Guild Wars 2

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Anet wants players to actually play the game? And you’re complaining about that?

I have no words…

Elite Specializations introduce unique play mechanics that are a core part of the HoT expanshion from a play mechanic standpoint. It makes sense most players would prefer a play mechanic aspect of the game to be something available you play the game through with not something you receive as a reward for finishing the game. Those going into HoT whe need the 400 points are looking at a very long grind. Not just for the Hero Points needed (which goes beyond the second map, but also Mastery’s needed to get there.

I realize you see the Elite Specializations as something that should be worked for. I respect that and agree to an extent. Having to finish perhaps 20-25% of the HoT content to do full functional unlock (e.g. all Elite Spec Trail lines and Utility skills, but no elite skins or weapon mods) is acceiptible, but as it’s implemented a player coming in without core game map compleition has to do about 70-75% of the HoT content before being able to construct an effective build for the level 80 maps in HoT. As implemented the Elite Specializations are essentially rewards for finishing HoT and not designed for a player to play though the game with them.

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 .

Im pretty sure the OP was using the term ‘forever’ in the slang parlance meaning longer than I envisaged/planned or wanted to take on a particular thing…

eg ‘Forever is a colloquial exaggeration, understood as “a very long time”.’

‘take forever – to happen very slowly I have an old microwave, the kind that takes forever to boil a cup of water. In rush-hour traffic, it takes forever to get home’

I just don’t think verbal eye rolling about a dramatic turn of phrase negates a valid point..and using one persons comments against another to make your point when the kittens flying is bad form really…

The vast majority of people on this topic are saying the same thing. We expected to be able to play the much touted elites within a reasonable time after release, and for that majority the 16,18,40 hrs or w/e it takes is just ridiculous.

The majority feels that mastery’s themselves are ok, but that locking them to elite’s is not.

The majority feels that personal elites should not be tied into group success scenarios.

The majority feels they should not have to play through most of the new HoT pve zones just to play how they want to play. That by doing so a grind mentality happens and the areas themselves become that, instead of adventures.

The majority feels that the wvw grind isn’t all that much better, because people want to be fighting using their new abilities and not mindlessly running in swarms just for the sake of a nuisance gate.

The majority with many alts are worried about the hundreds of additional hours of “gameplay” necessary to run around with specs they’re tired of simply to play the way they want to play

The majority feels they were promised new exiting roles to try and only upon entering HoT have they realized that their elites will be crippled to the tune of many many hours (which for many working people accounts for days and weeks of not being able to use their new spec) x any alt they have or may wish to create in the future and that this particular hero point system becomes a grind for fun.

The minority wishes for everything to take a long time to complete, and believes time itself gives satisfaction in all areas of the game.

The minority is afraid that if Anet caves on the elite grind they may do so in other areas of the game, no matter how many times the majority tells the minority this is not a global time involvement complaint, but simply restricted to elite hero point grind.

This is definitely a hot button issue right now and one that has attracted many people to voice their opinions.

Also Ty Gaile, for coming back on this topic and saying what you did about monitoring the concern for not an extraordinary amount of time before perhaps making some adjustments. Also ty for saying that it wasn’t your desire to diminish the concerns of people.

Why shouldn’t we have elites day one? I mean Rytlock got his elite day 1 of the expansion. Yes, I know he went into the mists and had some mystical experience or whatever. Well heck, our characters took down Zhaitan, Scarlet Briar saving Lion’s Arch, and we haven’t learned some awesome new skills along the way??? Come on… make it a story thing… I wanted to play through the expansion as an elite. There is already a mastery system that is supposed to mark your progression in HoT.

I think the main issue here is people that want to play the content. The masteries while it seemed like a great idea just seems very lackluster. For those of us that just want to do the story, we are pretty much forced to bear with mindnumbing events that don’t even spawn that often over and over again just to get 2-4% completion. It doesn’t even really feel like you are getting anywhere. The masteries, instead of being an engaging component of the game just feels like a stupid and frustrating hurdle to get over in order to experience the main content.

Hell, if it were something like doing hearts to get your masteries up, it would be infinite times better because at least that isn’t really that repetitive and you would get rewards for completing the hearts.

