Guild Wars 2

Thanks for all the responses!

It does seem like overall size and sheer complexity does get a feeling of it just being that for the sake of it especially when if it’s not during peak hours. This is why I deliberately phrased the last questions as such. And honestly,my answer to either a new player or a veteran player is “I don’t know. Just walk to the nearest marker!” because I feel such maps are very difficult to pick up and that just creates a huge barrier to entry.

From my own observations, it seems to run a parallel to the new pve maps which have a similar obsession of obtuse terrain just for the sake of obtuse terrain and a rather unhelpful minimap.

I have yet to pass judgement on it, because honestly I usually hate everything off the bat but I am definitely trying to think of the nature of combat changing to something that’s more fun, or just getting fights at all that seems to be a issue. In the old borderlands, I had generally little problem encountering enemies, but in the new maps, encountering allies is a hard thing already.

Personally, I think the contrast in EB vs Bl was that EB was naturally more blobtrain based and BL was somewhat more skirmish based but also subject to escalation as reinforcements came along when you’re defending a keep. So EB tended to be more fast paced, while BL was worrying about tower and keep status. And now all of this is gone. I have no qualm with removing upgrade costs, but the fact that one cannot “starve” a tower by killing all the dolyaks seems to be a trouble. You can only slow it down, but that just seems to be a Sisyphean task and overall I feel the ability of groups less than 10 tend to be relegated to taking camps and some very boring tower sieges. By the same token, EB tends to be less affected by these changes, and largely feels the same except those nodes which are amusing and slow down the karma train, but I can’t really object to that either.

I appreciate upgraded towers being harder to take. I really do. But the thing is when upgrades come so easily and on autopillot, it kind of devalues the whole thing, doesn’kitten Taking down a upgraded structure is always a big undertaking, but when all of them are, it’s kind of annoying and makes it lose value. It doesn’t really mean these concepts are bad, but clearly it’s overtuned and really lacked testing.

As for where you will see me. I’ll be either in EB or somewhere in the middle of Verdant Blink which I tried for about 30 minutes and failed to get a single hero point. I then felt rather ill, but that’s a rant for another day. (The map itself is nice, but the circumstances of which I’m coming in are not. kitten gating. I like playing the content and exploring; what I don’t like is being the rat running through a maze for that piece of cheese that keeps getting moving around. )

I don’t really miss it, especially when it became the norm anyways.

However, they hardly gave enough things to replace it and now there’s even more useless world ability points to spend things on.

It would have honestly made more sense to spend the hero points on masteries (place a cap so that people won’t get it on day one. Oh WAIT, people got it on day one already— proving how silly this worry it. Grinders gonna grind, and everyone else pays for it)

DippyDragon.3180:

It will have reprecusions outside of wvw as mat prices fall steeply. Don’t understand Anet’s motives on this. Personally, I prefer distributed nodes (the old method).

God forbid WvW players become a bigger part of the economy. And it’s not like we’re pumping liquid gold into the economy so I hardly see an issue.

Anyhow, this fearmongering seems kind of silly, as any good and sensible PvE’r would know that you could just go to SW and get more of everything in an hour or so. Also, like I care about how TP tycoons are losing their wealth.

Mat prices are already dropping thanks to Anet’s other “tweaks” to the economy.

IEatCabbage.1907:

you have to be level10 because they don’t want a free to play player who would 1. troll players 2. don’t even know there skills and jump in pvp right away

And making them play Stronghold is going to be better? :O

Then make it so that it only applies to F2p accounts only… like most aspects of the game. WvW, for example doesn’t let f2p enter until level 60.

+1 to this.

That and guild missions only giving credit to the team that finishes first isn’t exactly very cooperative.

I see no reason to place such a silly block on non-f2p accounts in unranked.

Oh yea, it’s incredibly annoying.

We were going to use Guild Missions to get people interested in PvP, and yet they have to get to rank 10 or they couldn’t join a UNRANKED game unless it was Stronghold? So what, tell them to grind hotjoin dailies or something? Yea, that’s going to be engaging.

Infusion.7149:

ArchonWing.9480:

I think the most lame part is that the amount of heroics you get per level up is RANDOM, somewhere between 2-4. I have no idea why they did this, but that’s nothing short of frustrating that some players would be put behind due to dumb luck.

It’s really in between 100 and 200 levels, so I am going to say 150.

To be fair, it should be changed to 1/5 of that though. It only requires 40 maguuma challenges but 150-200 WvW chests.

Well, the heroics also have an alternate use as well if you choose not to pursue an elite spec in that manner. I haven’t been to the new zones so I don’t know if it’s easier to get the challenge or to get 3-4 wvw levels. I do think 200 levels is too much if one gets unlucky though.

Also, what about those end of week chests; are they gonna give heroics too?

I also agree with if we keep soulbound, the chest should give a set amount.

