Guild Wars 2

displacedTitan.6897:

Yes his analogy was totally ridiculous and very poorly thought out. It made my day as well.
As if doing jumping jacks was GRINDING… I LOVE jumping jacks and thus it isn’t GRINDING to me. Wearing those 3D glasses though is GRINDY just to watch the ENDING of the movie that I PAID for! The nerve of them! Why would you RUIN my movie with those 3D glasses after giving me some AMAZING jumping jacks!!!!!!!!!

well if you think that the 3D glasses should be the end of the movie.. I think they should help enjoy the movie experience..

Tapioca.9062:

The best part is that they told me I actually had to do four hundred jumping jacks but because I was doing them at that cinema every jumping jack actually counted for ten. What a bargain, right? They also told me that the two-hundred jumping jacks I’d done earlier would give me access to half of the 3D glasses. It was a pretty exciting day.

I love you <3

Swagger.1459:

So maybe we will have all the hero point challenges lined up at the zone entrance for us?

That would be a great compromise I think

Unlikely but it would be a nice surprise. With so many people entering HOT all at once it would basically be run up, get in a hit or two if there is a guard, then commune or grab the item.

I doubt anyone expects that though. Which makes it all the more annoying when people go ‘oh, it is only 40 HPs, that is easy’.

Rococo.8347:

Elites were never considered to be ‘progression’ systems – that was Masteries – Elites were supposed to be an ALTERNATIVE game play spec – you don’t block access to them behind completing the entire vanilla spec

This is exactly how they laid out the whole progressions system excluding legendary weapons and gear, which were expected to be a grind. The masteries were to be our replacement to leveling and frankly I have no issue with that at all and enjoy the thought of working towards that but I have a major problem with this last minute addition. Nobody expected to have to dump points into specs and traits they have no intention of using before being able to unlock the elites. This was omitted because they knew there would be backlash and it doesn’t matter how you try and color that it was simply wrong to do so.
As of now it’s a mute point but I can tell you that I’ve learned my lesson and won’t be dumping cash in advance for anymore expansions unless the major points of functionality are laid out clearly from the onset.

Smokin Dice.9103:

Tapioca.9062:

displacedTitan.6897:

I remember the last time I went to a movie, I DEMANDED that they show me the ending right away because that’s what I really wanted. Instead they FORCED me to GRIND the rest of the movie before showing me the ending that I PAID for. I cant believe people would do this! They are ruining their movie! Turning it into nothing but a GRINDY CASH GRAB!!!!!!

I was just thinking of that time I had to do 20 – 40 jumping jacks before I was allowed to have my 3D glasses. And then I had to see the movie nine different times. What an absolute delight of an experience that wasn’t a chore at all.

hahahahahaha made my day, thank you. :’D
so rediculous..

The best part is that they told me I actually had to do four hundred jumping jacks but because I was doing them at that cinema every jumping jack actually counted for ten. What a bargain, right? They also told me that the two-hundred jumping jacks I’d done earlier would give me access to half of the 3D glasses. It was a pretty exciting day.

Smokin Dice.9103:

DoctorDing.5890:

Anyhow, getting back to the point. I fully support the OP’s right to cry about something that the OP considers to be unreasonable, even though it is not unreasonable.

Maybe the devs will see the OP’s endlessly bitter complaining and take the opportunity to spend the remaining 17 hours before launch reworking the whole game to meet the OP’s short-sighted requirements.

it is short sighted yes.. in the long run the system is great.. but in the early week of launch, what 50% of all people will do is ignore all content and farm HP in maguuma instead of ejoying it, because it is possible to do so.. and you want to tell me that this is reasonable design?
I can only say it again, if it was locked behind a story gate I would be fine with it, so I could play and enjoy, but the sole fact that you can rush the content to get it early is why people will do exactly that..
If it is possible people will do it…

Imagine how many of those attacking you now, will be crying in the next few weeks, when their brain gets down from all this anticipation high, and suddenly realize what exactly you were talking about.

Why are the skins even mixed in with the spec?

We were told time and again that masteries were to be the ongoing progression introduced with HoT, not the new specs. I was looking forward to playing the new content with the new spec not scrambling to find 20 – 40 hero challenges across four maps and hoping there’s content left once I actually have the spec unlocked.

