Guild Wars 2

I was ganged up on in my guild for expressing negative opinions in GC yesterday, which is a shame, as I was always very positive about this game. Luckily there seem to be lots of kindred spirits here so I’ll freely express my opinions.

In my mind (and as many have said) fixing the three things below will make a massive difference.

1) Drastically reduce the number of hero points needed to unlock elites. While I am not especially bothered about my elite spec I know how much others were looking forward to them. It was only in a post literally a day or two before the expansion that it was explicitly stated that these would be ‘unlocked’ – not helped by the beta weekends making them instantly available. This gave a lot of people the wrong impression and I can understand their frustrations. I would reduce this to around 60 points or so.

2) Half the XP needed for each mastery. Although these are account-bound (which is good) I still feel they’re too grindy. I find myself looking at my XP bar a lot. I never did in the base game.

3) When people are not around hero points (often because they’re mastery gated or very hard to get to) stop with the unsoloable champions with time limits! Downscale them to veteran mobs so that soloers can have a chance. This will become even more obvious once fewer players are on the map and people are attempting to get hero points for their alts. Implementing point 1 would massively reduce this issue also!

ANet made a good move by getting rid of the story requirement to have Itzel 4 mastered.

Come on ANet – if you sort these three things out, the majority will be a lot happier.

Some people are doing a mess in this discussion.
Let’s put something in order.
The large majority of the people is nice with Hot, is enthusiastic for some Elite Spec and has nothing to complain with Mastery system (that seems really far better then the previous one, so, please, don’t ask to go back neither for joke).
The only serious issues are the totally crazy amount of hero points needed to unlock the Elite Spec and the mechanics to gather them.
I’m sure that Anet will fix it, increasing the opportunities to gather a far richer amount of HP or dramatically lowering the request of them (please no more than 120).
We have other ways to strive to gather a result, i.e. legendary, masteries, etc…., and we’d like to do it with our Elite alts

Snorcha.7586:

Not sure how they have missed their target market so badly in this expansion. GW2 was advertised as “grind free”, they even said it themselves, they HATE grinding. Yet they release this.. Baffling

They missed it because as far as I know they never asked us. We were all led to assume from when videos were first released about elites that it was a core enticement to buy the game. Who could have imagined this nutty elite gate which makes you play through the content of hot b4 you can unlock the elite for Hot.

In betas we were given immediate access to elites and no access to test the hero point system.

We weren’t told how hero points would work until only few days before and even then most were expecting something close to what we already had. Not walls within walls.

The lack of information on this essential selling point of the game was withheld and now many many people are feeling betrayed , and that this isn’t what they thought they were buying.

Ahrian Do Ramas.2394:

Please give me a way to buy the hero points in the Gem store, or do whatever, so I can actually enjoy the new skills with my characters. This, more than any new content, is what I signed and paid for.

If THAT’S the solution they implement, wanting me to pay more money on top of the price of the expansion to reasonably have access to the new specializations, then you WILL lose me and I dare say a hefty amount of other people as the Gem Store will have then fulfilled every nightmare GW1 players had about it before GW2 release.

And furthermore, gating core play mechanics behind group content is just wrong.
Some of us have other responsibilities in life, and cannot play when the content is fresh and the zergs are rolling through.

In a few days, when the new zones have quieted down, it will be very hard to find groups to do the hero point challenges. And then what? Sorry, no elite spec for you…

All hero point challenges should be soloable. No exceptions.

redcomyn.4651:

It looks to me that over time, Anet has shifted their target audience. They have moved away from the casuals and more to the hard core type of player. Perhaps this is a sound business decision, and if so, I can’t blame them. Unfortunately, they are leaving me out in the cold.

I think it is time for me to take an extended break from this game. Maybe things will get better sometime in the future.

The move away from casuals is a mistake. ANET wants the hyperactive no-lifers, not working people who see gaming as a pleasurable diversion.

Until they fix the Elite spec grind, I’m not spending money in the TP, or buying any products from ANet. I know at least six others personally who are doing the same. I am not upgrading two other family accounts as neither player wants to in the game’s current state. All tolled, the people no longer paying for GW2 have put a lot of money into the game and TP.

they need to have the elite spec have it’s own exp it gets….so when you get exp, it goes to ur current mastery and ur elite spec when you have it equipped so you can level it up as you go through the new content

In the 25 hours following the release of expansion (so, 12:01am Pacific on the 23rd until 1:00am Pacific on the 24th) I had been logged into GW2 for at least 12 cumulative, non-consecutive hours.

Two of those hours were spent on my ‘former main’ — a Warrior — hanging out in Lion’s Arch. I (foolishly) stockpiled several hundred coin purses and seed pouches as well as dozens of rare and masterwork gear bags. I also had a couple dozen of each of the four flavors of boxes from daily Tequ kills. Nobody should ever do this. By Zeus’ beard was my inventory a trainwreck. This isn’t the fault of the game, though, this was me being a lazy hoarder. I’m just mentioning this as an admission I wasn’t grinding for the full amount of time.

Apart from the aforementioned 2 hours, and one round of Mad King Says, I have been in the jungle on my fledgling Reaper. It should be noted that I hate base Necromancer. Not because it’s underpowered (even though it kind of is) and not because it doesn’t have any group synergy (even though it doesn’t) but simply because it’s boring. My best loadout involves sending out the locusts (I like to say “NOT THE BEES!” every time I push warhorn 5 because it gives me something to do) and then mashing my 1 key. Dagger, Shroud, Lich, it doesn’t matter. Send out the bees, mash 1 — That’s what 3 years of gameplay evolution has led Necromancer to. Is it effective? Mostly. Is it fun? Never.