It is oddly hypocritical to suggest that one should work for something (okay, sure) but then make it so that the equal amount of work is rewarded unevenly, which defeats the purpose.

RNG can add excitement and flavor, but that only has value when you’re dealing with commodities that are intentionally scarce, like precursor drops. It could also be used to trick people into testing their luck making -Expected Value decisions because if they get lucky, they may continue to do it and lose out in the long run. But this aint poker here; I’m not here to trick bads into thinking they’re good so I can win a profit over them over 100,000 hands. But I don’t respect anyone for having a precursor drop because there was no work or skill involved beyond doing random actions. Furthermore, the random factor is very high (between 2-4), meaning two people could gain a wxp level, and one person gets rewarded twice as much. That doesn’t add any flavor; just frustration. If we take the average levels to be gained to be 150, and someone could take as many as 200, that’s 33% more effort karma training required!

My point is in this manner, RNG is the very antithesis of making people work for something by devaluing effort through random chance. And don’t give me “well, if you do 10 billion wxp levels it evens out” Imagine if a Maguuma skill point gave you 8-12 points, or if you had to do between 2-4 dailies to get dailies done. That’s just randomness for the sake of it. Don’t take this as an argument against RNG, but against RNG factors that make such a big difference when it really has no place to be.

Noblehawk.8036:

ArchonWing.9480:

Noblehawk.8036:

Synthesizers inside towers/camps just make people farm materials in objectives instead of doing something meaningful like defending or following commander w/o constant waiting for people to finish harvesting/mining/logging.

In WvW resource nodes belong outside objectives and give roamers another reason to go out there.

Remove synthesizers and bring old resource nodes back as soon as possible. Thank you.

The same people that came here to do nothing but farm materials, are unlikely to be roaming, defending, or following the commander because they obviously don’t care about what is going on. These were probably the same people that just came into wvw to gather nodes anyways.

These things were clearly intended to make people sit around in objectives to defend. Just because other people misuse isn’t really an argument against it.

My argument against this is actually following:
Moving resources inside camps/towers/keeps was another move towards PvE world where u have much smaller change to actually get (for example) ganked while collecting those precious goods. I thought that WvW was more about getting fights and killing enemy players than playing farmville inside a tower?

If anet really wants to reward ppl for scouting/defending towers – they surely can come up with better ideas than this? Or was this really all they came up with?

…but then again entire WvW is going towards PvE so fast that I’m probably going to miss the train somewhere in near future.

I think your PvEphobia might be narrowing your perspective.

If people wanted to do farmville, there’s many, many places in the open world where they could get far more things. Hell, you could park all your alts next to a rich node and waste less time and have zero risk. At least in WvW, if you’re not attentive enough, maybe 50 people will bust down the door and kill you, and then take the nodes for themselves, gathering over your dead body. That’s not something you can experience anywhere else in this game.

Second, some people like scouting and defending towers; not getting fights. Scouting, defending, and getting ganked while having 0 in-game reward and potentially having to pay out of your pocket for siege is not a way to live. I can’t handle that crap for more than 15 minutes. Sure, farmville isn’t the best solution, but it’s something. I know people in wvw who have less than 20 gold on them, and need help with donations, because the game basically forgot they existed. There was a while where we had to do gold raising activities so that scouts could afford tags.

Finally, WvW could use more people. Judging by the top threads, there are people complaining WvW is dying or lacking numbers. If people are shunning pvers who might potentially join in some day, then they only have themselves to blame.

You really need some kind of hook. That’s why Guild Missions have now WvW versions; it’s another attempt to get more people into wvw for even a brief amount of time in the hopes that people will get interested.

It’s actually easier to get credit before because the lords apparently scale with health; it was possible before for zergs to just overrun the lord and you couldn’t even land a hit.

There is one case though— the SM lord; many people reported not getting credit— even for the cap despite being on the circle on reset night.

However, you should party up regardless of loot.

I meant my lemongrass dropped in value. Should have sold them. =p

The RNG part is pretty bad. There shouldn’t be such a drastic difference (4 vs 2 is half).

I think the most lame part is that the amount of heroics you get per level up is RANDOM, somewhere between 2-4. I have no idea why they did this, but that’s nothing short of frustrating that some players would be put behind due to dumb luck.

It’s really in between 100 and 200 levels, so I am going to say 150.

People are trying out the masteries

Also, grinding them out, since the game decided to make WvW’ers jump through all those hoops. Considering I have now seen people with the elites active in wvw, that’s definitely what they were doing.

Noblehawk.8036:

Synthesizers inside towers/camps just make people farm materials in objectives instead of doing something meaningful like defending or following commander w/o constant waiting for people to finish harvesting/mining/logging.

In WvW resource nodes belong outside objectives and give roamers another reason to go out there.

Remove synthesizers and bring old resource nodes back as soon as possible. Thank you.

The same people that came here to do nothing but farm materials, are unlikely to be roaming, defending, or following the commander because they obviously don’t care about what is going on. These were probably the same people that just came into wvw to gather nodes anyways.