Vayne.8563:

You’re ruining your own HoT experience. Anet isn’t responsible for that. Some of those points are undoubtedly for the skin anyway, not the spec.

No one wants the Elite spec to be their prize for completing HoT, we all want to play HoT with the Elite Specs. So for those who have not done world competition learning that we have to play though about 70% of HoT before being able to max trait lines and play the spec is infuriating.

As you will learn over the coming days, what the OP is planning to do Everyone else will be doing also!!! People want the Elite Specs. Yes we want the new maps and story narrative too, but for most the Elite Specs are the biggest part of what lured us in. Even for those who want the story a good number want to experience HoT from the beginning playing as something new. Most will hop on the train with players who jump in and do nothing but grind hero challenges for the first few weeks (or months for the more casuals) before unlocking their Elite Spec then go back and do the instanced story.

A lot of people don’t come to the forums so expect an exciting time on launch day, but by early to mid next week expect everyone to be hero point grinding leaving dynamic events that don’t award hero points abandoned and large chucks of these rather difficult level 80 jungle maps abandoned. Those who go into the game grinding hero points are just playing it as ArenaNet intended. They knew people would do this. They knew it would divide the PvE community and turn the game into a grind fest. They also know that’s what gets the most players pulling out the credit cards for the gem store.

I hope their strategy backfires. I believe it will and many who bought and have played GW2 because of it’s casual friendly, anti-grind design will either quit PvE or quit the game altogether. That’s probably ok with ArenaNet as the flood of F2P customers that came on board in recent months will convert to HoT purchasers (if they haven’t already) and they will inherit the game and it’s new model. The new players coming in are far removed from that original 2011 manifesto and will be oblivious to the changes that have taken us so far from it.

The non HoT purchasing F2P customers will continue to use the gem store. So boat loads of revenue will be flowing in from gem store purchases for F2P accounts and HoT grinders looking for boost items. This is what the changes are all about. Future content will be just as grindy as the PvE side of GW2 makes it’s full transition to becoming another trashy F2P MMO. Hope I’m wrong, but the patterns are pretty clear. This is how they maximize profits by tossing most of their philosophy for changing MMOs out the window and simply doing what every other publisher has been doing. Kind of sickening really. I doubt even a good number of the developers and design team understand what’s really going on with these decisions. It’s all about the $$$

Many people are acting like those of us who are upset are being entitled and that we should have been prepared to play the content to enjoy the progression.

First off, this aspect wasn’t touted as progression. Mastery was. This was something everyone had anticipated on enjoying from the get go. This isn’t “skipping” content. Everyone here wants to play the new zones and quests with the elite spec we’ve waited months for. The sad part is that many players will have played through nearly all the novel content before they can get the elite spec. I had imagined that I’d be playing my reaper with my twilight or eternity at maguuma tomorrow night. Now I realize that I’ll be running around with that stupid dagger that has made necro so irrelevant for so long. My wife and I both made legendaries for these characters’ elite specs. We have been waiting to equip them. Alas, we will continue to wait because Anet drops a bomb on us last minute.

Secondly, we’ve a right to complain when they tell us, right before launch that the aspect that most players are most excited about has a huge amount of effort required to obtain.

Lastly, players were explicitly told that their efforts in map completion would pay off and that they’d have enough HP for elite specs. Now, right before launch, after many of us spent months gridning those stupid challenges across over a dozen characters, they tell us that our efforts were both A) not enough and absurdly inefficient because hero challenges in maguuma are worth ten times as much as they are in Tyria.

And yes, we should play the content yada yada yada. But don’t encourage your whole player base to prepare for something then pull the rug out from beneath them right before their efforts are about to pay off.

You know, a lot of people did “earn it” via map complation, but people don’t apparently take that into account because… reasons?

Also sucks if you’re trying to be a daredevil, since your actual mechanic is locked behind grandmaster traits.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

A more apt analogy would be that mommy implied we’d get a bag of candies for cleaning our room, so some of us went and cleaned our room for weeks. Only for mommy to say “the room never mattered. clean the garage”.