Here are some lowlights from my adventures into Reaper frustration, for any that are interested:

• I had 220 points going into the expansion. Prior to the announcement earlier this week, I figured I was “safe” to be able to unlock a good chunk, if not all, of Reaper. By the time I finished filling out all of the traits and skills for the core class (which is a stupid requirement since we can’t use all that stuff at the same time anyway) I had 57 points left. Not even quite enough for the Reaper unlock.
• I fumbled my way to the first Hero Point I came across in the Jungle. It required a bit of exploration, the mobs were a little dense and frustrating, but the experience wasn’t that bad. I found the thing (in the ruins south of the starting point) and pushed F and got my 10 points. I was disheartened by being forced to waste 163 points on junk that I wasn’t going to use for the core class, but things were looking up. I had Reaper ‘unlocked’ and getting that first challenge wasn’t miserable. I could do this.
• I equipped Reaper. I didn’t even get the shroud — that comes in another 15 points. Whatever, I equipped it, got the skin (which is slick, love that skin) and slapped it on my ascended sword. The greatsword is amazingly well designed. I can let theorycrafters pick apart the numbers all they want, but the feel of the thing is just fantastic. Each one of the 5 weapon skills has purpose, reasons to push or to not push, to burn immediately or wait for an opening, to create or abuse field synergy. As a Necromancer, this is an especially amazing feeling. Remember, all we’re used to is mashing 1. Getting 2-4 (and having 5 be something other than creating a persistent DoT) is a huge deal for us. Anet did solid on this. It’s just fun. Something on Necromancer is actually fun!
• I “find” a few more Hero Challenges and by “find” I mostly mean “Well, I see them on the map, but I can’t get to them because I don’t have the masteries necessary.” but I do get to a couple that I can reach and solo. One was a jumping thing that would have been easier with shroom bouncing, but I was able to clamber up the stepped wall. Another was a bunch of wasps followed by a Veteran fight that was easy enough to sidestep and whittle down. In the course of this, I unlock basic gliding.
• I get my Reaper Shroud unlock. I don’t know why the entirety of a minor trait simply unlocks the class mechanic that should be part of the initial Reaper investment, but whatever. Again, I have more buttons! The new shroud, like the Greatsword, offers a lot of flexibility and a good, responsive, fun toolkit. My days of mashing 1 are over!
• More and more of the Hero Challenges I encounter are either unreachable, unusable (because if I glide to the point I’m still not ‘worthy’) or are Champion fights, which park me squarely on my bum until enough people congregate to make the fight possible. This could be as little as a few seconds or as long as several dozen minutes depending on how out-of-the-way the Challenge is. If the points aren’t ludicrously out of the way, they’re in or behind thickets of several dozen enemies, hard to solo pull, and hard to run through or from.

After 10+ hours of playing in the Jungle, I have unlocked the following for Reaper: The elite specialization itself (which I had 95% of already, going into the Jungle), the first Minor Trait, the first skill, and the first adept trait. That’s it. I can hamstring myself by effectively not having any traits (Augury of Death doesn’t do much since I only have one shout to use, and it’s my heal, and Shroud Knight does nothing except grant me the class mechanic that I should have gotten at 60 points with the Greatsword) in one of my lines, or I can go back to the “full build” of Dagger/Borehorn and resume mashing 1 until my fingernail falls off but at least I’ll have 3 trait lines like a level 80 is supposed to and expected to have.

This ludicrous point grind is forcing me to choose between ‘fun’ and ‘function.’ Is there any possible, rational explanation as to why a formerly “max-level” character is forced to make this choice, other than to simply pad out content via grinding? I don’t want something for nothing, but is it too much to ask for the Elite Specs to be acceptable alternatives out of the gate rather than direct downgrades until several hundred hero points are spent getting a full trait line?

When going from level 1 to 80, it makes sense to slowly fill in new functions, mechanics, and perks. It makes sense — as you level a character, it gets more powerful. It doesn’t make sense that a level 80 is forced to reduce the power of his or her character in order to experience the so-called “horizontal progression.” There’s nothing horizontal about downgrading yourself and then having to scale a mountain to get back up to an “alternative, optional” playstyle.

It’s taken me over 10 hours to go from “totally hobbled” to “still totally hobbled” because my only trait affects skills I don’t have access to, and those skills (and the rest of the traits I’m ‘sacrificing’ by using an incomplete spec) are still several hundred arduous “Hero Points” away. It’s simply not fun. It isn’t fun to feel like I have to choose between being underpowered but liking my new playstyle, or going back to my former function but being bored to tears because core Necro is a one-dimensional snore-fest.

And all of this is on my main. I’m not even thinking about my alts at this point. I wanted to try a Staff/Pistol+Pistol Daredevil. Nope. I wanted to tome a Revenant to 80 and try Herald. Nope. Dragon Hunter? I wasn’t impressed with it during the BWE, but thought maybe I’d still try it. Nope. This feels like a complete about face and the total antithesis of what I thought GW2 was supposed to be about. I thought cosmetics and rare loot were supposed to be the hook, the timesink, the reason to grind. I didn’t think basic character functionality and a major selling point of the expansion were supposed to be awards handed out only after ‘beating’ most of the game. At this rate, you should make it so that people can’t use their Elite Specialization until after they’ve completed the raid, in addition to the Jungle.