These things were clearly intended to make people sit around in objectives to defend. Just because other people misuse isn’t really an argument against it.

It was nerfed, now it’s 18

HOWEVER

SWEET BEAN BUNS were not nerfed! :S

Also, I need more info on the trailblazer stats and co.

Anet trying to keep that skyhammer dream alive.

:/

I honestly think they should just make them flat out boosters. I am actually just not opening the chest and using them when I capture something— it would be the same effect. That way it’s sometimes possible to get a lot more than the drops would have gotten you, but you need to be a decent sized group…

I think the reinforced gates are definitely overtuned atm and making it tough for small groups.

I think camp ones could be weaker, but really, even if you were gathering there constantly, you would obtain a lot more stuff outside of wvw.

Yes, I have no idea why the projectile seems to be so awful with the tracking.

Both the +condi and – condi have been cut in half.

RIP my lemongrass, but beyond that, thoughts?

I don’t mind them, but several options should be possible

• On screen and chat
• Screen only
• Chat only
• None

This Queen Jennah and her anti-shoe agenda.

But I have to laugh. I have seen demands for it in the past, so it’s good it was met I suppose.

Thanks. I expected detailed responses, but not at this rate.

You guys are great and keep it up! I will be continuously linking to this thread to those that need to see it, so don’t be afraid of deadlines or whatever.

I didn’t even notice that, but I would consider that an issue.

IMO it’d make a map more empty.

coglin.1867:

ArchonWing.9480:

coglin.1867:

Where were you two with your feedback on this matter during the last 2+ years of discussion on the topic of new maps?

It is not like this is some new idea that they dropped out of the blue. This was overwhelmingly demanded via payer feedback.

People didn’t have access to the beta. Plus, judging it via second hand experience isn’t very objective, and I am sure you would have pointed that out as well on it.

And as I’ve repeated elsewhere on the forums, please don’t take your argument to the posters and focus on their points. Their previous stances, or consistency on it is irrelevant to the current discussion. Plus I’m pretty sure I’ve seen OP complaining in many locations before. =p

Also “overwhelmingly demanded by player feedback”. Where are you getting this from anyways? If it’s the forum, I do believe you would agree with me that it doesn’t represent the player base entirely.

There are some dishonest statements here. I and my wife were in a WvW beta, as we’re some of my kids, guildies, and some friends. We have never streamed or had any affiliation with gaming new. They had a beta large enough to queue 3 maps, at least on the beta server I was on.

I am not sure how are you saying I am being dishonest. As long as somehow the people in this thread or some group of individual did not have access or in any case wasn’t able to, my statement would be accurate. People doesn’t translate to everybody. But certainly I am glad you were able to send feedback, if you were able to. Your own experiences are not mutually exclusive with any of this— things can be simultaneously true.

I agree the forums is a very small aspect of the player base, but it appeared to me thay most of what we recieved, fit the demands on the forums. I did not agree with most of those demands. I simply noticed several complainers post history show they did not participate in the discussion.

Even in this forum itself, I cannot consider a single voice. But have you considered they could have been neutral at that time?

And you are wrong about precious stances and statements of posters. When some posters demanded something, then complain when they get it, a discussion on that is very reasonable. If you dislike my post, report it. Pressuring to tell me what I can or cannot discuss, doesn’t assist is in any perspective you desire to share.

I most certainly am not wrong, because I do believe such an approach is logically fallacious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

And I have no intention of reporting you just because I disagree with you lol. Please don’t try to go that way as the report button is not for posts you dislike. I can’t control what you say and I have no intention to do so, nor would I resort to such underhanded tactics. Certainly, if you make a post in public, it may be possible that there could be a response and my perspective is that I will point out what I consider to be fallacious, and no pointing out a fallacy isn’t some kind of magical bullet that takes out people’s arguments. Since my reply is also public, it’s also inherent in a reply to your post is not just for you, but also for everyone reading it so they may make up their own minds about what is going on.

I like the idea, Xillllix., and I think it makes sense, however I wonder how the servers can handle so many players on one map. I’m not particularly privy on these topics.

coglin.1867:

Where were you two with your feedback on this matter during the last 2+ years of discussion on the topic of new maps?

It is not like this is some new idea that they dropped out of the blue. This was overwhelmingly demanded via payer feedback.

People didn’t have access to the beta. Plus, judging it via second hand experience isn’t very objective, and I am sure you would have pointed that out as well on it.

And as I’ve repeated elsewhere on the forums, please don’t take your argument to the posters and focus on their points. Their previous stances, or consistency on it is irrelevant to the current discussion. Plus I’m pretty sure I’ve seen OP complaining in many locations before. =p

Also “overwhelmingly demanded by player feedback”. Where are you getting this from anyways? If it’s the forum, I do believe you would agree with me that it doesn’t represent the player base entirely.