Yes, this is a great analogy. In fact, I had been collecting hero points in preparation, but as soon as I heard the 400 pt requirement, I actually lost all incentive to keep doing so. The fact that HoT hero challenges give 10 points makes the core game’s 1-point challenges feel ultimately pointless, and I feel sorry for anyone who went through getting all of them in futile preparation.

Shampanix.3928:

Seriously?…

Some of you behave like a little, spoiled child when mommy shows you bag of candies and says “go clean your room first to earn it” and you’re like “kitten no, mummy, gimme that noaw!” and then you go cry cus mommy won’t give it to you insta.

A more apt analogy would be that mommy implied we’d get a bag of candies for cleaning our room, so some of us went and cleaned our room for weeks. Only for mommy to say “the room never mattered. clean the garage”.

With 400hp requirement my hypetrain slowed down a little.
I hope that my 213hp will be enough to at least unlock all traits, coz I really wanted to go exploring new maps with my glorious Reaper on with my Twilight equipped.

I think it would be much better if old map completion could give you enough hp to go straight elite.
And for Maguuma hp to be required if you want exclusive class skins.

Dhampyr.2813:

Ill agree that it does not truly count as unlocked and most players wont play there elites until its fully unlocked. But it is unlocked, I’m willing to bet it will be in a more playable state if you did world completion. I’m glade some players get a head start

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I get a head start. But we were operating under the assumption that grinding out a few more world explorations meant we wouldn’t have to grind in HoT for our specs and that we could just start enjoying them. What irks me most though, as I’ve said, is really that we put in just like… a ton of effort for half of the reward we wanted. Then furthermore we find out that we could have put in a tenth of the effort in Maguuma because we grinded 200 discreet hero challenges rather than 20 maguuma hero challenges.

Dhampyr.2813:

No they did say we can play it if we did world completion, but they didn’t say to what extent we could. They have now confirmed 60 points will unlock the elite. So while we can “play” the spec it wont be optimal.

Are you serious? Simply saying “I have the druid traitline unlocked, I can click it and see all the skills I don’t have” is not the same as “unlocking” an elite spec. That’s like handing me a deflated basketball. Thanks buddy. That’s pedantic semantics.

I don’t care that they changed their mind. It was still in development, but like, that’s almost certainly not what they had in mind. I’m just bummed that they waited up until the last moments before its release to bum everyone out with a really large amount of grind required before you can begin having fun with your classes you’ve been hyped about for a year now. I’m also bummed that more than just telling us that our map completion is now no longer enough, but that it was quite literally a waste of time because you could get those points in Maguuma ten times as fast…. that was just a poor decision.

Donari.5237:

I do think (though I’m not sure) that Mike and Colin talked about horizontal progression for characters in the original HoT announcement at PAX South, as part of why there would be no level cap raise.

Mastery’s fullfill that objective just fine.

I agree. I haven’t gotten upset at many things for HoT, after all, it’s not even out yet. But I really wanted to experience a new zone with a new style of play together. But what irks me the most, is that my hours of time spent doing map completion was rendered absurdly inefficient. For every single challenge in Maguuma, I basically had to do 10 challenges in Tyria. Despite wanting to play the new elites in Tyria, I can’t find a single reason why I’d want to spend tomorrow grinding more skill points knowing that I’m putting in ten times the effort than I would if I waited until tomorrow.

1.) It just doesn’t make sense to punish the more casual players this way
No one expected the Elite Specializations to be our reward for finishing Heart of Thorns, we expected to be able to play Heart of Thorns with them… for players who don’t have the 200+ points banked from core game map completion, they will have to wait until they are about 70% into the game to have enough unlocked to make a viable build(70% into Heart of Thorns, 3 maps with 400 hero points. about 133 hero points per map, map unlock likely dependent on mastery unlock so expect layered grind). For those of us in this situation the Elite Specs are going to be a reward for finishing the game and not something available to us to play the majority of the game with. If you can not see why this has many people upset then you are being very narrow minded.

2. As planned the system will encourage the player base to grind for hero points ignoring story missions, events, adventures, etc…
You’ll have a large part of the community that will do nothing but grind for their Elite Specs (which will also mean grinding for Mastery’s). That’s what this system will reduce the game to, a glorious hero challenge hunt. Some will return to story after unlock but by that point most will finish capping hero points then immediately transition to helping with the guild hall. The story missions that deliver the narrative of GW2 will be ignored probably even more so than the personal story chapters have been. It makes players only care about the grind.