Sorry for the wall-of-text. I just feel like when Gaile quotes out a powergamer that did “everything he wanted” (the phrasing tells me he got one grandmaster, didn’t get the other two, and didn’t get the elite skill, so even that guy wasn’t ‘done’) in 18 hours and is all “There, see, it’s doable if you don’t eat or sleep, and only use the bathroom at your desk, everything’s fine!” then it’s only fair to give a detailed account from the perspective of someone who is utterly frustrated by this expansion release, when I should be excited and enjoying it.

TL;DR: I’ve spent at least 10 hours in the Jungle within the first 25 hours of release. I still don’t have a mathematically viable elite spec. I’m not even remotely close. I still won’t be mathematically viable for dozens more in-game hours, given my current rate of progress and the way the rewards are staggered. I won’t be able to play 10 hours per day every day. Friday was an anomaly and a launch celebration for me. Today, for example, I haven’t had time to get in-game at all. I was crazy-exited for this expansion. I couldn’t wait for it to come out. Now I have to seriously consider if I want to log in.

hurrado.2346:

7. Lower the amount of hero points required to unlock the elite spec, keep 400 for the skins.
-People really enjoy cosmetics in guild wars, that’s why people are willing to work for legendary weapon skins, armor skins etc… It is informally known as fashion wars for a reason.
-Progression and status can be shown through weapon/armor skins, not to mention some of the new skins are worth the time to get, please just don’t make players have to wait for the new core mechanics along with the skins.

I really like this suggestion, actually. My major problem is with not being able to play my elite spec without swapping a full trait line for one with a bunch of gaps. If I could earn all my traits by like 150 points, spend the next 150 on the new utilities, then the last 100 on cosmetics, that would be perfect.

The following is a list of suggestions from myself, some are stolen from others, but I will highlight them all with pros and cons:

1. Allow the specs to be played throughout the new HoT areas, instead of having to nearly complete the area to fully unlock the spec
-This suggestion seems to be what a lot of PVE players would like to see, they have been playing with the same build for 3 years up to the expansion, and would like to be able to spice things up and continue through the story/map completion etc… while learning the new class.
-An argument against this has been: “the specialization is available at under 400 HP so just take the traits you unlock until you get the full thing.” That discounts the fact that people will be playing with a largely subpar build, and WvW players will be shafted because the build will likely be all but useless, largely due to not being able to choose which traits to unlock.

2. Create a PVP reward track that allows players to get HP, ~100 per track completion
-This is a suggestion I would like to see implemented personally, as I primarily play pvp and wvw, but occasionally cross into world bosses/fractals/dungeons with friends, so I would like to be able to unlock the specs in a game mode I enjoy playing, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this crowd.
-100 may seem like a lot of HP for a reward track completion, but having to do the reward track 4 times per character with the current system seems reasonable, that way people can say “we worked for our specs,” because 4 reward tracks does take quite a few matches.
-A potential issue is this may lead to pvers meandering into pvp, which does anger a lot of the more skilled pvpers who don’t like having people that don’t understand how to play pvp on their teams.
-It could also lead to people farming quick join, however the rank points earned there are lower than unranked, so it would take them a long while to complete 4 reward tracks. Maybe to prevent farming this, make it so rank points can only be gained from unranked/ranked arena. This will negatively impact the prior issue though, as then the PVErs who would rather come to PVP, maybe to unlock the spec before doing the new area, would essentially be forced to play with the pvpers that don’t want them.

3. Increase the hero point gain in WVW
-Hear me out on this, I know it isn’t as bad as it was first predicted, however it still takes around 50 hours of PVD on each character to unlock the new line. That is a long time, and this has led to some zergs cooperating in normal wvw to essentially karma train, which destroys the whole purpose of wvw being a massive player vs player area.
-EOTM is filled with players all out zerging for essentially one purpose, getting HP, badlands players often get the shaft though because other zergs from OG and FR often have much more populated player bases so they can HP train while crushing a smaller BL zerg on occasion, giving them an advantage of more WXP per hour, while badlands has to work extra hard. I say the faster it is to get the HP done and out of the way, the faster we can be back to playing normal WVW, or even just go straight back to normal wvw and end up with the elite specs in a reasonable amount of time just playing.
-It will also be a slight relief to folks that primarily roam, because it would take them ages to get one elite spec under the current system.

4. Make Elite Specs Baseline
-The elite specs don’t really outshine many of the prior core spec lines in a way that many players think that they really are working too hard to unlock something that is not really worth the effort put in.
-The most common counter argument is: “Why should they be handed to you on a silver platter.” Well in all reality they aren’t. First, you paid fifty dollars for an expansion, fifty dollars that at some point in your life you ideally worked a real job to earn. So it is logical to me that many players want to be able to use what they paid for and not have to “work for it” in a game, which should really be about playing and having fun. When a game gets to the point that you have to work to be able to play a core mechanic, you might as well just get a second part time job and earn some real life money on the side than work virtually.
-A more reasonable counterpoint is: “There should be some feeling of progression.” The issue in large with this is that feeling just is not created as the specs are largely gated behind having to play PVE content, and having to get masteries and struggle through content that isn’t enjoyable to players that don’t do open world, or to players that like to go at a casual pace. And is that not the point of the mastery system- to progress your character, I for one enjoy playing the gliding stuff, but hate navigating the new map in a mad rush to unlock what I want for WVW, fractals, dungeons etc…

5. Go back to the old system where you could go to a vendor and refund hero points to switch up your trait line for a few silver.
-This is an idea I saw presented earlier today, so I kinda stole it, but I REALLY LIKE THIS ONE. Essentially you go to a vendor and purchase a refund for hero points and can spend them in unlocking different trait lines. People will still want to get hero points for convenience of not having to revisit the vendor every time they change builds, and it will allow folks to play how they want, keeping the current system to unlock the mastery skins, while allowing players to play the new content in whatever way they would like.
-I haven’t seen the counter-argument to this, though I imagine there is some elitist crumudgeon out there that would gladly come up with one. ( I welcome folks to input their thoughts, I for one would like to see, and if the devs end up implementing something along the lines of this I would like to see it polished… same goes for all the other suggestions.)