Guard stacks were pretty significant, representing about 10% on a tanky build and much more on not-so-tanky ones.

However, my problem with this is that I don’t believe any considerations were put into the effects.

For example, incoming player damage might have been good enough to tank through with the extra 2500 hp. But with it gone, it could be harder. Not that WvW was meant to be balanced anyways, but with complaints about people dying too fast, I think that’s still some kind of issue. Still I think the idea of WvW being not balanced and then trying to balance it all of a sudden makes me think there’s still some kind of selective balancing going on…. Personally, I think they should just forget about it and design WvW as an independent game mode where skills work as needed in it. But that seems unlikely.

The biggest problem for me is that almost nothing was done to put in place of the vacuum of WvW points. I see a shield generator mastery, and that’s it. That’s pretty underwhelming and actually gives us less to do with our WvW points, which is completely lame and ends up solving nothing.

Hello WvW Community.

As there seems to be quite a few concerns and comments on the new maps we’ve just gotten, I’d like to gather up some feedback in a single place and ask a few questions.

Please format your post to answer these statements. You don’t have to answer all of them. Please stay on topic and do not make negative comments about other posts even if you know they’re totally wrong. Do not make passive aggressive comments about anyone. Please do not include salt in your post.

This thread shall be ongoing, so if you have had a change of heart for any reason, you may continue posting, but obviously don’t spam it every day.

• Describe a typical hour for you in the Alpine Borderlands in the past. For example, What size of group were you running in? What kind of tasks did you run? What activities did you do?

• Compare your experience described above with a typical hour spent in Eternal Battlegrounds, if you went there at all. Does your style of play change between the 2 maps?

• Compare your experiences described above with an hour spent in the new borderlands.

• Describe the nature of combat in the borderlands in the past. How have the new borderlands impacted this paradigm for you? What style or build changes might it cause? For example, knocking people off cliffs or into lava might play a more important role.

• In your experience, compare the time it takes take a structure or objective here, then it did in the past.

• How is the loot and wxp for you compared to in the past? Will it be able to sustain whatever you are doing? Did it take a hit, or was it improved? If you are planning to unlock an elite specialization, do you think you were helped or hurt in these regards? Do you think you could pursue any other in-game goals just by playing WvW?

• How will the map change impact the long sessions (multiple hours) you spend in WvW?

• In 100 words or less, describe how the new BLs could be improved.

• In 100 words or less, describe how the borderlands work to a new WvW player.

• In 100 words or less, describe how the borderlands work to a veteran WvW player that is new to the maps.

• Which map am I most likely to find you currently, if you’re on Gw2?

Well, as I posted in another thread, I think we could benefit from more bridges, wider bridges, wider terrain in certain places, as well as toning down of some pve features, because at least I didn’t come to do pve here.

Environmental hazards add flavor. I can agree with that. But if your flavor overwhelms the main dish, that’s an issue.

Ascended gear is not exclusive to PvE, though it’s easier to obtain there and apparently reports that the Maguuma hero points are not too easy to obtain either. I mean I agree that no matter what, it is a fact that WvW must delve into PvE to continue their progression more timely. I’m actaully somewhat glad they even considered using WvW rank to bypass the hero points, and given the relative difficulty of the pve area, I’d almost claim it’s fair, but don’t worry; I won’t.

I don’t miss guard stacks. They were a fairly annoying grind, and discourages new players. I find putting too much of these kinds of artificial stat progression was a barrier for a game mode to get more numbers and I see that as a potential problem in higher end pve content such as raids. I don’t think we need WvW to be exclusionary as there have been many complaints of a lack of numbers.

The new maps have too much trouble in their current state, and I would like to blame it on the beta testing being random and may not have had the best people to test a wvw map with.

I would like to give it some time. The maps aren’t inherently bad, but two factors have problems

• PvE part is way overtuned. I understand that Keeps should be hard to assault but having even towers have these reinforced gate with somewhat fast respawning NPCs makes me feel I am not playing WvW anymore

• The terrain is too hard to navigate for its own good, and having a fellow server mate talk about sweeping for mesmers… well good luck with that!

• Some mechanics like lava especially with the high damage it does doesn’t belong here in its current state.

I think with more bridges, more wider bridges, and some things to bridge other stuff, while toning down the pve will make the map more imaginable. The lords are pretty amusing to fight though.

I would like to thank Anet for changing the rate of the heroics gained in WvW to be obtainable in 100 world ranks instead of 200. Not a perfect solution and I don’t like the soulbound part but it is definitely something I can manage. Now that I may just not bother unlocking various skills, the number of hero points I need may decrease as well.

dancingmonkey.4902:

Strikes me as a bit odd after 3 years of thread upon thread demanding new maps, then to see posters who did not participate in the discussion, giving this feedback. If you do not like larger maps, why didn’t you participate in the discussion?

Larger, more open maps, were asked for regularly, and I do not recall anyone asking not to make larger maps.