And about the hero points. 400 might be a tad too much for just one trait line and the skills IMO. I honestly don’t have a huge problem with it except you pretty much have to go into the heart of maguuma and look for the hero points. Now this wouldn’t be a problem if you didn’t need the kitten masteries to get most of these hero points. And you can’t pick and choose which traits you want either. For those who just want to do WvW it kind of forces them into this uncomfortable and awkward position.

Basically, it’s as if we have to embrace the grind in order to experience the main content. It wouldn’t be so terrible if they just executed the masteries part better and actually made that "cooler, interesting and rewarding" because in itself it isn’t. Outside of being a hurdle to map completion and living story it doesn’t seem to serve much of a purpose. It’s just pointless filler in order to stretch the content. If you want to stretch the content, make more content, or make the filler at least add to the overall experience of experiencing the content if that makes sense.

Before I couldn’t care less about living story, I just recently did it and I thought it was actually pretty cool. Now, this whole masteries crap just pretty much put me off from it.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Spurrlock.3219:

The common denominator is not “I don’t want to play to unlock this,” its “I don’t want to grind masteries for 20+ hours and burn through new PvE content to enjoy the rest of the game with new elite specs,” such as dungeons, fractals, wvw, etc.

Example:

• When you create a new character, do you expect to go off and kill Zhaitan at level 1?
• In real life, do you expect to register for college, and walk away with a 4 year degree on your first day of school?

Simply play the game. HoT is an expansion that offers new skills. Logically, your character would need to learn and master the new skills, not just walk around and instantly become Elite. If you really want to get those new skills, you gotta earn them.

Your build is NOT content!
Your build is how you PLAY content!
Being arbitrarily blocked from experiencing content because of MULTIPLE overlayed gatekeeping systems isn’t fun, creative, or engaging no matter how you attempt to twist it. So why are you defending it?

Welp. After about 5 hours of playing I think it’s entirely possible that I’ll have uninstalled the game before ever unlocking my elite spec. I want to like this game so much, and I tend to have some fun when I play with my guild, but since I had to switch back to grenade spec because my gimpy unfinished elite spec wasn’t good enough to actually contribute to claiming our guild hall, I just have 0 interest in logging back in to go try and find more hero points.

Maybe I’ve just outgrown MMOs, but I am sick of games that are designed to make me do a bunch of boring stuff before I can have fun. (I already have to do a bunch of boring stuff before I can have fun, and that’s called my job.)

I bought the expansion because it sounded like it was going to make Engineer fresh and fun to play, and add in a whole new area in which to figure it out. Then, I fire it up, and find out that I can’t play my fresh new main until I’ve already finished the whole new area. Not only does that mean that combat will be boring all through the whole area, but the experience will be marred because I will be moving through the area with the motive of unlocking the thing I want to do, rather than a desire to follow the story or explore the map.

All in all it’s just a major disappointment. I preordered against my better judgement due to hype from guild members, and I’m now wishing I hadn’t. Had I known I would have to grind for the elite spec, I probably wouldn’t have bought in until that got changed.

I have a full time job and a family and probably the sole reason I play gw instead of some other mmo’s is the almost complete lack of a grind. I left some months ago to take a break, which of course I always can do without having to worry about falling behind in some stupid grind.

So I come back for HoT to get a fresh experience on my mesmer playing a new spec, only to find there is a grind to unlock it. Spending many hours (anything over 4 is many imo) to actually play the spec I bought HoT to play is horrible.

Taking time to work for ascended gear is great, grinding for professions to craft cool looking stuff is great. Grinding for core functionality that was probably the biggest selling point for many is kittening kittened. If it takes 16h of play that is literally weeks for me. Moreover is kittening insulting and childish of Anet to make it this way. Just let people unlock the elites with gold or whatever so I can go through the content at my own extremely slow pace enjoying the new spec along the way.

So here I am the day after release thinking about getting a refund, or at least waiting till they fix this. One thing is for sure: I’m not kittening grinding in a game that is all about “play how you want” and no grinding.

A significant portion of the playerbase in gw2 is actually very opposed to being forced into things; we don’t need to be given “things to work for,” I already have enough of those, you know, like the kittening money I worked for to blow on this kittened expac.

Anet made it years without a single mandatory grind comparable at all to this. Fix this kitten.