2.) They know!
So here’s the disturbing part for me. The developers behind GW2 do a lot of analytic research on their player base (some of those tools they have showcased). They know the game will be reduced to a grind fest. They understand exactly what they are doing. Likely, they have figured out this is why every other trash MMO on the market operates the way it does. It funnels players to the in game cash shop. It was recently announced Eric Flannum (one of the most brilliant minds behind GW2’s amazing play mechanics) made a decision to leave to work elsewhere. This all makes me wonder if he left because he had a problem with the integrity of what they were about to do. Keep in mind when you go with a F2P model putting the focus on grind when cash shop items help with the grind is a proven model for keeping revenue high. It’s the dirty side to what the free to download and free to play model is bringing to the game.

ananda.5946:

They didn’t raise the level cap, so this is the way they’re having you level up with all characters. Just pretend the level cap was raised, but all of your gear will still be fine.

And you’re already at max level, you just need to do some new challenges before you can use some new, but not necessary abilities. If you choose to replace you old one with them.
Your description more accurately fits the Masteries system. In fact it is the intended purpose of the masteries system.

Let me get this straight, in the current game there are an average of less than 40 challenges per Zone: Maguuma Jungle, Ascalon, Kryta, Shiverpeak Mountains, and Orr. This is proven because there are 5 Zones and 189 Hero Challenges counted toward Map Completion. Assuming that there are at least 40 Hero Challenges in Heart of Thorns means that the Challenge density will be about the same (or greater) as the current game.

You’d require most of this “more than enough” number to get the spec with all its traits and skills, also known as the reason you’re getting it. That isn’t so bad, right? Complete effectively three maps to get an elite specialization?

Even then, I can beeline the 20-40 challenges and get the spec to complete the majority of the game expansion, right? I suppose, but even then, you’re going through most of the maps trying to get around half the available challenges. Why most of the maps? Well, Masteries, of course! Many of the new Hero Challenges will require the new Mastery system’s abilities, like gliding, to be able to access, not to mention that some require more advancement into a Mastery to be able to acces. So, to get my 20 challenges to finally get my spec, I will need to go through most of the content or get most of the Masteries before I can complete the spec with usable Grandmaster traits. (Because I’m totally for having partial specs slotted. They are so useful to have not even half the traits and abilities.) At that point, for many people, most of the point of having the spec – to be able to use it in the new content – is completely wasted by requiring me to go through and discover most/all waypoints so I can beam back if I fall or otherwise die trying to get to the Challenges.

Keep in mind, I don’t have more than one of each class, and my expectation is still to take weeks into months to get these Specializations.

Seera.5916:

Lucifers Heaven.2167:

Random.4691:

Seriously the lack of red post, not that I should be surprised, it’s like that child that was caught doing something they shouldn’t so they just hide because that makes everything better. I guess they really didn’t learn from their FAQ scandal.

Given that the vast majority of the complaints in this thread are by a small handful of people and that most of it was posted during Anet’s downtime, this really shouldn’t be a surprise.
People are trying to be very loud about their complaints, but so far the actual number of people complaining really isn’t that high.

That and we’re within 2 days of launch. The devs may not have time for posting on the forums that much or the permission to interrupt the devs that know the answers to the questions we have about this.

As always a simple “we are looking into this but no promises” takes less then 5 sec to post. It’s not a time issue its a cowardness issue.

Fist off, I want to say that I don’t specifically have a problem with the requirement to fully unlock the elites.

I do have a problem with how ANet’s handled the situation.

1. Timing. 3 days before launch was well past time for this news to be posted. Ok, the exact number of Hero Points needed may not have been nailed down, but surely the “you must unlock all of the core” was nailed down. Or that you’d need more than 214 hero points (max you can have on any character level 80 with 100% map completion in every map and the krait shard) to max out the track.

1a. This is further exacerbated because players had been posting their desires to play elites on day one

2. Location of update. A reply to a post in a thread. Not in it’s own thread (Handful of HoT Notes would have been a good spot). Not in a blog post. But in a thread.