The previous posters’ stance or consistency is irrelevant to the discussion, because that is bringing an argument to the posters rather than the topic ahead, which is not okay. Please keep this on topic, but I will entertain your point.

People who prefer the status quo generally aren’t going to post are they? They’re going to be playing the game. The forums generally are more complaint heavy so it makes more sense to complain when something they feel is wrong.

Furthermore, there were already concerns on the beta forum that the maps might be lacking if there weren’t enough numbers (implying size), and I don’t think I need to look up all that EOTM bashing, and EOTM is a fairly large map too.

Also, people’s minds can change. That doesn’t invalidate their point either.

If anything, I think I would have trouble finding people that wanted large maps with difficult to navigate terrain though I have stated in the past is primarily why I don’t like EOTM. EOTM had some rather interesting structure and lord features that I am amused to see in the new maps, so I didn’t dislike all aspects of EOTM, btw.

Finally, since we are speaking of a rather large group of people in general, I don’t think you could categorize their opinions so easily.

100 levels +2000 badges isn’t too bad, as compared 200 ranks. I actually won’t be unlocking the gyro at the end I think…

I don’t like having to unlock everything, regardless of how worthless before I can start working on the elite though.

So to clarify, existing fractal rewards are now locked behind masteries? That doesn’t sound very cool.

Hmm, even towers seem to be very hard to break into without numbers. I certainly understand why Keeps are hard to take, but it feels rather tedious in any case.

I mean at the same time I like it being harder to karma train because the lords are kitten, but….

The daily rewards aren’t too bad actually since you could just decide to not open the chest until you want the boost. It’s slightly annoying.

Those proofs of heroics being soulbound though… I understand why but that could be troublesome.

jheryn.8390:

ArchonWing.9480:

Then why did you use such hyperbole about being handed everything in the context of this topic, besides trying to suggest people wanted to be handed everything?

Because many of them are. Again, I didn’t accuse everyone. Apparently you are taking my post way too personally. It was directed at those who are indeed acting this way. If you are not, then you shouldn’t have a beef.

Lol, that contradicts already! You say you didn’t accuse anyone, and claim people are. But wait, I never said you said that about everyone anyways, merely “people” nor does it really change the hyperbole aspect.

You don’t have to be part of a group to get offended. Maybe it offended someone else I know, because I’m a carebear like that! But my personal reaction is irrelevant, I’m just calling out the statements said, and it doesn’t require any emotional content to do so

I did not say “anyone” I said “everyone” there is a distinct and glaring difference. So there is no contradiction.

Ah, that really is no contradiction. You’re just making a lot of accusations. Very well then.

Actually you can say things are uneven all around. Everyone has the same opportunity and challenges to get what they want in the game. I am not thrilled about having to do WvW & PvP for a legendary, but it is what is required. I just have to deal with it. Just like WvW and PvP people have to deal with PvE content. None of us are getting anything handed to us.

That’s kind of circular logic, I think. It’s fine if you are willing to accept it as is, but clearly as I’ve suggested before, that’s not the only option.

And legendaries are a curious example now that they require some wvw because wvw ranks can no longer be bought which I find somewhat objectionable. Of course, the wvw rank requirement is about a few hours at best and legendaries don’t really provide much of an in-game advantage, so the comparison is sorta far off.

NapTooN.6283:

Thaia.5146:

If I wanted to work as a QA Tester I would change my job
I’m not going to run around and search for bugs after launch. I’ll however report any bugs I encounter during my normal play session. And about that “common sense” – it doesn’t always work on things we encounter for the first time.

It does. If you visit the Vendor as the first Thing you do in the game, you can not buy things from him because you have no Karma. To get the Karma, you go out into the World and earn Karma. If you get 500 Karma for a simple Task and are able to buy 250 Rare Weapons with it, your common sense should be tingling, otherwise you are a lost case :-)

And Arena Net did not ban People that bought only a few Weapons for themselves at that Price, they banned the Idiots that abused it and got rich with it. If you buy hundreds of weapons at that Price, you are totally aware that something is wrong with this Price and deserve to be banned.

The problem I feel is that not every situation is as clear cut as that, but potentially destructive. I think intended play needs to be clearer.

I bought the expansion to support the game and also to experience whatever content was put forth. I could buy gems, but the expansion to me is another step in the direction the game will advance forth to, so I want to be there for better or for worse. While the game is not perfect, it definitely has provided sufficient value over time. Personally, I think even if the game is “alright” it would be worth it. It’s a bit more than “alright” though.

There is no doubt I could probably save a few bucks buying somewhere down the road but it’s not going to be the same. This is why I didn’t mind the base game being f2p. The experiences aren’t the same if I have them 3 years later than I did.