The vast majority of people on this topic are saying the same thing. We expected to be able to play the much touted elites within a reasonable time after release, and for that majority the 16,18,40 hrs or w/e it takes is just ridiculous.

The majority feels that mastery’s themselves are ok, but that locking them to elite’s is not.

The majority feels that personal elites should not be tied into group success scenarios.

The majority feels they should not have to play through most of the new HoT pve zones just to play how they want to play. That by doing so a grind mentality happens and the areas themselves become that, instead of adventures.

The majority feels that the wvw grind isn’t all that much better, because people want to be fighting using their new abilities and not mindlessly running in swarms just for the sake of a nuisance gate.

The majority with many alts are worried about the hundreds of additional hours of “gameplay” necessary to run around with specs they’re tired of simply to play the way they want to play

The majority feels they were promised new exiting roles to try and only upon entering HoT have they realized that their elites will be crippled to the tune of many many hours (which for many working people accounts for days and weeks of not being able to use their new spec) x any alt they have or may wish to create in the future and that this particular hero point system becomes a grind for fun.

The minority wishes for everything to take a long time to complete, and believes time itself gives satisfaction in all areas of the game.

The minority is afraid that if Anet caves on the elite grind they may do so in other areas of the game, no matter how many times the majority tells the minority this is not a global time involvement complaint, but simply restricted to elite hero point grind.

This is definitely a hot button issue right now and one that has attracted many people to voice their opinions so anet will, and I hope soon, address it with more than just snarky remark towards people who just bought their game.

Veneratio.1980:

At 5 cents it’s overpriced!

Glad it takes a little bit of work to achieve things. If it was too easy people would be kittening in a week that they had finished. Anet can’t win.

Personally……love what they’ve made.

As I’ve said, the maps, masteries etc I’m fine with them being challenging, but the amount of work required just to unlock a new play style is against everything anet have worked toward. I would be loving the new maps and be thoroughly enjoying grinding masteries, if i was doing them on an elite spec, and if i wasn’t so peeved about how they went about unlocking elite spec. The masteries could take literally months to complete, i wouldn’t care as long as i could do them on an elite spec.

Gaile Gray.6029:

No one — especially me — is diminishing the thoughts, concerns, and input on this subject being share 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 if 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 to get the info with the passage of time.

The difficulty isn’t too high. The fact that by the time you get it, you’ve already gone through more than half the maps is the issue. If they were all put in the first area, there would at least be three maps to experience at our own pace and explore for the sake of exploring instead of because we’re forced to in order to get the class mechanics (Which were designed to fill holes in the base classes) to function fully.

I’m adding my 5 cents worth on this argument because everyone else is, and I want something to change. The amount of work required to unlock our elite spec is absolutely a joke.

We have to play almost 80% of the new HoT content as old spec characters before we can completely unlock our elite spec, by which time we’ve finished all the content and have a brand new shiny elite spec’d character to.. what? Farm SW with apparently, coz we’ve finished all the new HoT content. And no, this does not make me self entitled as a lot of you seem to think. I didn’t expect to log into game and have instant elite spec unlocked, however, I also didn’t want to have to do all the new content as old classes. I wanted to play the new shiny content as a new shiny elite spec, is that so much to ask?

I’m fine with having to do some work to unlock the elite specs, but 400 hero points? Considering world map completion gives us 214, thats half way there. You could do the 40 available jungle challenges, but most of them are gated behind masteries. Now I love the mastery system and I think its brilliant, but the fact we have to unlock masteries just to be able to unlock core elite skills is just absurd.

For those of you who say “its all anets way of increasing the lvl cap”, wrong. Masteries is anets way of endgame progression, in other words, “increasing the level cap”, but elite specialisations is not. It is a new way of playing our characters, but unfortunately its gated behind all the other content we have to unlock first.

So much of what Anet has done in this xpac is very cutting edge, forward thinking ideas for MMORPGs, changing the concept of what it is to play an MMO, but unfortunately the way elite specs are unlocked is a huge backward step for Anet and I am hugely disappointed with it.

Once again, just to reiterate, I don’t expect it handed to me, I just dont want to spend weeks completing content just to unlock it, I want to unlock it so i can spend weeks completing content as a new exciting elite spec.