6. Allow Hero Points to be purchased through other currencies.
-I have seen many suggestions floating around about having an exchange of spirit shards for hero points, gems for hero points, gold for hero points etc…
-The thing I see as benefits of having hero points being purchasable, is you can have them in exchange for fractal/dungeon tokens, for spirit shards that seem to build up like crazy, allowing people who do those game modes, but not open world PVE or WVW an option that will allow them to continue dungeon running and fractal running in peace.
-Gems I’m kind of torn on, I think this would look bad on A-net, because plenty of players would be prone to buy out of frustration more than just pure support of the game, but at the same time, some people would rather pay a little bit than waste time doing map completion content they don’t enjoy, because after all, time is money.

7. Lower the amount of hero points required to unlock the elite spec, keep 400 for the skins.
-People really enjoy cosmetics in guild wars, that’s why people are willing to work for legendary weapon skins, armor skins etc… It is informally known as fashion wars for a reason.
-Progression and status can be shown through weapon/armor skins, not to mention some of the new skins are worth the time to get, please just don’t make players have to wait for the new core mechanics along with the skins.
-Elitists will argue: “Well veteran players that do all this “hard” work should be able to play more better than all you pugs that don’t like farming hero points in this new map that I’m leet at.” Veteran players get there status from achievement points, weapon skins, fractal level, pvp rank, wvw rank etc… not from being able to play a class that is gated off to a large group of people that, just frankly, don’t enjoy playing the same content as them, or enjoy playing it differently.

These are some of the suggestions I have made, or come across, please feel free to add your own, mixing and matching the suggestions also works, lets let the devs have something to work off of so Gaile isn’t cherrypicking through the thread to find the one person that says “its working as intended.”

Pyriel.4370:

I just finished my Dragonhunter today. I would say moderate is the effort required. It wasn’t too hard, wasn’t too easy.

Maybe a slight lessening of hero points required but not too much.

It’s not the effort that bothers me, it’s the time required. I’ve played for about 9 hours on my Revenant at level 80 doing the Maguuma stuff, WvW etc primarily going for the hero points and I’m still under 100/400 for Herald, in 9 hours. Going at this kind of pace it’ll take me nearly 40 hours for one Elite spec and that doesn’t include me going to play the halloween stuff or exploring the maps for fun. Coupled with my plan to have the Elites on a fair few characters, it’s going to take way too long in my opinion.

The masteries I have no issue with, they were supposed to be the thing to work towards for a long time with HoT. The Elite specs were never hinted to take quite that long.

I know it doesn’t seem like a grind to a lot of people, but for Guild Wars 2 it’s pretty grindy.

I’ve already let it be known that I dislike the current situation, and I’ve explained a lot of why I feel that way, so let’s skip that part and go right to “How would I fix it?”

• Reduce the cost of the new specs to 1/2 what it is now, 200 points.
• Turn all Hero Point Champions into Vets.

And…. for the fix, that’s it. However, let’s go a bit further, shall we?

• Find a new use for excess Hero Points. This one’s entirely optional because they DO have a use until you’ve earned everything, and even then they’re still part of map completion. It won’t hurt anyone to have extra points just sitting around, anyone that does all HP challenges will have that anyway.

• Add a Challenge Mote to all downscaled Hero Point locations that allows a party (1-5 people) enter an instance and take on the full Champion version of the fight. Each one gives a minor token that’s part of a collection to get a special title and maybe a small cosmetic item. (A halo of thorns, for example.)This way, people can still take on the harder fights if they want to, and still get something to show for it.

How Rytlock became a Herald:

One day, he fell into a dimensional fissure. This fissure is filled with air containing mist energy. After inhaling the air, Rytlock begin to fart mist energy. Rytlock is now a Herald.

No, really. He went into the mists to collect 400 Hero Points. That’s why he was gone for so long.

Elite Specializations have no story or lore. They are just there for the sake of offering players more build options. After all, our character were born with talents and magical powers that can’t be explained.

Instead of just collecting 400 Hero Points, Elite Specializations should have taken us, the players, on a journey enriched in lore that pertain to each of the Elite Specializations.

The issues as I see them:

• People have been waiting a long time for new ways to play the professions. For some, the old builds have been “old” for over three years. The HoT reveal was nine months before release. Both of those represent a long time waiting for new ways to play a character.
• While Elite Specs were represented as horizontal progression, the amount of points needed to attain them were not revealed until, what, 4 days before release. Before that — during all the waiting and anticipation — there were two precedents. One was the amount of points needed for core trait unlock. The other was the data mined amount, which was, I believe, 170 points (or thereabouts). Both precedents — which were the only information available — create the impression one could start HoT with an Elite Spec unlocked before doing anything.
• The bombshell regarding how many points it would take to unlock came at the last minute. Not only that, but no one knew until release how much Mastery completion would impact getting to the HoT Challenges.
• Players who ran around like crazy hitting all the HC’s in the base game before release had every reason to expect they would be able to start HoT with the new specs already unlocked. Also, they had no reason to expect they would need to do more HC’s in HOT until a few days ago.
• By valuing HoT challenges @ 10x the ones in the base game, the efforts of those who ran around getting the base game Hero Points were devalued.