If my experience with large scale gaming is right, it will be nothing missed as the servers get crushed.

jheryn.8390:

ArchonWing.9480:

jheryn.8390:

I don’t think it is “everything”. I didn’t say that it was. And yes progression does take many forms. This is one of the forms put before us and we have to deal with it. So anyone can disagree with me or anyone else, it doesn’t change the fact that this is the way it is happening.

Then why did you use such hyperbole about being handed everything in the context of this topic, besides trying to suggest people wanted to be handed everything?

Because many of them are. Again, I didn’t accuse everyone. Apparently you are taking my post way too personally. It was directed at those who are indeed acting this way. If you are not, then you shouldn’t have a beef.

Lol, that contradicts already! You say you didn’t accuse anyone, and claim people are.

You don’t have to be part of a group to get offended. Maybe it offended someone else I know, because I’m a carebear like that! But my personal reaction is irrelevant, I’m just calling out the statements said, and it doesn’t require any emotional content to do so

You are correct the “core” lines are all unlocked by 80, not new specs. You are right that it can be a bigger deal, but again, how is that different than it is right now? Having the elite isn’t going to cause the problem or make it worse. There will always be some problem with shunning and ridicule. Having the elite given to you at release will not mitigate this. Also, everyone has the choice and ability to get the correct gear and “meta” builds if they do not want to have the ridicule. That is what anyone has to do in order to not have those jerks shun and ridicule. It’s not right, but there it is.

Just because people will be shunned and ridiculed doesn’t mean we need more reasons though. The gap created won’t be impossible to overcome, but I do think it will be greater than the ascended-exotic gap.

Currently, I can create something close to most “meta” stuff with just some tomes and maybe 100 gold if exotics are good enough.

Actually it is. No one is going to be “gifted” with the elite specs. If you want them, you have to take time to get them. Even in WvW.

I agree to some degree, but I think it is somewhat uneven that WvW’ers must spend so much time outside of WvW to remain competitive in WvW. And Anet has at least addressed the concern, so it is not something entirely subjective. A lot of high end content generally is self-contained. For example, getting higher levels in fractals is for the sake of getting higher levels; there’s no real reason to do that unless you want to do fractals because it affects gameplay absolutely nowhere else. There is where you could reasonably say “You can’t just have that handed to you”

In this case “complaining” and “discussion” are semantics. I agree that disagreeing (discussing, complaining) with what is not good in the game is a great way of getting bad content changed. What I find to be silly bordering on ridiculous is complaining about something before it is even implemented. Wait until it drops, see how it is and then start the discussion. Until then, it is just Chicken Little-ing.

I think this is self-correcting.

jheryn.8390:

I don’t think it is “everything”. I didn’t say that it was. And yes progression does take many forms. This is one of the forms put before us and we have to deal with it. So anyone can disagree with me or anyone else, it doesn’t change the fact that this is the way it is happening.

Then why did you use such hyperbole about being handed everything in the context of this topic, besides trying to suggest people wanted to be handed everything?

Again, I did not say that all people were complaining about the 400 points. Read the posts, many people are in fact complaining about that very thing. I have 2 mains and 15 alts. So yes it will take a LONG time to get all of them up to Elite Specs. But underpowered, I don’t think so. Many of the elites are no better than the core specs. They are on equal footing IMO and in the opinion of many others.

I said “people aren’t just complaining”, not that nobody is complaining about just having 400 points— I don’t think that would be a problem.

How is this different than it is right now? These elite specs are not going to change that. The better player with or without an elite spec will always come out on top.

Considering all current specs are unlocked by level 80, it is different. You can argue the degree of difference. Then again people complain about being shunned about not having the right class or having the marginal diffrence in ascended gear. I think this could be a bigger deal.

Again, you can choose to spend your time unlocking these points. That is up to you. It will be different for everyone. I personally couldn’t care less about being “meta”. I know that is very important for some, but certainly not all.

In a vacuum, I would agree. But in WvW, the difference isn’t just completing content faster or slower.

This is the way it has been put before us. How we each decide to deal with it is a personal choice. Complaining and bemoaning about it at this point isn’t going to make it change. The expansion is tomorrow. Do you think they are going to change it before then? We either you deal with it or not. There is no debate at this point. Only complaining.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Whether or not you disagree with people; what you call complaining is discussion and things can change.

WvW map completion? Obsolete
Gold based trait unlock? Obsolete
Fractal Reward levels and ascended gear? Used to be Soulbound, now Account Bound
Gem Interface? Custom Exchange Added
WvW Gear salvage? Soon possible.

Some people complain not because they hate the game, but because it could be in their opinion better. And Arenanet hasn’t been afraid to change things.

It may not change tomorrow, but silencing discussion for future change isn’t acceptable. It took constant pestering on behalf of users to make it happen, and sometimes it does lead to new changes.

“I disagree with people, so I must mock them. Because there’s no way they could have possibly had a point”

Did you seriously think that people just complain because they had to? I mean for them to care so much they must have cared strongly about some aspect of the game.