3. Quantity of Hero Points needed. Given the number needed to max out the core specializations, people will have a negative reaction to seeing 400 hero points needed for maxing out the elite spec. And it’s likely their first impression. First impressions are powerful.

4. Lack of posting further details on the issue afterward (or acknowledging that some do have an issue with it). And there’s been plenty of time for the appropriate dev to have been alerted to the problem.

If 3 of the 4 had changed, there likely wouldn’t have been as big of a back lash.

sirjarros.4107:

ColinJohanson.2394:

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

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

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

While I am 100% on board with having to earn, train and unlock our elite specs, I think that 400 hero points is horribly excessive. Especially for WvW only players. (Note: I love PvX and have done world completion 3 times, but play mostly in WvW).

Many WvW purists hate PvE. They hate running around Tyria doing something that does not contribute to the weekly matchup. Which means, they are likely to have NO excess hero points because they have no map completion. So they will need to drum up the 400 points using the new WvW system.

Assuming the Notarized Scrolls of Maguuma Heroics give 10 hero points (which still needs to be confirmed) they would need 40 of these scrolls. At 5 ranks per scroll, that’s 200 ranks in WvW.

(Note: there still remains the unanswered question of being retroactively rewarded proofs in WvW based on current rank — something that Anet should seriously consider since that would be the new WvW hero point system equivalent and having finished world completion!!)

Now, 200 ranks is no small feat. Heck it took me nearly 2 months to go from 1100 to 1320, because I am on a lower tier server, mostly roam with my guild havoc squad and very rarely get in large scale zerg fights or take keeps, which generate the most WxP.

200 ranks will take a heck of a lot longer than finding 40 hero challenges in the jungle. I bet many PvE/PvX players will find their full 20-40 either on launch day or by the end of the 1st weekend.

I highly doubt anyone in this entire game has earned 100 ranks in one weekend of WvW. Even with a birthday booster one. If they have, they spent every waking moment doing it, hard core via EotM or zerg-festing.

And with the new borderlands map being so much bigger and taking longer to get across, we’re possibly looking at earning less WxP than the smaller alpine map has provided, because it takes longer to get somewhere to cap something to earn the WxP.

And what if you’re on a server where your role is to scout and defend? You’re getting even less WxP because defending rewards less than attacking. Which draws the time line out even further.

Then throw in the fact that MANY WvW players hate leveling and will use Tomes to level their Revenants. Meaning that WvW players who want to be a herald on launch day won’t be able to because they’ll have to wait to earn 30 ranks to unlock the elite line, which can easily take a week or more for some players, depending on play styles and amount of play time.

Suddenly WvW players are looking at several weeks to a month just to fully train their elite spec, when PvE purists will have it done in a matter of days. Simply because of their preferences for certain content types.

To make matters worse, if my assumption about scrolls is incorrect — if they give less than 10 hero points — then this timeline is extended even further.

I predict that if this is not remedied immediately, we’ll find WvW players are going to forget about their 1st week’s matchups and storm EotM armed with boosters to karma/rank train just to fully train their elite specs as fast as possible. That is NOT supportive of the new borderlands map or any of the great WvW changes coming. And I doubt this is what Anet is intending.

TL;DR: It takes much more effort and time to get 5 ranks in WvW than it does to find one Maguuma Jungle Hero Challenge. PvX friendly players will have their elite specs fully trained by Sunday. Meanwhile WvW only players will still be working on it for days, if not weeks to come and, will once again, feel pressured to play content they have no interest in, just to get their elite spec. This disparity is way out of balance and horribly unfair.

Thanks for listening!

This post is far back in the pages and I think it needs more attention. This is exactly how I feel why the design is of poor taste or at least really does not transpire much thought put into it, especially from a WvW player point of view.

People telling WvW players they will just have to rank up playing the content they like to do simply do not understand what it is like to play WvW as your main game mode.
PvErs are getting their elite specs before WvW players just because. It is so arbitrary, it needs to be looked at.

On top of that, it has been a focus on Anet to make the game more alt friendly and this is working directly against it. I do not understand why they are having a weird shift like this for HoT.

It isn’t about not working to get the content, it’s about how it’s presented and how it’s failing on the foundation this game has been built on and directed towards. This is a pure grind that is not engaging for MANY (too many) of players. There are many arguments why elite specs shouldn’t be gated at all – which are on their own entirely different than the simple argument that some of us are trying to put forward: The design is flawed and not at all beneficial to the customer.