The combination of all of these factors led to a mental climate of anticipation and expectation. The reality, when it finally came to light, was and is a big disappointment to those complaining, and doubtless to others who are not. I’ve said it before and I’m saying it now, ANet would be well-served by employing someone with a background in psychology.

What can be learned from the firestorm.

• ANet could be more up-front about their intentions. Letting the expectations of immediate access linger until the last minute was a mistake. They didn’t know the exact details? What would be wrong with, “Elite Specs are intended as a form of horizontal progression that will require you to play through some of the HoT content to obtain. We’re not looking to make this a lengthy delay, but don’t expect to just jump into HoT and play an Elite Spec as soon as it releases. We’ll provide details as we develop a firmer plan.”
• Elite Specs could be unlocked solely with HoT challenges and base game Hero Points could have been used for something else.
• The Hero Points from the base game could have been sufficient to unlock the traits and skills and the HoT challenges could have been used to unlock cosmetics. In addition to the armor/weapon skins, a glider skin might have been a good idea.

I’ll post more thoughts later if more thoughts come. That’s all I’ve got for now. I especially have not addressed the WvW concerns — and that’s mostly because I’m not sure how to, yet.

My big gripe is not that Elite Spec costs hero points, it’s that they far more hero points than the abilities granted are worth! You are paying as much for 1 trait line and a small number of skills as you pay to unlock ALL other skills and traits. For that comparative cost, the Elite Specs should be so OP that you would HAVE to play them to be competitive.

Setting the cost to 2x or even 3x normal for a trait line (120 or 180 HP) would be reasonable. Over 6 1/2 times the cost of a full trait line? Are ANY Elite Specs good enough to justify that cost?

Heres the problem with both specializations, and masteries.

They start off non functional, in an endgame place.

they should quickly give you basic traversal abilities to get you through the beginning areas. Also they should have designed the areas to not beat you in the head with where you cant go in the beginning. Metroid/vania games dont start you off looking at upgrades you cant get to, its hidden areas that you often only realize how to get to them after you obtain new skill 7.

as for specs, they should start you out, or give you one functional spec pretty quickly. You can then unlock extra stuff as you play, without feeling underpowered.

So, basically unlock 1minor 1 major 1 gm of your choice. 1 utility. Then let people pick.
I know people complained in the past of not having goals, and feeling like they have everything they needed to early, but back then you didnt have masteries and content gated based on that.

they also needed way more cosmetics. Those should have been some of the main goals. Get Jungle style armor, get the weapons designed by the hidden forge master, get the armor designed by cutest fashion frog.

problem with gating specs, is you are basically weakening yourself. When you start a new char you are as strong as you can be, or when your level cap goes up. for specs you are weaker, its not really horizontal progression at that point, its linear the whole way, until you are close to the end.

And people who have invested in this game, who are most of the adopters, are not really vertical progression minded

Dear Anet,.

I want to preface my the following statements with my gratitude for working so kitten HoT. In a lot of ways the PvE in this Xpac is far better than that of the original. I have played this game for almost 4 years and I have almost 5k hours of play recorded; however, I have never done a single map comp, or even finished story mode on any of my 6 characters. My game-mode is pvp and wvw. For a long time I have felt like this side of the community gets the short end of the stick on many facets of the game. For instance, one of my major complaints was how I felt punished for being a pvp/wvw player. I could never have a legendary because I didn’t do map comp. Well without breaking bank so to speak. This feeling of punishment has bled into the new Xpac. While you have done a marvelous job making PvE something I want to do, I feel that my 5k hours, maxed pvp rank, and 1800 wvw rank should qualify me for opening an elite specialization. I, like many others, have tons of extra wvw points and spirit shards. The following are my suggestions if you are indeed listening to your player base, which I think you are. : )

1) Let us use our left over wvw rank pts to unlock elite specializations.
2) Award elite specialization progression based on AP points.
3) Add class specific boosters that can be purchased with laurels to enhance the progression of elite specialization.
4) Make elite specialization an account bound achievement, which will provide access to the elite specialization for the normal cost of a specialization when leveling up a new character.
5) Try to consider those people who have spent hours enjoying your game, although it may be different from how you want them to enjoy it, and as is the tradition of time-gating, reward your strong player base who have been here for the long haul.

Anet, again thank you for your hard work and creating an Xpac where the PvE is truly fun! I am looking forward to exploring this new content at my own pace, and with much hope that you will revise the elite specialization mechanics, as it does seem to be an important topic to us (the player base). XD

There is no variety though to get the HoT masteries you do HoT content, the same series of events over and over with slightly different scenery.

What makes it feel so grindy is that they lock the story behind it and lock class functionality behind it.

I don’t mind grinding ten, twenty, thirty million EXP for a fancy looking sword skin.

I do mind grinding out five million to finish a story I started, or more than that to play with new utilities and class functionality.

FinalPatriot.8034:

With how quickly this controversy is growing, why haven’t we received any “official” response from Anet?

You need 500 Mastery points to unlock a Dev response.

Go grind some more.