TLDR; I really, really do not think it is too much to ask to be able to play the new shiny content as a new shiny elite spec’d class. and I really, really hope that Anet see the error their ways in this and do something about it.

logan.5846:

The saddest thing of all is that many of the elite specs aren’t worth the trouble. For the amount of time & effort required they should be total game changers, but unless you’re a Necro, Mesmer or Revenant, they’re more of a novelty than a necessity.

Yeah, that’s why I’m not going to bother unlocking druid on my ranger main. Druid is just not worth it to me atm.

However, revenant feels very incomplete without Herald so I’m going to have to grind that one. And I really want reaper for my necro. sighs

To have to do both mastery grind and hp grind is horribly dull. I’m ok with the mastery thing, but the 400 pt requirement for the elite spec is just too much. And it doesn’t help that many of the hp in the new maps are either a pain to get to, you need a certain mastery for it, and/or they are champions that require a group. Not cool Anet, not cool at all. What’s going to happen when the map inevitably empties out and someone wants to run an alt through?

Spurrlock.3219:

No one’s putting a gun to my head but I’m definitely being forced to complete a large portion of the jungle before the rest of the content. And that sucks because I’m loving the jungle. Its beautiful and awesome and I want to take my time with it, but more than that I want to be able to use elite specs because that effects every other stream of gw2 content, so it looks like I’m rushing the jungle.

In a perfect world I could enjoy the jungle with my elite spec, instead being forced to (nearly) complete the jungle if I want to use that elite spec in dungeons, fractals, wvw, and guild halls.

I feel more or less the same way. When I played through the story, I waited months locking myself out of anything vaguely story related until they fixed it after the NPE changes so that I wouldn’t ruin the experience for myself, then when going through it talked to every NPC, exhausted the entire dialogue of each, and stopped occasionally just to savor it.

With the way that this is structured, locking class mechanics designed to fix holes in the base classes behind going through multiple maps, thus forcing a mad dash through it in order to get the points to play the class I want to play though HoT with really ruined any sense of atmosphere. I finally finished it, but now I’m familiar with more than half of the maps in the expansion.

The hero point gating completely ruined half of the open world form me by turning it into a scavenger hunt instead of an adventure that I can go through at my own pace for its own sake. If they’d given my the option, I’d have just secluded myself in PvP to avoid spoiling it until I had everything that I needed to play through in a continuous way, but SPvP was given no methods with which to progress masteries or skill points.

The whole idea that we were sold the game on was that the game was supposed to be enjoyable to play because it’s fun, not so that we could prepare to have fun and then have fun after.

ZombieLeach.5862:

shagwell.1349:

The only good thing about this grind is that I’ll never buy another copy of HoT for my 2nd account. – which I intended before.
I prefer spending my money on things I like and I don’t like running another 5 toons through pve to play on another server.
I’m not sure if even half of my main accounts toons will ever have 400 points..

Don’t be so hasty to judge. The expansion has been out less than a day at this point so there are some balance issues that inevitably need to be ironed out. Anet has a tendency to dial things back so give it time. In the mean time, how many points do you thin would be adequate for the Elite Specializations?

Make it 60 like the rest under the condition that you need to unlock the core lines first. For 1 character it would take a short time to accomplish, would make it totally fair in the case of the Revenants and would push allow players to work on their alternative characters that way.

For the time required to farm 400 points for a single character, you would be able to do it on 3 characters for the same amount of effort, making it much more realistic and allowing players to enjoy a much hype feature about the HoT.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Spurrlock.3219:

The common denominator is not “I don’t want to play to unlock this,” its “I don’t want to grind masteries for 20+ hours and burn through new PvE content to enjoy the rest of the game with new elite specs,” such as dungeons, fractals, wvw, etc.

Example:

• When you create a new character, do you expect to go off and kill Zhaitan at level 1?
• In real life, do you expect to register for college, and walk away with a 4 year degree on your first day of school?

Simply play the game. HoT is an expansion that offers new skills. Logically, your character would need to learn and master the new skills, not just walk around and instantly become Elite. If you really want to get those new skills, you gotta earn them.

Your examples are flat out stupid and do not reflect my feelings towards the road to elite specs. I have no problem having to earn the new skills. My problem is with the process in place. I’ll elaborate below.

