one of the most anticipated expansions in guild wars history, you are all crying about having to do too much? Elite specs won’t even require that much to unlock, and you will realize this once you have started playing the expansion in 3 days. People who are complaining about having to go through that grind on multiple characters, I fail to see how that is an anet problem? It was YOUR decision to make multiple characters and it is YOUR decision to continue to play them as you like. If YOU decide to get elite specs for each of those characters, then obviously you will have to put in the work just like everyone else, so stop placing blame on someone else for YOUR own problems. For all the people who casually play this game and are crying about how anet has ruined their chance at getting an elite spec. WHAT!?!?!? I fail to see how they ruined your chance, you just will get the elite spec at a slower pace than others because you are casual players, simply because you play less than them. Also there are ways to get around difficult hero challenges, like say… asking a friend or a guildmate to help you? Anyway I don’t even know why I bother sometimes, this game is said to have the best community but all I’ve seen in my 3 years of playing is a bunch of cry babies that want to be fed with a silver spoon.

TL,DR: stop crying and just play the game.

oh idk, you could take the same advice and not post? Because I don’t really think you took any time to read what was said. I know I never said anything about a silver spoon, didn’t even ask for a silver toothpick. But I sure pointed out a few issues. Like having to unlock skins you may not want just to get traits. Why aren’t the skins separate? Like, I don’t know, collections? Or all of them at the end of the elite spec training (since it appears they are not all there, just some of them are at the end).

Also, You and others are acting like people come in, with 1 character, and want everything handed to them. This is not the case. As stated previously, if you only have 1 of each class right now, that’s 8 characters (ignoring that some of the elite specs are awful), that’s 8 characters you have to take through the new maps, possibly completely through them, just to get the elite spec. If you are an altaholic you have even more to do if you want to use the elite specs at all on them.

My solution is to not even bother with the elite specs really at all for a while. I’d rather enjoy the game, our first new content in a year, than have to rush through it again and again just to access the new specs. But eventually if I want them, I’ll have to do just that, effectively grinding the hero challenges, ignoring actually playing the game and just doing what I can to get to the next hero challenge. And they might not be so quick to do…

I’m fine with this. I like to have to work towards things instead of just being handed it. I feel this will allow everyone to explore the content first.

Honestly, I think this is a very good thing. This system encourages you to fully explore the jungle while still allowing you to make up some of the difference with central Tyria mastery points.

They’re called ELITE specializations for a reason guys. It’s part of the progression. I’d much rather have this than some stupid gear grind. This way, instead of just powercreeping up, you’re gradually unlocking some new skills, traits, skins, and runes.

No, you won’t have your Elite Spec fully completed on day 1 (well, maybe you will if you go hard enough), but I’m pretty sure that’s the POINT. It gives you something tangible to work towards while still enjoying the expansion. If you people consider this grind, it means you consider simply playing the game a grind. If that’s the case, why are you still playing?

This is a ridiculous number. I understand elite specialization are meant to be about character progression and you want them to be meaningful but at this point, such a high number like this makes it required to do SO MANY of the PvE hero challenges or farm EOTM (inb4 we get a stealth nerf on ranking and badges from there before expac) :/ Because otherwise getting ranking up by just playing regular WvW, it will take quite a while even for a character that has current map completion. That’s pretty much just a grindfest. That’s not really progression, it is super rigid and not alt friendly at all.