Levi M.7428:

OMG something you can’t get in one day of playing. OMG. It’s the end of the world. Why don’t they just hand you everything. Cause that’s all I see when I read this post

Then I suggest you work on your reading and comprehension. There is not point in these elite specialistions if by the time they’re unlocked you’ve exhausted all of the expansion content. This is the point of endgame content, to give you something to do with the abilities you earned getting to max level.

Cletus Van Damme.2795:

Guild of 493 members, 150 online, hundreds more logged in since launch. Not one person has talked positively about this Hero Challenge situation.

We ain’t a wvw only guild either

We had 55 online at one time last night, more of course during the evening. Not one person thought gating elite specs in this manner was a good idea.

Start seeking out hero points. Find one on minimap. 50 miles above me. Puzzle out how to get there over a period of 15 minutes. Go up there. Oops, I didn’t allocate enough virtual points into my mushroom garbage in order to do that one yet.

I have a few comments on this whole fiasco.

Upon first zoning into the map, I’m told I have to get a glider. Not by an npc, or in the story, but by some magical text floating above my head. Why isn’t it tied to the story at all, if the story is going to require it? I end up running around in the jungle, absolutely no clue what to do (the scout didn’t help at all, at this point I just want to continue the story) and after 40 minutes of wandering around I finally find the scrap event which nets me some mastery points. Great. Now, do I go to find a specialty npc that helps me craft a glider? No, after wandering around in the jungle for 40 minutes my character just inexplicably has a glider suddenly. For no reason at all. Why are you tying the story to this on a mechanical level if you’re not willing to integrate it at all? If the story-required grinds were actually integrated into the story I would feel much better about the grind.

Yes, it by definition is a grind, not “content.” The difference is that I’m doing an arbitrary, unrelated task that I don’t want to do, as opposed to gathering materials for a glider crafter guy that makes me a glider. It’s almost a subtle nuance, but an important one. I play and have played lots of mmos with ridiculous grind. And yet the time I’ve spent today has felt like a complete slog. Because of this simple reason. It doesn’t feel fun, rewarding, or engaging. To unlock the elite specializations, I’m not venturing into the depths of the jungle to learn new things and adapt my fighting style to the harsh environments of the jungle. I went and zerged events that I didn’t want to do and suddenly my guy knows how to use a hammer. Wow.

Also, about the hero points lockouts. You know Metroid? You run around and shoot stuff and unlock power-ups. Sometimes you see an item you can’t reach, and you might think to yourself, “Oh, I might backtrack later when I get the bombs, then I can get that item.” Some people find this fun. That’s okay. But when you take it to the extreme, like in this expansion, you literally end up with more content that’s locked out than there is to do. It’s not an exaggeration to say that 75% of the hero challenges I went to I couldn’t complete due to lockouts. I’d then just leave, disappointed, and having wasted my time, since it’s hard enough just to GET to some of these things. There needs to be content we can just DO, especially near the start. Or else what the hell else are we going to do? Wander around and just hope to dear god that this next hero point challenge is one we can do with our limited mastery track completion? Because that’s what’s been happening and it’s not fun. If you want to do mushrooms, exalted markings, poison walls, if you want to do those well? You make them 99% optional. You get treasure chests behind poison walls. You find vistas locked behind bouncing mushrooms. You don’t lock the majority of the content of the expansion behind this stuff. Some people bought the expansion solely to try out new elite specializations, and to not be able to play, and not even have an IDEA of how to start unlocking them, because of the terrible hero point system? That stings.

Related point: about the verticality of these maps. I’m not sure if you realized, but some people don’t like it. That’s a fact. And you made an entire expansion revolving around this weird platforming aspect. It’s incredibly difficult to navigate. There needs to be better guidance. Better scouts, better pathing, signs, whatever. I could never tell exactly how to get to a hero challenge because of how the map was laid out. And the only reason I cared about how to get EXACTLY to a hero challenge rather than wandering around, serendipitously finding them, (which I would highly prefer) is because you locked what I wanted to do behind them. So instead of casually and slowly enjoying the expansion it’s become a veritable grindfest of “let’s get this point, now let’s get the next one, I don’t want to be doing this but I have to do it to start enjoying the game.” At least help out the players if you’re going to do this. You’ve made something in GW2 no one has really seen before, so of course people are lost. And that easily turns into frustration, especially when we want to be playing specializations, not trying to figure out the map and the interface and the weird platforming aspects of your new maps.

Finally, I really want to address an argument. From all those players who think they’re special snowflakes and brag about how they can handle the grind, and everyone else should just suck it up and appreciate the “content”. They completely misunderstand the point. It’s not about the grind, it’s about how you presented yourself as a do-it-different company, it’s about how it’s enforced, and it’s about how unrelated the grind is to what we actually want, whether it be progressing the story or unlocking the specializations. It’s about how the things we are forced to do are incredibly terrible and soul-crushing, whether it be grinding for 2 million xp to use a mastery point we already own or finding yet ANOTHER hero challenge that’s locked out to us. Some of us went in with 0 hero points. We’d have to either do every single hero point challenge in Heart of Thorns before we’d get to play our elite specialization in full – which basically means we’d have no content to play the elite specialization as – or we’d have to go back to core Tyria to farm skill points, in order to play the expansion. It’s my deepest fear that these special snowflake apologists are the ones that end up being listened to over anyone else. I mean, you already have our money. For the majority of people, it’s unlikely that they’ll seek refunds if they’re dissatisfied, since that’s a hassle on the consumer’s part, compared to other games where cancelled subs would be a real risk and an immediate and direct revenue loss. It’d be too easy for the Arenanet devs to pat themselves on the back for a job well done and call it a day. You’ve got plenty of sycophantic players who would eat that up in a heartbeat. But you won’t have produced a good game.