Bellatrixa.3546:

Spurrlock.3219:

The common denominator is not “I don’t want to play to unlock this,” its “I don’t want to grind masteries for 20+ hours and burn through new PvE content to enjoy the rest of the game with new elite specs,” such as dungeons, fractals, wvw, etc.

Only because playing the content has somehow become ‘grind’. I’ve spent my time taking part in events, earning rewards and my masteries level as a result. Is that not how it’s meant to work? If I was going to get everything maxed as soon as the game went live, or in the 20+ hours quoted, I’d have seen it as an epic waste of money as imo a game is there to be played over a long period of time. I don’t care that I’ve not maxed my Reaper traits and all masteries in one day, means there’s more stuff for me to do tomorrow. No one’s putting a gun to anyone’s head and saying ‘sit there for however long it takes and don’t move until these things are maxed’. If you’re bored of working on traits, do some Halloween, do some fractals, do some WvW. It’s not like there’s a shortage of stuff to do in game (or out of it and trust me, there is an outside world!).

I too wish to milk the content for a long period of time, to enjoy it. I play all the content gw2 has to offer. The problem is that I want to enjoy this content with new elite specs. This is paramount to understanding why so many people are dissatisfied: we want to play the elite specs.

Because of this, “just do some fractals or wvw or go play tennis if you get bored with masteries” – that argument right there doesnt work because I’ve done all of those things for years now and I would like to spice it up with elite specs.

No one’s putting a gun to my head but I’m definitely being forced to complete a large portion of the jungle before the rest of the content. And that sucks because I’m loving the jungle. Its beautiful and awesome and I want to take my time with it, but more than that I want to be able to use elite specs because that effects every other stream of gw2 content, so it looks like I’m rushing the jungle.

In a perfect world I could enjoy the jungle with my elite spec, instead being forced to (nearly) complete the jungle if I want to use that elite spec in dungeons, fractals, wvw, and guild halls.

hurrado.2346:

ZombieLeach.5862:

I understand people’s frustration, the game has been out about a day shouldn’t you have everything already? It’s what Anet has done in the past; why not now? 400 hero points should be like 40, right? To be real, I expected this hate outburst. Anet adds harder content and everyone who just wants their stuff now crawls out of the woodwork. Just chill. You have a right to complain but senseless hate won’t help. Make suggestions, offer solutions, and try to make the experience better for everyone not worse with venom. :/

No, you don’t understand the frustration, the problem is forced map completion, which to many players is a grind because they play different game modes. And even many who enjoy map completion would like to enjoy the new zones as the elite specs.

All the elitist attitudes of: “well you better work hard” on a game is ridiculous. Most players are here to have fun, not get frustrated because they are gated from enjoying a core part of the game.

Jobs in real life are for hard work, a game is for relaxation, fun with friends, and get what you payed for, not a frustration bucket. As a primarily wvw and pvp player I was banging my head against my desk just trying to figure out the new zone, not even getting hero points yet, because it took me so long and I was so frustrated at the specs being locked behind masteries on top of map completion which I hate. (there is a reason the most map completion I have on any character is 20%.)

Besides the fact that I’m not an elitist (I’m a casual pve/rper with 12 characters, and a full time job) the points I was trying to make are these:

1. Venom and anger help no one and do nothing but damage the overall community and alienate those that enjoy what you hate.
2. The expansion just launched, give it time. I’m sure they’ll change most everything within the next few days due to feedback. Slow your roll and speak up in a constructive manner, not destructive.
3. You have a right to complain, BUT offer solutions that would make your preferred game mode more enjoyable. This makes your posts more enjoyable to read by the devs and gives them ideas for positive changes. Saying, “I hate __!” tells them nothing; something like, “I would like _ changed to _ because of __!” says a lot more and offers what you consider is an acceptable change.

p.s. I’ll end this post with and apology. I added venom to this thread which was not my intention. I read posts on my phone, at work, during a break and the venom irritated me so I got sarcastic and over simplified my points due to lack of time.

Elite specs should cost the same 60hp like any other line under the condition that it is unlockable only after the core lines are achieved.