“Everything Anet does is perfect and can never be questioned”

Really? Look at most content releases? Even if some of it is good, there can be issues.

“People either want to work for something, or not work for it all”

That’s plain false. There’s many levels of reward and compensation in this world. The degree of it matters, and that remains an issue worldwide.

“Also, somehow let’s ignore all the positive comments”

Just because someone complains doesn’t mean they don’t have things to enjoy or look forward too. Life ain’t black and white. Just because you curse the pothole in front of you doesn’t mean the whole world’s an ugly place.

See, I can respond to invisible people too.

Congrats to Anet for making an expansion to a great game. May you guys take the game in a exciting direction even if people are cranky in one way or another.

Kal Spiro.9745:

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

Kal Spiro.9745:

Lunacy Solacio.6514:

ArchonWing.9480:

One thing I don’t appreciate is some of the posters being accused of not wanting to “work” and “play the game”, especially when it’s defining “the game” as pve.

The game isn’t just about pve. Hey, let’s make it so that to unlock it, you have to do PvP, WvW, and PvE on every single character. What? You wanted stuff handed to you? Afraid of the challenge?

How many people were complaining about having to do WvW for map completion? And hell, I agreed with not forcing PvE’rs to WvW, because you know I had some degree of respect for their playstyle; unlike a lot of posts in this thread or forum that can’t even seem to think of anyone approaching the game differently. I mean, just look at how many random things people consider to be “exploits”. “Stacking in a dungeon is an exploit, because that’s not how I do it!”

I certainly didn’t appreciate pve elitists condescending to them, especially when the difference was the ability to follow a tag and blob down some enemy keep or pay gems to transfer to a stacked server. Sorry, I’m sure I’m not the only WvW’er that rolls their eyes when people tell their cute stories of getting to that Vista in Overlook. Give me a break. And hey, Anet saw the light there. And they thought of a WvW alternative too, so I’ll definitely credit them with that.

But it’s clear some elitists that think that grinding away in their form of progression is the only way worth playing in the game, and everyone else is entitled and spoiled when arguing that anyone who regularly plays WvW to be entitled to any degree is a horrific joke. Oh, and by the way, hopefully some of you discontent folks will raise a glass for this, but this aint just update content— we paid for this so it isn’t a charity case either.

And as I’ve said before, attacking someone personally, because they don’t want conform to your kitten gamer code is not really relevant to the discussion. I mean please, it’s not a high horse one is riding; we don’t have mounts in this game.

No, we are just entitled, spoiled, kitten brats (yes I did type kitten), that want everything handed to us on silver platters with silver spoons (why silver? Why not gold? Actually make that white gold for me please), while we sit on mounds of cash, never knowing a hardship, never worrying about anything except having to actually play a game.

If someone missed the sarcasm in the above, I’m sorry text doesn’t relay it well, but that is dripping with it so much, that someone on lsd could taste the sarcasm. It is probably bitter.

It’s been said countless times, but I’ll reiterate it: We do not expect, nor do we actually want, to be handed everything and not have to ‘play the game’. I too would say if you don’t want to play the game then why are you here (here as in the game, not the forum as this is obviously not playing gw2, just thought I should also state that). But, based on what Anet implied, many expected to be able to play HoT as the elite spec (and really, only having the minor trait is not what many would consider playing as the elite spec, and sure wasn’t the expectation, but apparently yes, that is what Anet considers it)

Whether you agree with the new legendaries requiring sPvP or not, I’d bet 99% see that as optional, not as a core part of HoT. Elite specs, on the other hand, were a big part of HoT. They were billed as a core part of it. Some people don’t seem to believe this… They should go back and watch the reveal of HoT. Reaper and Druid were made out to be a big deal.

They are a big deal, just not the only deal and also still optional. I for one have no interest in either Reaper nor Druid. My interest in Daredevil is the trait line exclusively, not the weapon nor the skills. My interest in Berzerker is the mechanic more than anything, and for scrapper it’s the weapon and traits. I’m not interested in the skills for any of them, because they’re optional. Only for Herald do I care about the skills.

Being able to get the first minor for Daredevil will tide me over for a long while because it includes an extra dodge, until I can finally get the dodge defining grandmaster major.

And I have no interest in Dragonhunter despite originally liking the idea of a bow on guardian (I feel it is very bad implementation but Anet is known for this x.x and ugh trapper runes) and believe that scrapper needs some serious work on balance as some aspects are far too strong. That doesn’t negate the fact that Anet treated Elite Specs as one of the primary features of HoT.

They also treated Raids and Guild Halls as primary features, because they absolutely are. Yet Raiding is locked behind skill, gear and story progression, while Guild Halls are locked behind resource requirements that will likely make some guilds unable to aquire them for a very long time.

Just because something is a primary feature, or a selling point does not mean it is or should be immediately accessible.

Raids are inherently hardcore content. They were meant to be exclusive and thus no expectation of access can be demanded. Guild Halls are meant to be done as a group, plus once you capture the hall, that’s it; hardly grindy.