Morfedel.4165:

I have officially lost interest in this thread. Reading a laundry list of useless ire is accomplishing nothing. Off to other threads. GLHF!!!

I imagine ArenaNet is reading it laughing at how with HoT they are really pulling one over on the more casual players. I’m sure if you hounded them they would probably refund your money for the expansion at this stage but I don’t expect them to change their view. It’s clear they no longer care about the casual player base and their aim is to maximize profits off items like gem store XP boosters by providing mastery’s that require XP and reinforcing the need for those mastery’s by tieing the Elite Spec unlock to them (you have to have the mastery’s to get to certain points in the map where those beefy 10-pint hero challenges will be and you’ll have two a do a lot of HoT map competition as well). Want to do HoT casually? You can meet your Elite Spec sometime in 2016. Meanwhile the group you play with are on-line 24/7 grinding away for theirs as you go out of sight and out of mind. I believe Heart of Thorns is an expansion designed to flush the casual players from the game or to push them out of the PvE part of the game.

Whoever set the rules for Elite Unlock

• must have all core specialization trait lines maxed
• must spend 60 hero point just to unlock (no traits get unlocked with those 60 points, that’s just to make the panel available with zero elite traits)
• No ability to use Spirit Shards or other items to contribute to Elite Spec

Whoever set this up hates the casual GW2 player. Their new mission is to make you give up the things you love outside the game to grind. It’s no different from other MMOs but it is a very different message than what they were preaching in their pre-launch 2012 manifesto. It signifies they have sold out the casual player to the hardcore player demands.

PopeUrban.2578:

Black Box.9312:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Your question doesn’t make any sense. You need the hero points to use the knew specialization, NOT to do any content within the new zones.

A gear treadmill is designed specifically to be able to complete content, only.

PopeUrban.2578:

Because elite specs are optional you do not need to unlock the current elite spec to gain the ability to unlock the next one, or the one after that, and so on.

And further, the elite specs themselves are not purely vertical progression. They are optional horizontal progression. They add options at the expense of taking core weapons trait lines, and utilities. They’re not simply raw buffs that pile on top of the three core specs you’d already have on your character.

You won’t have four specs in the next release, and five after that, creating a system of perpetual upward advancement where you have to do A to be powerful enough to access B.

In stead, you have to do core to unlock core, and from there you choose to persue an elite spec, or stick with a core build. Going forward you choose which elite spec you want to persue, and as the system expands you have an ever broadening range of options for how to actually unlock those specs, since unlike masteries, hero points are not regional, but global systems.

Congratulations, you’ve now returned full circle to the point about how elite specs are optional, not a part of the actual content, and therefore do not add value by being gated because it is irrespective of the content in question.

I rest my case.

Optional does not mean they are not part of the content, or not an advancement system.

it means they are exactly what they were designed to be.

A horizontal progression system

It’s not natural progression. You have to grind up 400 hero points, which is still 40 hero challenges even if you do it all in the jungle. It doesn’t matter if it’s optional, because it still acts as incentive to ignore parts of the game in favor of others. As much as I hate to say it, I honestly would much rather have had Anet just raise the level cap so that I could gather more XP for my elite spec just by taking advantage of whatever content I’d happen to stumble upon.

Nausicca.6038:

fireflyry.7023:

I’ve read some pretty valid and well put points from both sides of the fence, no need to derail it with fictional over-exaggeration and belittlement.

People are already over exaggerating with the HP grind.
Actualy, GW2 is the only MMO that allow you to get your BiS gear BEFORE the expac launch.
No level cap increases. No level locking behind instanced dungeons.
Insta lvl 80 revenant with tomes.

The counterpart is… HP. Consider it as the new XP for your elite spec. What’s wrong with that?

Because it is inherently different from XP prior to 80. You could do pretty much anything you like to earn that XP. This HP requirement forces you to do one thing——map exploration grinding.