By the way, does this post sound bitter? It’s because it is. The devs have already approached this issue, among many others, with a “wait and see” mentality which means that the game is yet again left to fester in an unappreciable state. Let me say I can appreciate the work that went into the expansion. It looks like it would be very fun to play, and sometimes it is. But all these small things add up to really dilute the enjoyable experience, and I hate that I have to live with the idea that the people at Arenanet will never quickly fix anything. It’ll be at least a month, or three, or never, before they fix any of these issues. That’s what we can expect, in no small part due to the people who blindly eat up anything you guys do. “Just enjoy the content slowly you guys! You shouldn’t expect to unlock everything in the first day!”

For a lot of my friends, there wasn’t a second day.

Guild of 493 members, 150 online, hundreds more logged in since launch. Not one person has talked positively about this Hero Challenge situation.

We ain’t a wvw only guild either

My biggest problem with the current system isn’t that it will take a while for those who play casually (though, I certainly understand that that will be a problem for some). My issue is that it goes against the “play how you like” philosophy that the game has seemed to embrace. To use myself as an example: I don’t play Necromancer or Thief to any appreciable degree. I have friends who love them and who excel at them, but they have just never clicked with me or my playstyle. When I leveled them, I did so mostly through scrolls and crafting, in the hopes that I’d cross a magical threshold at 80 that would reveal all their glory to me.

Unfortunately, they didn’t.

But then the funniest thing happened. Of all the elite specs that I played during multiple beta weekends for HoT, I spent the majority of my time on Reaper and Daredevil. What your developers did with those professions was pure magic for me. I loved nearly every moment I played on them. For me, Heart of Thorns wasn’t just an opportunity to do more exploring, it was an opportunity to experience these two professions from a completely different angle… one that I was extremely excited to play. In my opinion, Elite Specializations were best when they weren’t used as an opportunity to “play the same profession, but more” (which is why, despite my love for Mesmer and Warrior, I ended up disappointed that Chronomancer and Berserker just felt like +1 versions of their predecessors).

Now, it turns out, I’m going to have to play quite a bit of the core Necro and Thief before I’m allowed to touch Reaper and Daredevil. And it’s made me re-prioritize my strategy, earning Masteries on other professions so that getting Hero Points for the two elites that I was most excited about becomes as minimally frustrating as possible.

In my perfect scenario, Hero Challenges and Hero Points would work similarly to World XP, where the point totals are account-wide, but they can be spent individually for each character.

As I see it, this would result in the following:

• Hero Challenges worldwide would only have to be completed once, ever. This has the side-effect of making subsequent World Completion attempts slightly less repetitive for those with numerous alts.
• Players would still be required to work their way through Masteries and complete the Hero Challenges. But they’d only have to do so once. As has been stated previously, Guild Wars 2 has lauded its “No-Grind” philosophy in the past. And if it makes sense for Masteries and World XP abilities, then it should make equal sense for Hero Challenges.

Keep in mind, I’m not unhappy with Heart of Thorns overall. We’re just one day in, and I’m already drawn in with more story and more places to explore (which are my two great joys in gaming). The design of the Desert Borderlands has me excited for WvW. And yes, actually playing the finished Elite Specs has me excited as well. But making Hero Points function similar to World XP just seems like the piece of the puzzle that’s conspicuously missing.

Gaile Gray.6029:

No one — especially me — is diminishing the thoughts, concerns, and input on this subject being shared by our forum members. But I believe that it is premature to make a comment about “forever” in the context of a game that has been playable for less than 24 hours.

I stand by that, for it is what I believe. I believe that time will give everyone a better view of this situation. The outcome may be that it’s seen that yes, the difficulty is too high. The outcome may be that eventually, the number is seen as reasonable and properly attainable.

I think that all of us — players and developers alike — do not have sufficient information yet to know what the “sweet spot” is. I suggest we allow us — as players and devs — to attain the necessary info to analyze this situation through gameplay and the passage of time. I want to assure you that I don’t mean months and months, either, but some amount of time on which to base an informed opinion.

I say this especially when I see this post:

Nike.2631:

It been just over 18 hours and I’ve unlocked everything I wanted for my main including the GM I intend to use. Needed one mastery level of gliding and one mastery level of mushroom bounce. Still trying to pick some ‘low-hanging fruit’ Hero Challenges, but basically I’m good to go anywhere.

Day one Dragonhunter. I can live with it. Still need another 90 points for the armor/runes, but I don’t plan to use either so that’s just showing off .

I think the example you chose is unfair to a good number of players, like myself, who are not part of this niche group that enjoys, and is good at map completion. I have under 20% map completion on all my characters, because, even before expansion I did not enjoy that aspect of the game, it made me frustrated, now I come to the new zone and I’m falling off every ledge getting lost, have no idea where to go and in general had a poor experience trying to rush to get the heck out of there.

Well I ended up not getting a single hero point due to my frustration causing me to leave, though I did find the glider quite enjoyable and would like to see that implemented somewhat in wvw if it would be plausible.

Then I went and commanded for an hour and a half in EOTM, with the sole purpose of farming hero point shard things, and only got 17 of those, I don’t like how the elite specs have been so immensely timegated for folks who aren’t like the guy you quoted, we are the ones who feel the shaft the hardest, I’m sure the guy you quoted enjoyed the map completion content much more than myself and other players are.