This would be fair, totally realistic when you have a lot of characters to work on and hell its is what we are used to anyways with the core lines so continue the trend F-F_S

Yea…. id LOVE to try reaper but…. looks like ill have to play through the entire kitten game before I get to what?… replay it with the spec I want?….. just stupid

wow, are you people that are defending this just stupid? How did you level up and get points when game came out? oh yea, it was through random dynamic events, hearts, story, you had variety. This is nothing but grind the same boring escort and defense events over and over.

ZombieLeach.5862:

I understand people’s frustration, the game has been out about a day shouldn’t you have everything already? It’s what Anet has done in the past; why not now? 400 hero points should be like 40, right? To be real, I expected this hate outburst. Anet adds harder content and everyone who just wants their stuff now crawls out of the woodwork. Just chill. You have a right to complain but senseless hate won’t help. Make suggestions, offer solutions, and try to make the experience better for everyone not worse with venom. :/

No, you don’t understand the frustration, the problem is forced map completion, which to many players is a grind because they play different game modes. And even many who enjoy map completion would like to enjoy the new zones as the elite specs.

All the elitist attitudes of: “well you better work hard” on a game is ridiculous. Most players are here to have fun, not get frustrated because they are gated from enjoying a core part of the game.

Jobs in real life are for hard work, a game is for relaxation, fun with friends, and get what you payed for, not a frustration bucket. As a primarily wvw and pvp player I was banging my head against my desk just trying to figure out the new zone, not even getting hero points yet, because it took me so long and I was so frustrated at the specs being locked behind masteries on top of map completion which I hate. (there is a reason the most map completion I have on any character is 20%.)

Smooth Penguin.5294:

leftyboy.9358:

Gaile gray’s post implies people who have a problem with long grind for their basic elite skills and traits are in some way just silly.

But… all the complaints are silly. The common denominator for all of them is “I don’t want to play to unlock this, I want it now.” Anet Devs said previously that they pay attention to legitimate complaint posts, the ones that actually provide constructive feedback. And they take that feedback and make changes to the game.

Edit – Somewhere buried in the forums, Colin or MO actually gave examples of changes they made based on player feedback.

The common denominator is not “I don’t want to play to unlock this,” its “I don’t want to grind masteries for 20+ hours and burn through new PvE content to enjoy the rest of the game with new elite specs,” such as dungeons, fractals, wvw, etc.

Conner.5803:

Would’ve loved to see it being 200 heropoints and that HoT heropoints were worth 5 points each. That way you could chose to do Tyria OR HoT map completions to unlock your elite spec.

How about instead of just being in PVE open world content, on top of that, they allow more efficient ways to get Hero Points in SPVP reward tracks, Fractal rewards, from dungeons, from wvw that doesn’t require a year of playing to get 1 spec line…. etc…

People should be able to play how they want and not be penalized by not being able to obtain a core part of something that they PAID a decent amount of money for.

Rococo.8347:

cygnus.8913:

Gaile Gray.6029:

DarcShriek.5829:

The mastery system as only been available for 15 hours. Your complaining about it being forever is just pure over dramatization. Congratulations on being awarded the William Shatner award for dramatic excellence.

First, thank you for saying, in your first sentence, my very thoughts: “It’s been less than 16 hours, and that’s ’forever?” Secondly, thanks for a smile. I’d love to see the statue that goes with that award.

I know you’re just trying to inject some levity, but in a thread full of unhappy players, a response like that is like a drunken Facebook post – if players still feel the same way a week from now, two weeks from now, about this system, you’ll never live that kind of flippancy down in the community.

First rule of dealing with complaints – you can acknowledge how a person feels about something without agreeing with them. Try it, you’ll get people on side.

I think Gaile does a grand job most of the time of what is frankly a thankless task of listening to and appeasing two groups who want different things whilst having to answer to the third who pays her rent – but I saw this type of thing before in the Traits thread and its really soured me after months of patiently calling out issues – I only hope peoples unhappiness with this is not going to be a repeat of that debacle.

Myself – ive read around, ive not been able to play today because of lag and it seems that slow though it will be my best bet is to gather enough Hero points in WvW then move into the Jungle only when I have enough to at least be able to move around the map with Glider and Mushroom help as vertical maps tied to content blocks dependant on hero points locked within said maps is a total turn off to me.

People should be able to move around without having to cover most of the expansions maps to be able to become the spec they want to play as – crikey even WoW wouldn’t pull this sort of rubbish.