Ok, don’t want to sound like I’m complaining too much as I understand this should be kept “elite.” The only thing I don’t like is that it looks like I’m going to have to play through most/all of the content before I’m able to use the elite specs. By the time I get it, I’ll be done with most of the stuff. Sure, I could then use it for raids and WvW, but that is about it except to repeat content I’ve already done.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong. I’m really hoping that the skins take up half or so of the HP required. I’m fine with that as they are just skins, not playable mechanics and skills.

In short, I want to play my elite specs, not just achieve them and then have little left to actually do with them.

Vague Memory.2817:

Random.4691:

There is more then enough content (if they get their crap together and release it .. cough raids cough) to keep everyone busy without time gating the Elites. We have Raids, Guild Halls, New Maps (for all modes), Fractals, Legendaries, Adventures, Events, Masteries, and I’m sure I’ve missed a few. I don’t see how time gating the Elites is productive, how does it affect anyone if you do it as a Necro or a Reaper for example. If they wanted to do something for elites they should have done a quest line of some sort.

The bottom line is, it hurts nothing to have elites playable, the rest of the content is still the same regardless of which class/spec you are using. There is simply no need and all this has done is divide the community and ticked off a lot of players. This is suppose to be an exciting time for GW2 and instead they have managed to turn it into a witch hunt.

This is one of the most lucid and honest post in the entire thread.

It’s true. They already have the Mastery system for achievement based play mechanic changes. The Elite Specs should be part of what it means to be in HoT from he very beginning for those who choose to use them. The only explanation foe why the Elite Specs became an achievement based unlock (one that largely discredits existing achievement from core game I might add) is money. They have the numbers and realize in order to get to the new hero challenges in HoT players will need masteries. Masteries unlock with XP. The strongest XP boosters can be purchased in the cash shop/gem store.

So instead of showing some integrity and giving players incentive to come into HoT with their elite specs and enjoy a special time playing the first new map with exciting new play mechanics they have chosen to divide the PvE community. Probably about half will focus on grinding for hero challenges/xp ignoring the story and not interested in helping players along the way. The players who approach HoT in that way will be rewarded with Elite Spec unlock first.

That has strong potential to trash the game as it will divide players and guildies on their objectives. It also transitions GW2 to a paradigm similar to the grindy often criticized, “dime a dozen” MMOs that focus on grind. Consider this and the new F2P model and you see what they just did with your favorite game.

Was ArenaNet pretentious enough to believe players will be so excited about the new maps and mastery grind that they would be willing to prolong unlocking their Elite Spekittenil half way though the HoT content? Taking the high road, I believe this may be exactly what it is. The new maps are well designed but alone they are not exciting. As designed players have strong incentive to grind for hero challenges in HoT and to focus on nothing else until that’s accomplished. This also really undermines the team that put so much work into the instanced story aspect of the game because since most of us will be bringing to unlock our Elite Specs the instanced story will be passed over and maybe someday will come back to it.

Where was the creative team when it came to fuses the Elite Specs into the game story? In the trailer we have Rytlock (a warrior) who goes into the mist and comes back as a Revenant (as if Revenant was planned to be Warrior’s elite spec at one time). There is no way they have fused Elite Specs into the story/lore so they are purely a core functional play mechanic unique to HoT. Core play mechanics should not be based on long term achievement. Unlockable during early levels or though tutorials, yes. Long term achievement. No. Mastery’s are the unlock able Non-core play mechanic. It takes a very greed driven company to force players to do both

As I’ve said a few times Horrible design.

At least those in charge of PvP are doing some great things.

it seems to me there are a lot of similarities in this thread to ones from four months ago when they made the change from skill points to hero points and converted excess points to spirit shards.

many people – especially those with exclusively WvW characters (myself included) – were upset that in anet’s original proposition our lvl80s would loose access to skills we had obtained from scrolls and would have to complete open world skill points/hero challenges. quite a few comments then were themed around the helpful ‘just play the game’, ‘get over it’, ‘do you hate content?’, and ‘call that grind?’, ‘maybe you should play something other than an MMO…?’. but in the end anet listened to players concerns and ultimately decided that a character upon levelling to 80, however they got there or unlocked their skills, should be still be able to unlock all core skills and traits without having any additional open world requirements. which was the core argument of those players against the original proposition. it was a great decision for both old and new characters, who upon dinging 80 are able to unlock all of their core profession abilities.