Some options for players like me would be:
-Make it more reasonable for wvw to get specs, or if you get the spec it unlocks all of them for all characters. B/C it discourages actual wvw play and encourages the player vs. door.
-Make a reward track in pvp to unlock them for the other game modes, this is much more comfortable for myself, and many of my guildies who are struggling in the map completion.
-Add rewards in fractals to purchase the specs.
-Lower the amount of hero points required, significantly, allow players to enjoy the new areas with their new elite specs, instead of dragging on with the builds we have been playing. (other than rev, which I find to be an enjoyable new class, if only I could try out herald…)
-Maybe then make the 400 hero point grind more for the skins, than for the class itself, I think this would be reasonable, and fashion is the content most folks enjoy working towards, whether you enjoy the new “progression” or not, people like working on their own unique wardrobe… and guess what it doesn’t damage the playing experience for any groups of players. Besides, the skins are pretty well done for the most part, I would joyfully play on the elite specs I find exciting for quite some time through normal wvw and what not to get those skins.

And I would respectfully disagree on there not being enough time to see how it pans out. The 400 cap per character is absolutely appalling, and to altoholics like me I would have a heart attack and die going through that map completion on every single one of my alts, over and over again. I can’t even do it once, and don’t plan on going back to the new area until I’m not frustrated about the fact that I’m being forced out of the game areas I enjoy to the area of the game I avoid at all costs to try and rush through the hoarding of hero points, just so I can have my elite spec for the times I do fractals/dungeons/world bosses with friends.

I would just like to comfortably play pvp and wvw without HP training and without worrying about my specs in other game modes, since I model them after my pvp specs as closely as possible.

Thank you Gaile for sticking your head in the fire again, it’s good to see the devs looking into a solution to this.

I feel like something that really needs to be highlighted is the experience of this system for Heralds/Revs. Every single Revenant is starting from scratch, and the class is particularly affected by the heavy gating. Due to the nature of legends, a new Herald is basically stuck with a shield and Facet of Nature for a LONG time, in addition to the usual incomplete talent tree. Taking Glint is a straight up LIABILITY for a long time because you can’t just fill in the facets you don’t have yet with something else. It feels like a punishment, and because of how many points you need the ‘journey’ ends up feeling more like a hurdle to pass. This is the elite for the NEW class that should, and one which many deem game changing for the class, yet it’s gated behind most of the new content. Which is such a huge shame.

I’m not stranger to grinding. I grinded Netherwing rep like a mofo in Burning Crusade, and knew the flight paths for that like the back of my hand. Hell, I played EQ back in the day and got my Magician Epic 1.0 which included camping the notoriously-difficult-to-find Quillmane for a week; I turned in wine for hours to get friendly with the Dark Elves and killed undead frogloks for days on end for an illusion clicky. But….I was also 13 years old, and playing MMOs in an era where grind was expected.

The rest of this game has minimal grind, and this just doesn’t synergize with it at all. And weirdly enough, Heralds are the prime example of that: legends are made with the assumption that minimal grind is needed for a leveling character to fill out a legend’s track, and specs are(more generally speaking) laid out similarly. To suddenly have a spec that adds a legend at end-game in hard PvE content which you can’t quickly flesh out, and a trait line which you similarly can’t flesh out quickly(yet are required to take), throws the gameplay of a progressing Herald off. Because the game isnt balanced around progressing characters because basic character progression should be quick. Masteries are amazing(they remind me of AA points, speaking of EQ) and serve the mildly-grindy progression role well already. We really don’t need, nor want, Elites to serve that role either.

Elite trait line should cost exactly the same as any other trait line. Elites really aren’t any better than existing professions…. some are better, some are worse… The unlocking part should be for the unique armors and weapons that are elite based.. Why throw all that junk in with the trait lines anyway???? We want to play the elites…..

I feel like ANet dove in headfirst into this concept they mentioned about trying to “stretch” content so there’s less pressure to produce new material and as a result packed every last square inch of the game with gold sinks and time sinks, not thinking about how that degrades the actual gameplay experience. Everywhere I turn in HoT I’m met with hurdle after hurdle after hurdle. There’s NOTHING in this expansion to just dive into. It’s all gated behind gold, or masteries, or hero challenges. All of it.

You can’t try the new PvP amulets or runes without paying a horrendous 10g a pop for them. You can’t advance the personal story without grinding out gliding mastery. You can’t play your elite spec. You can’t start a precursor collection. You can’t do anything at all without first paying a massive price in time or money to “unlock” it.

And there was feedback on this in previous BWEs. And there was feedback on the elite spec unlocks prior to launch. And no one likes having to pay 10g for the few amulets and runs already gated in pvp. Players have zero indication they were interested in this approach and numerous indications that they were opposed to it.

And somewhere here we are anyhow.

By using the word “elite” to describe the new trait lines for each profession, Anet thinks that justifies grinding out 400 hero points just to achieve it. Some of those “elite” trait lines and corresponding new weapons aren’t as good as the original profession’s(looking at you Tempest). Now if I am wrong and those “elites” truly are more powerful and worth all those shiny hero points then we would have a pay to win issue(non-expansion players vs expansion players) These really aren’t elites they are more like alternate professions. 400 hero points is ludicrous.

Veneratio.1980:

Um no. The majority are playing the game and loving it. The very small yet vocal minority are here whingin about it.

Ah yes. The same thing John Smedley said during the NGE fiasco of SWG.

Shortly afterwards SWG lost most of it player base.. and were forced to refund the cost of an expansion to any player who asked for it. The magnitude of the mistakes made were reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Great reasoning there.