It is a thankless job and as the forum ‘face’, you’re going to be the pinata. There’s no response that will make everyone happy and it’s not in your power to make the sort of decisions that will make people happy. I do understand, I’m engaged to a game dev who has as you can imagine interactions with community people.

But on the other side of the coin myself, as just someone who plays games and has read a lot of forums over the years, humour is just misplaced as the first thing to use when players are complaining in these numbers. It just says to the readers that you took the time to read the posts but didn’t think they were worth addressing. And perception is everything, not what you intended.

cygnus.8913:

Ansau.7326:

Ok, done some farming of hero points in WvW and here are the results:
- Time spent: 4h.
- Way spended: Pure PvD optimized farming (karma train, killing all guards, trying always to get catas or rams…).
- Bonus: I have the celebration bonus which gives +100% WvW experience.
- Hero points gained: 41.

Doing maths, I will need 80h per character of pure PvD farming, or 40h with WvW experience boost.

I need to get, at least, 2 full elite specializations, which will require 80h of pure farming. I’ve played about 2500h since the game started, so I need to spend more than 3% of the time I’ve spent in this game in intensive PvD farming to be able to use skills and traits.

This is blatantly ridiculous and there’s no way this can be considered character progression.

I don’t think 40 hours is too bad (I know your example is with a booster) to max out the spec. I’d be happy with that – it’s pretty much what a traditional MMO would have you do to obtain ten levels.

Time should be counted as 80h, since 40 is with 2 celebration boosters spent (which is something not everybody has, neither you can buy).

But the worst thing is pretty much the optimized time in perfect PvD farming, which is not like dungeon farming. If your server doesn’t have a blob capping everything, or if eotm theres no karma train when you connect, needed time gets increased alarmingly.

For example, with roaming it’s arguably impossible.

Ok, done some farming of hero points in WvW and here are the results:
- Time spent: 4h.
- Way spended: Pure PvD optimized farming (karma train, killing all guards, trying always to get catas or rams…).
- Bonus: I have the celebration bonus which gives +100% WvW experience.
- Hero points gained: 41.

Doing maths, I should need 80h per character of pure PvD farming, or 40h with WvW experience boost.

I need to get, at least, 2 full elite specializations, which will require more than 80h of pure farming (since I only have 3 celebration boosters). I’ve played about 2500h since the game started, so I need to spend nearly 4% of the time I’ve spent in this game in intensive PvD farming to be able to use skills and traits.

This is blatantly ridiculous and there’s no way this can be considered character progression.

Would’ve loved to see it being 200 heropoints and that HoT heropoints were worth 5 points each. That way you could chose to do Tyria OR HoT map completions to unlock your elite spec.

Gaile Gray.6029:

DarcShriek.5829:

The mastery system as only been available for 15 hours. Your complaining about it being forever is just pure over dramatization. Congratulations on being awarded the William Shatner award for dramatic excellence.

First, thank you for saying, in your first sentence, my very thoughts: “It’s been less than 16 hours, and that’s ’forever?” Secondly, thanks for a smile. I’d love to see the statue that goes with that award.

I know you’re just trying to inject some levity, but in a thread full of unhappy players, a response like that is like a drunken Facebook post – if players still feel the same way a week from now, two weeks from now, about this system, you’ll never live that kind of flippancy down in the community.

First rule of dealing with complaints – you can acknowledge how a person feels about something without agreeing with them. Try it, you’ll get people on side.

Gaile Gray.6029:

DarcShriek.5829:

The mastery system as only been available for 15 hours. Your complaining about it being forever is just pure over dramatization. Congratulations on being awarded the William Shatner award for dramatic excellence.

First, thank you for saying, in your first sentence, my very thoughts: “It’s been less than 16 hours, and that’s ’forever?” Secondly, thanks for a smile. I’d love to see the statue that goes with that award.

Wow. Just wow.

First someone from aNet FINALLY comments about the grind problem with hero points after THOUSANDS of posts complaining about it, but not only do you NOT even address the problem, you actively encourage verbally putting down players that are voicing their opinions using hyperbole to make their point.

Wow. I can’t even. I’m Disgusted with that comment Gaile.

Just 40 HoT heropoints they said…. You’ll be done in no time, they said….