i think we’re back to a similar place (except we’re not talking about losing something, but obtaining something new), yet anet still want to tie traits and skills to per character completion of open world content. that is:

a. elite specialisation unlocks are soulbound/per character
b. they require the completion of hero points in the open world (either directly or indirectly via WvW rank-ups)

those are key design decisions which presumably follow from a guiding principle that the expac provides post lvl80 character progression – to obtain/complete an elite specialisation each character must have additional gameplay to unlock the new abilities (traits/skills/items/skins). or in other words go on a journey without a level cap increase.

for open world PvE, that’s fair enough, but even so it should have been clearly communicated to the player base, e.g. “guys, if an existing character has world completion, or more than x hero challenges completed in the open world, then you’ll gain access to the elite specialisation; but you’ll still have to complete y more to fully unlock it because that’s where we’re going with this”.

but it wasn’t.

For me personally, I don’t like it. I suspect I’ll do it for my necro because I really enjoyed Reaper over the beta weekends. But I won’t be unlocking elite specs for the rest of my 11 characters, because it’s simply not fun to do it 12 times.

Prior to Colin’s clarification post, here I was hoping I could access these new elite builds, which would’ve given me the incentives to actually play the new expansion content on various of my alts and classes. Because hey, at least I’ll be playing different builds other than the same classes I’ve played for the past 3 years. Forcing me to have to grind on the same classes I grew tired of playing just to unlock the fun new elite specs, that’s a terrible design decision in my opinion.

It’ll be a design decision proved to actually burn people out faster, it’ll make people not as happy playing in the new expansion, and in turn when players aren’t as happy they don’t spend as much money in the game. I see nobody winning if they keep the design.

All people are asking for is to be able to access the elite specs, so they can play in the new expansion as these elite specs. It’ll at least be something different and fun to do, playing characters that function a bit differently than the same ‘ol same ’ol classes of the past 3 years. Nobody’s asking for anything else handed to them, as there are plenty of things to do outside of elite specs, plenty of things to grind and spend time on, in all game modes.

PopeUrban.2578:

They have been posting this stuff in blogs for months dude.

They’re not devaluing existing content. They’re setting a precedent for elite specs as relevant to content

An elite spec cost 400 hero points. This is a hard number we know now. This is an inherant part of that system. HoT challenges grant 10 because they wanted to ensure people could actually play nothing but HoT to gain them.

Of course it isn’t designed to allow you to entirely skip progression in new maps. That would be ridiculous. People would literally be saying “why would I waste my time doing hero challenges that don’t give me anything?” and the thread would be just as long and angst ridden as this one.

In stead they built a system in which mastering all of the optional core points means you can skip half of the new ones. Moving forward, you’ll likely see that system continue. You will never have enough hero points to instantly unlock an elite spec, but you’ll always have options in terms of how much of the content you want to do.

Like core world completion because it’s easy and there are more zones? Fantastic! That means you can skip half of the HoT challenges.

Don’t like the first elite spec? FANTASTIC save your ero points for the next one.

Making a comparison between the value of core content and HoT in terms of character progression is simply flawed thinking. Core content is intentionally unchanged, it is intentionally easier, and it is intentionally paced for leveling first and world completion as a secondary goal. HoT, and all content going forward is specifically built, progression wise, around the elite spec system.

Core specs aren’t considered optional. They’re considered “mastering your core class”

Elite specs, however, are optional and exclusive to one another

If you’re mad about devaluing old content, why aren’t you mad that taking an elite spec makes you drop a trait line? Why aren’t you mad every time they release another stat set for gear? Will you be mad when the next elite spec releases and you have to choose between them?

Having ten point challenges do nothing to devalue old content. You need to be 80 to get in to the jungle. If you’re 80, you have your core specs completed. now you can choose to do a lot of simple challenges, a lesser number of harder ones, or a mixture between the two. The entire system is designed so that the core content retains value by making sure all those extra hero point actually do something for you character besides being traded to miyani.

A HoT hero challenge is worth 10 points. A base-game hero challenge is worth 1 point. For anyone who hasn’t already completed the existing challenges, they serve absolutely no purpose. Why waste your time doing things for 1 point, when you can just go to the jungle and do things for 10 points? “Devaluing” doesn’t get any more black and white than that.