Plus we were told quite a while back about the halls and thus could prepare. So no surprises.

To me, I don’t really understand the hoopla with not letting people have stuff day 1. My ego isn’t fragile enough so that seeing people get stuff first will make me cry. Sure, sure it may “trivialize” things but if people really put in the effort to prepare, I think they do deserve it, more so than people who didn’t care.

Then again, if this is about making people do the new content, I guess there is a point to it. As is, you still get about almost halfway there, so it’s not a bad compromise. The only real fault is not telling people sooner.

Arctisavange.7260:

I can tell you many stories of how 5 defenders have disabled all of my siege for up to ~10 minutes in a row, long enough for the enemy blob to come in and finish the job.

I can tell stories about being that defender.

But seriously, it’s fun. A lot of people claim an individual can make no difference, and that’s true on its own. But being able to delay a larger force for a few minutes on my own and causing them to fail tends to be satisfying. A bit more than tearing down a door and grabbing a champ bag from an undefended tower.

Still, I suppose too much ability to defend could break the pace of the game.

jheryn.8390:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

People keep repeating this like programmed drones…
specs are not content, they are the means to play it. It’s not that I don’t want to work for something, I don’t mind that, I just want my spec while doing it.

I want to play hot with a Chronomancer, not play hot and get a chronomancer at the end.

When Nightfall came out, did you get heroes automatically or did you have to play the new game to get them?
When Eye of the North came out, did you get PvE skills automatically or did you have to play the new expansion to get them?
When any of GW1’s games came out did you automatically have all skills – both normal and elites – unlocked?
When you start a new character on GW2 do you have all skills and specializations unlocked and accessible right away?
When you played Mass Effect games did you get all abilities unlocked and accessible right away?

Those are not content. Those are how you play the game. So according to you, they should all be free. Every skill, every ability, every gear should be free. Because “they are the means to play it.”

I’m “sorry” to say but unlocking more means to play a game is part of playing the game.

Every game with progression – which is just about every game ever – has this.

You do not start a Metroid game with the best armor, weapons, and all abilities. You do not start a DOOM game with all guns. You do not start Batman Arkham games with all abilities unlocked. You do not start an Assassin’s Creed game with all weapons and abilities. You do not start ANY game with everything unlocked.

People keep “repeating this like programmed drones” because that’s what it is – it’s asking to be handed an intregal part of the expansion on a silver platter.

You might as well be asking for the function of legendary armor to be given just because you bought the expansion.

Does this mean that their method of locking the elite spec is good? No. But should elite specializations just be automatically unlocked for purchasing HoT? Also no.

^This. I agree 100%.

Why play a game at all if you just given everything? If that was the way games were made you would pay $40-$50 bucks and after you downloaded it, all you would see is a fully loaded character with the end credits rolling.

I am looking forward to unlocking my elites. It gives a sense of accomplishment.

I also agree with Konig that it probably isn’t the greatest way we could have unlocked the elites, but however it is done, I am still glad we are unlocking them and not just having them handed to us.

I disagree if you think progression of this form is “everything” and there couldn’t be a reason to play it for anything else. I am of the mindset that in-game progression is limited and has a finite end— this is probably because I haven’t played any other MMOs and thus I just don’t seek that kind of thing. And as a WvW player, I would consider testing my abilities against other players to be a form of progression, plus we have our own forms of progression in World vs World; it’s just that some of us are doing unrelated content for this progression.

And this isn’t just WvW. I also like how some pve content such as dungeon can be made so trivial by getting better at it, and a lot of it is independent of build.

Point is the game is a lot more open ended, and progression takes many forms

Furthermore, people aren’t just complaining about 400 hero points; it’s 400 hero points per character, and it leads to a situation in many progression based games that I never liked personally: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OneManParty Basically, you’re gimping yourself unless you focus on one or several characters, and that results in other choices being very underpowered and often not used at all.

This is often cyclic, with one character becoming slightly stronger, making it more likely for them to land the finishing blow, or survive the boss’s attacks, leading to them gaining more levels and strength, making it easier for them to kill the enemies and survive and so on…

And depending on how the meta evolves, this could be far more impacting than ascended gear especially with the inclusion of raids.

As a side note, I’m not against unlocking progression things, just the way most games handle it seem to be bad for me. The only big exceptions in my book is Diablo 2 and the Mega Man X series, which I’d be glad to elaborate on.

It’s annoying, but given how poor computer security is for the average user, it’s just a necessary evil.

Compromised accounts just don’t affect the user; malicious users often use these accounts to do even more bad things. This is the same with security leaks in general— entire botnets are used by hackers because people won’t or can’t secure their computers. Please don’t scoff at the importance of computer security— everyone seems to think they’re immune to infection when they’re not. Of course, you can ignore this, but the next time your favorite site gets DDos’d, please consider it again.